Fear and Love
This is going to sound a bit hippy to start, but bear with me and it will all make sense…
“Fear can stop you loving; love can stop your fear”
Some of my favourite lyrics from a British band called Morcheeba. I first heard them as a teenager, but the message stuck with me and helped inspire Knock’s first product.
Innovation in the remote workplace is down compared to pre-pandemic levels. The reason for this is fear. After we’ve had an interesting idea, we feel the urge to share it with people. In an office environment, sharing can happen instantly - we simply open our mouths and say what we feel. In the remote working world, if we have an idea to share, we have to jump through administrative hoops to arrange the ceremony of communicating it to our peers. During this time, our tired brains are mulling over the idea, trying to keep it alive in our short-term memory (which can hold information for only about 30 seconds). If we try to hold on to that idea too long, it fades into nothingness and our consciousness narrates its passing with the best story it can think of as to why it wouldn’t have worked.
“Nobody will be interested, mate. It’s a rubbish idea”
- My brain, 30 seconds ago
In user testing, we found that starting a Knock call with somebody takes an average of just seven seconds. This leaves people with a cool 20+ seconds to share their idea and start that all-important dialogue with somebody to start growing and developing that idea.
During a Knock call, we’ve also eliminated the fear of being put on camera. Most of us fear the limelight. 20% of us report feelings of anxiety during a video meeting due to the fact they’re being watched. It turns out most people feel a bit weird about being on camera, so the fact that incumbent video conferencing apps remind us with a selfie video stream really doesn’t help. Whether happy or unhappy with how we look, it’s not natural to watch one’s self whilst talking to others. It’s actually very distracting. Imagine meeting your friend face to face at the same time as holding a little mirror in the corner of your view to check out your reflection. Bizarre! It’s an unhelpful distraction that reinforces vanity, diverts our focus from other people and wastes precious digital bandwidth - which at scale results in a significant demand on the world’s energy supply.
This is just one of the many reasons why Knock Video Chat is going to change the way we work remotely for the better.
If you like the idea, we need and would love your support. We’re raising capital to bring Knock to the world right now. We’ve just won a £50k Innovate UK grant for transformative technology, but we need to raise another £800k to make a significant impact. Please get in touch if you know anybody who can help. Your efforts will not go unrewarded.
Very best wishes,
Rory.
