It’s official - Zoom kills creativity.
That’s the headline I saw on Linkedin today - this is based on a study published in the highly respected Nature journal.
It involved more than 600 people and found that working in person generated more and fresher ideas.
The group taking part in virtual meetings generated fewer ideas and researchers found participants tended to spend more time focussing on each other’s faces.
The team behind the study believe working on a screen leads to a narrower cognitive focus.
But there’s more to it - because the screen used in the research was only 15 inches - which is pretty small. Many people who work remotely and make heavy use of video conferencing use larger screens and sometimes even 2 screens.
The lesson seems to be if you’re going remote, make sure staff have the right technical set up to make the most of it.
Keep an eye on Pinterest - it’s launching a new Pinterest TV Studio app which aims to make it easier to live stream and broadcast product demos.
Pinterest is making a real push into the live shopping space this year.