Help your fellow IT pals spruce up their virtual meetings: Design a winning background, win Register-branded gear

We wanted paperless offices, and instead we got people-less – with in-person chats replaced with the warmth and nuance of video meetings featuring people wearing big ugly headphones while trying to get their children to stop building forts out of pizza boxes. The very best video meetings, however, plaster over the pandemic …

[Geoff May (no relation)]

One of the lads I work with took a picture of himself at his laptop.

Now, when the meeting gets boring, he loads that and wonders off to do something useful

[Shadow Systems]

Here's my submission...

Since I can't see to doodle a damned thing, I'm submitting it as plain text & leaving it up to the ElReg crew to create or not as they see fit.

Imagine a front view of the ElReg Vulture, winking, smiling, & sticking out a tiny pink tongue.

Now turn it into an icon just *barely* large enough to be recognizable for what it is. As in you have to either squint or zoom in a few thousand percent to be sure.

Repeat the icon a few million times across a gradient wash of dark red at the bottom fading to almost pink at the very top, being a nod to ElReg's colours.

Last but not least, imagine a few of those static icons being animated sticking out & retracting the tongue, winking first one eye then the other, so the person viewing the entirety gets the hinkey feeling "something is... off... about this". Or if more are needed, then sufficient animated ones to trigger such feelings of uncanny valley-ness/Twilight Zone apprehension.

Because having a subtly, eerily, comedicly animated vulture blowing feisty raspberries at you from behind the subject of your video call, from the depths of your desktop wallpaper, or as the screen saver image of your devices makes me want to purse my lips, bite my tongue, & clamp my mouth into the crook of an elbow to stop myself from laughing at the poor sods as they finally figure out the joke.

;-)p

[don't you hate it when you lose your account]

Easy to get to the office

Just change your name to Dominic Cummings and drag your family around with you to carry your backdrop of Durham. Sorted. Can I have a mug please.

[Woza]

Re: Easy to get to the office

No Cummings? No goings.

[mevets]

Immitation Background

In zoom, take a snapshot of the person you are talking to. C+P the snapshot as your backdrop image. Gets great reactions.

[Pete 2]

Give yourself a promotion

The best backdrop? Your boss's office. Or better: their boss's office.

If it doesn't instill fear and uncertainty in whoever you're videoconferencing with, at least it might make those who don't know you, personally, think you have more seniority and power than they would wish to challenge.

[macjules]

Re: Give yourself a promotion

You need a backdrop of something that will make everyone else uncomfortable and want to leave asap, so you can get back to whatever work you were doing before yet another pointless project management meeting was called.

[John Gamble]

Old Computer Equipment

Hmm, I still have a VT-100 terminal. And I could probably fake up an array of blinkenlights.

If only I were artistically talented.

[Doctor Syntax]

A set of QR codes leading to various interesting pages. Of course opinions might vary as to what's interesting.

[John Brown (no body)]

not safe for work.

So, we can't have a couple of rolls of carpet standing there, a shovel and few bags of quick-line since that might instil NSFW levels of fear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not safe for work.

A sinister post, considering your username.

Anon coz I don't know how far you'd go to protect yourself

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: not safe for work.

With no lifts, no 9th floor windows with dodgy fasteners and everyone being out of range of cattle-prods BOFH is going to have to get more creative. I suppose drones will come into their own.

[John Brown (no body)]

I've arrived!

"1 thumb down"

That has made my day :-)

Almost every post I have made in the last 3-4 days has a downvote. I have my own personal troll :-)))

[TimMaher]

Re: I've arrived!

I’ll upvote that.

Maybe we could do a pic. of a troll with a vulture standing on it’s head... and pecking it’s eyes out?

[Angus Ireland]

Aunty's Archive

Plenty of inspiration from the BBC Archive - particularly the Empty Sets collection.

Mine's the one with the TARDIS in the background...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/empty_sets_collection/zfvy382

[Handlebars]

no webcam

I don't have a webcam, which is just as well since I'm starting to look like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes.

[John H Woods]

Re: no webcam

I keep a shutter over mine because I look like Anders bloody Brejvik. Fortunately he is fading somewhat from memory... I just hope he doesn't escape.

[ThatOne]

Possibilities, possibilities

Well, what are the options?

The classic "I'm better off than you think" with the multi-million dollar mansion or private yacht interior, or some tropical island backdrop, a classic.

The "joke", with the leopard casually napping on some furniture behind you, or, if animated, the dimensional portal in the next room, half visible through a half-open door.

The "bad taste" with the decapitated child near some fallen sharp object in the background, suggesting some gruesome household accident just happened, but you didn't notice it yet. Works better if the others know you have kids of that age.

The "definitely NSFW", with the SM dungeon backdrop. Even more credible if you dress accordingly and introduce with "Sorry, I had forgotten about this meeting..."

And of course a couple weaponized animated ones:

The "Sleep! I command you!" one with the subtle yet eye-catching animation which after a couple minutes will have everyone staring blankly at his screen, quietly drooling.

The "I definitely don't want to be in this meeting" one with the epilepsy-inducing strobe effect causing everyone to have a seizure, or at very least cry like a baby after a couple minutes. Might cause lawsuits and/or change of employer.

[Joe Loughry]

Langford's Parrot looks a bit like the Reg's vulture

Could I have it sitting on my shoulder?

[teknopaul]

I replaced my unsmiling professionally taken photo sporting regulation corporate blue shirt, with a custom circular logo that reads

VICTIMS OF ONE DRIVE

Everyone likes it, except the IT bods that are trying to deal with the 100 gb of .m2/repository that got auto uploaded and can only be deleted file by file using the web interface.

I'll post jpegs in all sizes.