Mindfulmeets from Inspire Labs is the first known video conferencing extension featuring tools designed to promote ‘digital wellbeing,’ a prevailing topic in the tech industry and now extending to others, with COVID-19 prompting a huge surge in employees working from home.
The free extension – which will later expand to apply to Zoom and others – will ensure video meeting attendees can create, view, and progress through an agenda; exit video meetings quietly to prevent disruption; access appointment and scheduling information through the one inspiring (and wellness-focused) interface – preventing multi-tasking; be cognizant of other attendees’ roles, countries, and timezones, and lastly – engage in team comradery through shareable GIFs and animated emojis.
Entrepreneur and co-founder of the Inspire Co. group of companies (which developed the extension), Ben Flux, said the Mindfulmeets concept emerged following the lethargy he noticed in himself and his teams (and in anticipation of) during video meetings.
“Video chats are the new (work) normal and our research – plus the never-ending articles referencing ‘Zoom fatigue’ identified several shared ‘pain points’ – e.g., these meetings running overtime, not having a clear agenda, forgetting others’ job titles, distractions, etc. So we looked at how we could address these (and in turn improve overall digital wellbeing in this space), and then our tech team worked their magic,” Mr. Flux said.
“The agenda presentation element is certainly the cornerstone of Mindfulmeets – however, my favorite feature is the time zone detailing. When it’s 4.00 pm on the other side of the world, and 8.00 am where you are, there’s going to be a difference in team member energy levels – Mindfulmeets displays country flags and exact times to facilitate empathy across remote teams.
https://youtu.be/LJBZGsO3OU0
“We’re encouraging HR departments to take a comprehensive look at this (Mindfulmeets) as a best-practice operational tool; a workforce who knows their video meetings will be productive, focused, considerate and might even feature a Beyonce GIF or two, we’re confident will be a happier and digitally healthy workforce,” said Mr. Flux.
Mindfulmeets launches with an ‘aggressive’ road map of additional features to follow – including a ‘BRB’ status for video meeting attendees to ‘pop out’ (to sign for deliveries or similar).