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We are learning to telework, and even having fun doing it.

During the all-too-necessary move to more online interactions necessitated by the Covid pandemic, certain truths have come out.

We've all become voyeurs.  Well maybe not become, we've always been curious on how others their lives.

Now we just have a digital way to do it.

I do not spend much time in online meetings, but when I do, or watch contributors to television
programs coming to us from their homes, I find myself checking out their homes.
Don't you?
 Which is why I've greatly enjoyed following the Rate My Skype Room Twitter Account.


It started, I suspect, as a lark by someone with too much time on their hands in April; the early days of the quarantine.  I understand the author is a Democratic political operative,| but don't let that lead you astray.  Even if you ignore his commentary about the rooms, his scoring and his occasional snark about the individual, the account gives you glimpses into others homes.

He mostly comments on those appearing on TV news programs. When TV news sent their own people home to broadcast from there, they realized they can tap
a huge reservoir of knowledgeable experts who have not seen on network news shows.


When TV News came to us only from their studios, expert commentators we saw were the ones who could afford to take a big chunk out of their day to go into the city, often New York, find parking, go into makeup and finally go on a show.


What about more relevant experts who could not afford the time, because they were using their time to, you know, do expert things expertly?  We didn’t hear from them.


Now, those folks can Zoom/Skype/Google Meet etc. into the program with only a few minutes needed ahead of their appearance. We are hearing from a much broader range of people with more diverse views.  A boon to us all.


And a boom to we voyeurs.  Rate My Skype Room gives you an excellent place to spy.


Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor with the lengthy title of the Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism says his wife is proudest, of all of his accomplishment, of his 10 out of 10 score at Rate My Skype Room. She did most of the decorating.

Twitter Blog


And now, attention is being paid to what else is going on the home.  

Recently, one of those rarely heard from before experts, Dr. Gretchen Goldman, PhD, showed on Twitter the professional appearance she made on CNN. Not the defused lighting, and the professional appearance of dress and background.  

Website


She also tweeted the reality of what her home looked like behind the scenes.'



We're learning the new rules of working from home.  Even though I'll never be on Rate My Skype Room, I have gotten around to hanging photos in my home office I've long put off.

And we owe this guy a lot for his warning back in 2017.

Our son built a display of dragons he's assembled and painted for a background.



And I know one office that held a pet parade before a recent Zoom meeting. Everyone held their dogs or cats up for their colleagues to see.

We're going to be okay at this. Good thing. Its not nearly over.

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