An Open Letter to Zoom Management
Dear Zoom Management:
You may remember me. In case you don't, here's a brief refresher on how we met five years ago.
On April 1, 2020, I signed a contract to write Zoom For Dummies. My acquisitions editor (AE) at Wiley initially conceived of a 200-page book fast-tracked for a summer publication date. Given Zoom's insane popularity at the time, no one wanted to miss out on potential sales. I needed to produce the entire manuscript within 60 days.
Game on.
Much More Than Skype 2.0
As I dug into Zoom, it quickly became apparent that 200 pages was wholly insufficient. Zoom For Dummies needed to be longer than my publisher envisioned initially envisioned—much longer. Zoom undoubtedly functioned as a better, more modern version of Skype and Webex. Its videoconferencing helped countless organizations keep the lights on during unprecedented times. We used this feature to socialize and connect with our loved ones.
Still, videoconferencing represented just the tip of the Zoom iceberg. There was so much more to your useful, rock-solid suite of communications tools:
- Zoom's core product also let users chat with—and send files to—others in their workspace. In this way, it reminded me of the popular instant message tools of the 90s.
- Third-party apps extended Zoom's native power.
- Zoom Webinars let people host large meetings.
- Zoom Phone allowed anyone to make affordable and reliable international calls via voice over internet protocol. Vonage users know what I'm talking about here.
- Zoom Rooms. Execs at your company generously gifted me one of these large, wall-mountable iPads. I was able to write that chapter with firsthand experience using the product.
Zoom Rooms is particularly instructive for our purposes. It was then—and remains now—a standalone app. I wasn't in the room when Zoom engineering and product folks made that decision. If I had to guess, though, everyone realized the silliness of including every conceivable Zoom product and feature in a single app.
Someone forgot that lesson, but we'll return to that point later.
It'll only take a moment.
