Collaboration Get ready to rumpus


What’s next in collaboration? Oblong argues that the next step in is making collaborative meetings. Well. more meeting like - where participants can express feelings, share a wide range of resources, andeven share control of the cursor on the screen. In this way, you can direct colleagues to a particular piece of data – what we used to call body language!


Rumpus has its origins in earli- er Oblong products. The room- based Mezzanine uses multiple screens for the various data sources, with gesture control to move between them. Fine, if the meeting participants can be gathered in a room, but what is there are remote partic- ipants? Do they just get a va- nilla video meeting experience? Oblong is trying to add a new level of interactivity for the re- mote colleagues.


The Rumpus experience starts with the ability to browse a shared stack of screens in the lower left of the display. You can expand the stack by hov- ering over it. You can see who shared the screen on top of the thumbnail stack. If you want to view any of the thumbnails full screen. If you want to jump back into the video view you can just click the video thumb- nail in the lower right of the display


Limitations


Right now you need a Blue Jeans account and an Apple Mac to p;ay with Rumpus. Quite


who is looking at what, allowing you to follow the natural flow of the meeting. If you want to share your screen with other participants, you can choose to share the full screen or just one window.


One of the genuinely innova- tive features of Rumpus is the shared cursor. The idea is to point at particular content or to highlight particular content using the annotation feature to reinforce your argument. When you want to make the point that is really essential, Rum- pus gives you the option to use emojis to express your emo- tions. Oblong advocates a pos- itive approach to the views ex- pressed in meetings, rather like prescriptions against un-par- liamentary language in formal meetings. This doesn’t seem to fit with most of the meetings I attend, but perhaps the culture in the UK is different.


Adopt and adapt


To really benefit from Rumpus the application does require learning and practice. For those prepared to make the effort.


Rumpus according to John Underkoffler


"Rumpus completes our portfolio of modern solu- tions for collaborative work. While Mezzanine already provides the ultimate con- tent-first meeting experience for colleagues collaborating in one room or across multi- ple rooms, we recognize that team-based work also hap- pens


virtually. We created


Rumpus specifically to en- ergise such teams. Rumpus delivers Oblong's core design values around amplification of human cognition and capa- bility while folding the power of Mezzanine into a laptop's available


Rumpus allows remote participants to share meetig resources, annotate, share emotions and even control the cursor to direct attention to particular content.


an overhead you might think, so you can elect to wait for the forthcoming Windows version. Having jumped through the ap- propriate hoops, the experience is almost definitely worthwhile – Rumpus is different enough to justify consideration. It’s not just about sharing a choice of screens, although this feature demands that you know where the attention of the meeting or key individuals is focused Viewer badges indicate


The virtual meeting experience can be a whole lot more reward- ing. Joining and host meetings is absolutely no more complex than standard videoconferenc- ing solutions but the effective- ness of the communication for remote workers if potentially much greater.


workspace. And (see our very first post to the Rumpus blog) it's the necessary first step on the path to ubiquity for true collaboration."Oblong defines true collaboration in terms of empowerment for each meet- ing participant. The compa- ny believes that technology shouldseamlesslyelevate con- versation and understanding so that the collective intelli- gence of the team is ampli- fied. When each collaborator can contribute equally, easi- ly, and simultaneously, team purpose, spirit, and produc- tivity all benefit. Plus it's more fun!”“Rumpus for vir- tual teams builds upon a par- ticular insight gleaned from


Mezzanine usage. In aggregat- ed opt-in data from Mezzanine customers, Oblong has noted that 62% of the time when us- ers are sharing in Mezzanine, they are sharing multiple forms of content. This means that most of the time, when given the opportunity to share con- tent concurrently, people will. Rumpus is set to offer remote workers the same opportunity to make multiple streams of visual material easily and con- currently accessible. Rumpus also leverages gesture (point- ing and movement via cursors) to focus attention, provide emphasis, and communicate specificity. And to further en- courage expression and partic- ipation Rumpus offers emojis, the language of the social web, to help remoters feel more con- nected and engaged.”


John Underkoffler,CEO, Oblong Industries: "Rumpus completes our portfolio of modern solutions for collaborative work.


P8 AV News April 2019


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