你想成为视频会议的超级star吗？| 经济学人商业

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How to be a superstar on Zoom

视频会议巨星成功学

Screen presence is now a feature of the modern office

荧屏表现力如今成当代办公室之特色

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.

新冠疫情将视频牢牢嵌入职场生活中。突然之间，从未上过镜的员工如今一整天都用来适应在屏幕上看到自己和同事的模样。管理层意识到，他们可以向员工发送视频消息，而不必召开线下员工大会。

注释：

town hall: 起源于政治术语，指地方和国家官员听取社区对公共问题的看法而举办的会议，也是政客与选民联系的一种方式。在公司层面使用，指管理层与所有员工会面和联系的一种方式。

资料来源：Wikipedia – Town hall meeting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_hall_meeting 

What is the purpose of a town hall meeting?

https://airfocus.com/glossary/what-is-town-hall-meeting/ 

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.

潮流奔涌向前，不会回头。从前的文字博客已变成视频日志。人们对于会议录屏已经习以为常，以至于并不会回看。一些公司通常会要求应聘者以视频形式录制某些问题的回答，以便了解潜在新员工的沟通能力。

注释：

1.matter of course: something that is to be expected as a natural or logical consequence. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) 理所当然

2.recruit: n. a newcomer to a field or activity. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) 新人，常指新兵

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，掌握这门手艺还是值得的。要成为视频时代的巨星，就要拥有恰当的场景布置、良好的表达及倾听能力。员工可以通过自己的努力来提高，不过公司也可以为此提供帮助。

注释：

under its own steam: idiom. by using its own power or efforts - often used figuratively. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) 通过自己的努力

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”.

你只需观察下一次视频会议中呈现的那些画面，就能明白什么是合适的场景布置。多宫格视图很可能看起来像个大杂烩：有的人沐浴在补光灯的暖色灯光下，有的人则像帕尔帕廷皇帝（Emperor Palpatine）一样从背光处出现；有的人会用高清摄像头，每个毛孔和毛囊都清晰可见，有的人则在屏幕中显得模糊不清；有的人深谙好莱坞那套，遵循黄金分割法把自己置于稍稍偏离画面中心的位置；有的人则似乎颇得《女巫布莱尔》真传。

注释：

1. mishmash: a confused mixture. (Cambridge Dictionary) 大杂烩

2. ring light: 环形灯（见Google Search - ring light）

3. Emperor Palpatine: 星球大战6中的反派，银河帝国皇帝希夫•帕尔帕廷

资料来源：https://www.sohu.com/a/220732567_695590 

4. smear: to spread a liquid or a thick substance over a surface. (Cambridge Dictionary) 涂抹

5. rule of thirds: 三分法则，又称黄金分割法（参见百度百科-黄金分割定律）

6. The Blair Witch Project: 恐怖电影《女巫布莱尔》，该片使用16毫米手提摄影机拍摄，开创了“伪纪录片”式恐怖片的先河（参见百度百科-女巫布莱尔）

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.

由于员工们的居住环境迥异，家庭办公室之间的比较并不完全公平。并非所有人都得看起来像个大明星：经常做演讲或见客户的人更加需要高级的设备。有些人更上镜，有些人则不那么上镜。尽管如此，视频质量的差距还是可以缩小的。

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（Katherine Karl）等人去年发表的一项研究调查了员工对视频会议最常见的抱怨之处：摄像头的角度、离屏幕过近的距离、糟糕的打光等问题都榜上有名。老板们可以通过提供良好的家庭工作设备，或仅仅是对人们在镜头前的表现给予反馈，来帮助每个员工提升他们的视频技能。

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.

总的来说，关于提升视频表现力的建议和改进演讲的建议差不多。但视频拍摄中还有一些特有的小难点。其中之一就是“眼睛要看哪里”。盯着摄像头看并不自然。有人建议在镜头旁贴一张你尊敬的人的照片（你是否真的要利用这个机会向弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基（Volodymyr Zelensky）介绍你的产品路线图就另当别论了）。但是，如果你同时还需参考屏幕上的笔记，那么看镜头就更难了。演讲者的眼神要是在屏幕和摄像头之间来回扫视，会显得像在担心遭到突袭；但如果紧盯着摄像头左边某个点，则会看起来像是美剧《办公室》里的演员。自动提词器软件可能是一剂良方。

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”.

另一个风险在于，你可能会仅仅因为技术手段的存在而忍不住想添加些技术元素。不要在制作幻灯片时滥用动画的经验法则同样适用于制作预录视频。除非你明确了解自己正在做什么，否则不要做跳跃式剪辑或特效。这可不是在拍《两杆大烟枪》。

注释：

1. rule of thumb: a practical and approximate way of doing or measuring something (Cambridge Dictionary)

2. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels是英文影片《两杆大烟枪》的英文名。Lock即点火装置，stock即枪托，barrel即枪筒，三者组合起来就是一把完整的枪，引申为“万事俱备”的意思。这实际也是一句英国俚语：全部、所有、从头到脚一网打尽。此外，在英国黑话里， Lock指的是大麻，Stock指的钱。然后加上猎枪，揭示着影片故事将围绕这些事物展开。电影采取多线叙事结构，用5组群像视角讲完这个巧合套着巧合的荒诞故事，配合上英式幽默嘴炮加快速剪辑，跟不上节奏的人很难不晕。（参考百度百科-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，最不被认可的技能也许就是用心倾听。毕竟，虚拟会议的最大好处便是你可以在参会的同时也搞定自己的工作——当你觉得这场会议完全就是在浪费时间时，你可以选择关掉摄像头，也许这是疫情对于提升生产力的最大贡献。而在天平的另一端，视频最大的缺点之一就是致人分心：你不仅可以打量自己，在线聊天，还可以一边评论别人的新壁纸，一边看着他们的“线上邻居”大口嗦面。这种情况下真的很难做到专心致志。

注释：

royally: (informal) to a high degree (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

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.

为了解决员工开会时注意力不集中的问题，公司会采取一些错误的方式——坚决要求员工始终开着摄像头，或是利用人工智能实时分析与会者的情绪。想象一下，为了防止算法判定你开会不够投入，你不得不全程疯狂点头和微笑——就好像生活还没有糟到让人忍无可忍似的。公司的正确应对之策应是缩短会议时长，并增强会议内容的针对性。不论是在摄像头前，还是置身于会议室中，言之有物总是更容易让人们凝神倾听。

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