Vocal: The app that made me completely rethink Zoom

Until recently, I can’t say I had ever spent more than a minute thinking about Zoom. I vaguely recall a handful of memes and whispers about how Zoom usurped Skype’s throne at the pandemic’s beginning, but that always seemed like a corporate conflict between two brands that inspired little to no personal attachment.

It wasn’t until I was introduced to Vocal by a friend and investor at a venture capital firm that I realized how little I knew about remote team management. Vocal allows you to be the architect and manager of the virtual environment that your remote workers inhabit. It has highly customizable and curated rooms that increase productivity while also fostering human connection… that’s what makes this application so special. There really is something to be said about an application that not only makes you reconsider a mundane relationship with a service provider but also makes you excited about the future of the space those providers operate within.

Zoom and The Pandemic‍

I work in venture capital and private equity as a part of a specialized fin-tech division. Like with my previous employer, our standard video-conferencing platform is Zoom — for no particular reason other than the ubiquity of its brand.

At the onset of the pandemic, I worked as the Director of Sales for a corporate catering company and, like many others across all industries, I had a crash course relationship with incorporating Zoom meetings into my daily life. Suddenly, managing the sales team, coordinating with operations, and rolling out a series of cloud kitchens to support first responders became a fully video-based experience. I was never particularly impressed — and frequently let down — by Zoom, but it always felt like a necessary evil.

Beyond being integrated with some of the tools I already used, Zoom added very little to the process of taking my former team remote, or interfacing effectively with my current team and managers. It always felt like it was missing something that I got from the pre-pandemic era.

During that era, I was a great fan of the office (aside from maybe the commute). Both my personality and my role were well suited to the structure of the office space, the ability to collaborate in person, and the process of managing and organizing group efforts. So I was delighted and impressed when I learned about Vocal and its emulation of the physical office space with what they plainly call — “rooms”.

What is Vocal?‍

In early August (on my birthday actually), I had the opportunity to hop on a call with Vocal’s founder Chris Pratt. Over the course of the 30-minute long walkthrough of Vocal’s capabilities, I came to realize how little Zoom had provided to me as a Director of Sales and to my current managers. Chris explained to me how different rooms could be created and made perpetually available within the digital workspace. Gone was the concept of rigid, siloed video chats.

This is an actual virtual work environment where people can come and go to meetings and areas as they see fit. It’s an environment where remote work managers can keep track of their employees and usher them through daily tasks and long-term campaigns. Vocal somehow manages to do this in a way that feels completely organic, combining the benefits of the conventional workplace with the advantages of the digital work environment.

After the meeting, my mind began cluttering with ideas for the potential of this app. I set up another meeting with Chris where we mused about how these room types would have differing capabilities. He put together a list to share:

Virtual Conference Rooms

• Whiteboard and collaborative displays.
• Connectivity with physical conference rooms for hybrid and multi-city teams.

Virtual Private Offices

• Password-protected doors.
• Open visibility, but access with either password or by request.

Virtual Break-Out Rooms

• Interactive to-do lists.
• Action Item boards, controlled by managers.‍

Sales Enablement Rooms

• Integrated with SE tools.
• Training platforms.‍

Virtual Coffee Rooms / Water Coolers

• Always open and visible by default.
• Occupants are visible, for those that want to connect in downtime with peers.

Conclusion

After I heard about all of these features, I knew that this was more than just another competitor in video-conferencing… this was the actual virtualization of the office space that we all passively imagined as remote work started to expand. Finally, there is a platform that amalgamates the inherent benefits of remote work with the aspects of the office that have made it productive since the 18th century.

To learn more about how Vocal can change your relationship with video-conferencing and remote work as a whole, visit www.getvocal.app to get started!

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