Introducing: Video Conference Bingo

By my count, today is roughly the 3,000th day of the technically-not-a-quarantine shelter-in-place order that rolled out in most cities back in . . . **quick Google search** . . . March? That can’t be right. In any case, office workers across the country are now intimately accustomed to their new work-from-home routine: wake up at 5:30 a.m., take the dog for a five-mile run, shower, eat breakfast (half a grapefruit, one slice of plain whole wheat toast and hot tea), read the newspaper front to back, put on a full suit, and log in to the morning Zoom meeting. 

As reliable as that exact routine is for every one of us, the video conference offers an even more rigid protocol. The first two members will ask each other what they had for dinner and pray for a third member to join before they have to think of a second topic. One person’s screen will freeze while they are speaking, and no one will mention that nobody heard what they said. Someone will position themselves directly in front of the world’s brightest light. And everyone will carefully watch the screen-share in hopes of spotting a humiliating search-history result. 

But that predictability doesn’t mean video conferences have to be boring. The grab-bag of behaviors we now expect in every video conference can arrive at any moment, in any corner of the video call. Spotting them can be a game. In fact, spotting them is a game, thanks to 1851’s Video Conference Bingo.

Download a pack of 20 unique bingo cards and distribute them for your next video conference. When someone notices a phrase or behavior predicted on the card, everyone marks it off. The first person to mark off five squares in a row wins the prize: CEO for a week. (Right, Nick?)

Do you have a funny video-conference story? Email us at [email protected], and we may include it in an upcoming article.