Blur your background in Teams and the productivity connection

Today I had a call with a Customer Success Manager from Microsoft, and friend of mine, Chris Slemp. Chris usually has his video on and before my calls I usually spend a good 5 minutes thinking of some excuse as to why my video isn’t on… I’d recommend going with bandwidth issues or poor Wi-Fi connectively 😉

However, this morning Chris is sitting on the Teams call waiting for me, whilst I figure out my excuse why the video isn’t on and I see Chris patiently waiting but to my utter shock the ENTIRE background was blurred out!!!

Gobsmacked to say the least!!!

After the call and my LinkedIn excitement, I started to think about the benefits of this, and whilst, yes this is some pretty advanced technology for a VC call actually what business impact does this really have. On thinking of my own experiences here, the conversation was so much more focussed, and I wasn’t distracted by the books Chris had on his bookshelf or that his plants needed a watering. But actually what are the personal productivity benefits to those who suffer from ADD or working parents who avoid having their cameras on because they might have toys out, a bit of mess in the background or an suspecting visitor.... 

Key thoughts below. 

So my key takeaways here are; how do we relate the features to business benefits and make work easier for our colleagues. Are you starting to promote some of the other accessibility features in Microsoft 365?