经济学人 | How to thrive in the video age 如何

文章来源：《经济学人》Apr 17th 2023 期 Business 栏目How to thrive in the video age

The pandemic embedded video into the workplace. Workers who had never previously been on camera suddenly spent every hour of the day getting used to the sight of themselves and their colleagues on screen. Executives realised that they could send video messages to their workforces rather than having to convene town halls.

疫情将视频嵌入了工作场所。以前从未出现在镜头前的员工突然要花上一天中的每一个小时来习惯自己和同事出现在屏幕上。高管们意识到，他们可以向员工发送视频信息，而不必在大厅里召开会议。

There is no going back. Blogs have become vlogs. Meetings are now recorded as a matter of course, so that people can fail to watch them back later. Some firms routinely ask applicants to record answers to certain questions on video, so that people can see how well prospective recruits communicate.

没有回头路了。博客变成了视频博客。现在，录制会议是理所当然的事情，这样人们以后就可以稍后再看回放了。一些公司会例行要求应聘者将某些问题的答案录成视频，这样人们就可以看到潜在候选人的沟通能力。

Since video has become more central to work, it pays to be good at it. Being a star in the video age means having the right set-up, speaking well and listening well. Workers can improve under their own steam, but companies can help, too.

由于视频在工作中变得越来越重要，擅长视频是值得的。在视频时代，成为“明星”意味着要有正确的配置，善于表达，也善于聆听。员工可以通过凭借自己的努力来提高，但公司也可以提供帮助。

To see what the right set-up looks like, just observe the range of images on your next video-conferencing call. It will probably be a complete mishmash. Some people will be bathed in the warm glow of a ring light; others will be emerging from the shadows like the Emperor Palpatine. Some will have high-definition cameras that show off every pore and follicle; others will be smeared across the screen. Some will be Hollywood types, observing the rule of thirds by positioning themselves slightly off-centre; others seem to have learned their craft from “The Blair Witch Project”.

要了解正确的配置是什么样的，只需在下次视频会议电话中观察图像的范围。图像范围内很可能是大杂烩。有的人会沐浴在温暖的环形光环中;其他人则会像帕尔帕廷皇帝一样从阴影中走出来。有些会有高清摄像头，能够展示每个毛孔和毛囊; 其他人在屏幕上是模糊的。有些人是好莱坞式的，通过稍微偏离中心的位置来遵守三分法; 其他人似乎是从《女巫布莱尔》中学来的。

There is a limit to how level the playing-field between home offices can be, when living arrangements between employees differ so greatly. Not everyone needs to look like an A-lister: people who regularly make presentations or see clients have greater claim on fancier gear. Some people are photogenic, others less so. But this range in video quality can nonetheless be narrowed.

当员工之间的居住安排差异很大时，家庭办公室之间的竞争环境是有限的。并不是每个人都需要看起来像一个一线明星: 定期做演讲或会见客户的人更有资格拥有更华丽的装备。有些人很上镜，有些人则不然。但视频质量的这一范围仍然可以缩小。

A study published last year by Katherine Karl of the University of Tennessee and her co-authors looked at workers’ most common complaints about video-conferencing meetings: camera angles, proximity to the screen and bad lighting all feature in the list of frustrations. Whether providing decent home-working equipment or just giving feedback on how people appear on screen, employers can help everyone improve their video game.

田纳西大学的凯瑟琳·卡尔和她的共同作者去年发表了一项研究，调查了员工对视频会议最常见的抱怨: 摄像头角度、离屏幕太近、光线不好，这些都在不满列表中。无论是提供体面的家庭办公设备，还是仅仅就人们在屏幕上的表现给出反馈，雇主都可以帮助每个人改进他们的视频竞赛。

Advice on how to present well on video is not that different to advice on presenting in general. But there are some specific pitfalls with video. One is where to look. Staring into the camera is unnatural; some advise pinning a photo of someone you respect right by the lens (whether you would really use the opportunity to talk to Volodymyr Zelensky to tell him about your product road map is another question). But looking at the camera is harder if you are referring to notes on the screen at the same time. The speaker whose eyes dart from one to the other is in fear of imminent attack; the speaker who gazes at a point somewhere just off to the left of the camera is appearing in “The Office”. Teleprompter software may be the right answer.

关于如何在视频上做演讲的建议和一般演讲的建议并没有什么不同。但视频也有一些特殊的陷阱。一个是你该看向哪里。盯着镜头是不自然的;一些人建议把你尊敬的人的照片贴在镜头旁(你是否真的会利用这个机会与弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基交谈，告诉他你的产品路线图是另一个问题)。但如果你同时看着屏幕上的笔记，看镜头就更难了。说话的人，目光从一个人转到另一个人，是害怕即将到来的“攻击”; 那个盯着摄像机左边某个点的说话者出现在《办公室》中。提词器软件可能是正确的答案。

Another danger lies in the temptation to use technology just because it is there. The same rule of thumb that should stop you exploring the animations menu in PowerPoint also applies to pre-recorded video. Don’t do jump cuts or special effects unless you really know what you are doing. This is not “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Quarters”.

另一个危险在于仅仅因为技术的存在就想要使用它的诱惑。同样的经验法则应该会阻止你在PowerPoint中探索动画菜单，同样适用于预先录制的视频。除非你真的知道自己在做什么，否则不要做跳跃剪辑或特效。这不是电影《两杆大烟枪》。

Perhaps the least recognised skill in the video age is listening well. After all, one of the great boons of the virtual meeting is that you can get actual work done in it—being able to turn your camera off when your time is being royally wasted may be the pandemic’s greatest gift to productivity. And at the other end of the scale, one of video’s great downsides is how distracting it can be: as well as checking yourself out and following the online chat, you can critique someone’s new wallpaper while watching their next-tile neighbour shovel noodles into their mouth. It takes real effort to stay focused in such circumstances.

在视频时代，最不被认可的技能或许是善于倾听。毕竟，虚拟会议的最大好处之一是你可以在会议中完成实际工作——当你的时间被大量浪费时，你可以关掉相机，这可能是疫情对生产力的最大礼物。另一方面，视频的一大缺点是它太分散人的注意力: 除了查看自己的状态和关注在线聊天，你还可以一边评论别人的新壁纸，一边看着隔壁的邻居往嘴里塞面条。在这种情况下，要保持专注是需要付出很大努力的。

The wrong way for firms to tackle the problem of inattentiveness is to insist that cameras stay on or use artificial intelligence to analyse the sentiment of meeting participants in real time. As if life were not intolerable enough, imagine having to nod and smile dementedly the whole time in case an algorithm decides you are insufficiently engaged. The right way for companies to respond is to make meetings shorter and more relevant. Whether you are on camera or in the room, it is always easier to listen when there is something worth hearing.

企业解决注意力不集中问题的方法是坚持让摄像头一直开着，或者使用人工智能实时分析会议参与者的情绪，这是错误的。好像生活还不够让人难以忍受似的，想象一下，为了防止算法判定你不够投入，你不得不一直疯狂地点头和微笑。企业应对的正确方式是让会议更短、更切题。无论你是在镜头前还是在房间里，当有值得听的东西时，倾听总是更容易。