Daily Inspiration: ““zoomed out” — phrasal verb / adjective / zumed out/”

“zoomed out” — phrasal verb / adjective / zumed out/ “

The feeling that there are too many business and personal videoconferences each day:
“Another damn online video call? Enough already – I’m just about zoomed out!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

I didn’t coin the phrase – there are a few obscure examples that I can find emerging in the last week.

But it certainly is a phrase that I think we will hear with increasing regularity as people come to feel bombarded by the necessity to show up in a never ending stream of online Zoom calls – with business calls, family check-ins, and then happy hour and evening check-ins with friends! Only to be repeated ad-naseum the next day in a never-ending Groundhog Day of video-matrix images with sometimes inane chat.

The zoomed-out feeling is emerging with such speed that I predicted that it would become a rather common phrase in the next few weeks – during my weekly online Zoom broadcast yesterday!

The irony of my chosen medium for this online observation was not lost on me.

And in fact, I was all set to go wth talking about the issue during my broadcast that the timing was perfect when a good friend, Jessica Leigh Levin, made this comment on social media just an hour or so before the event:

The thing is – Jessica is a meeting and event planner. In the old world, she would arrange for large groups of people to go to Las Vegas to participate in fascinating exchanges of insight, hang out in multiple social gatherings in fascinating settings, and meet new friends. She now hangs out in Zoom. The excitement of how to have a nifty Zoom background probably lost its allure some time ago.

Me? I used to be the guy who went on stage in front of those very people – my running joke was that “my job has me going out and talking to large groups of hungover people.” From a wonderful stage, I inspired them with tales of the future and stories about innovation and disruption…..

We now both find ourselves in an entirely new and different world, and are trying to figure out how to cope.

Such as it is, if you would like to explore this new age attitude in further depth, I’d be pleased to talk about it.

You can easily connect with me.

I’m on Zoom.