Digital work index — A zoom dictionary.

This is the first edition of a dictionary that maps digital interactions, language, sentiments, and commentary on the digital work culture.

Digital platforms have significantly altered the way we work — where, how, and with whom. The transformation has given rise to a lexicon of new words and expressions. As the work culture evolves, we are witnessing the ongoing application and refinement of existing words to describe a feeling or a way of working.

Recent lexicons catching attention globally include terms like Bare minimum Mondays, Lazy girl jobs, Quiet quitting, and Anti-career coaching, mostly familiarized by Gen Zs. It’s inspiring to see people crafting language that resonates with their experiences, like these viral phrases that explain China’s work culture.

This initial mapping focuses on Zoom interactions, organizing them in an A-Z index alongside potential dialogues likely to be found in workplaces. The goal is to engage in ongoing reflective analysis of digital work cultures, regularly updating the index as more terms emerge and become everyday language.

With ever-changing work practices, I acknowledge that while some interactions can be articulated through words, others remain to be observed, and felt, and their naming is still in development. I will continuously reflect and add as more come up and as digital culture develops. And possibly develop a more organized and expansive index on digital work language.

So on to the Zoom A — Z dictionary and possible dialogues in the work process.

A — Attendee — Participants in an online call or webinar.

How many attendees do we have on here? Please feel free to introduce yourselves on chat.

B — Breakout room — Digital grouping to organize participants for activities.

For this exercise, we will organize you all into 5 breakout rooms which will be assigned randomly. Join the room once you get a prompt.

C — Camera on/off — Showing face or no face.

I am having connection problems, I will have my camera off for this call, is that okay?

D — Dial-in — Join by phone number.

I’m on the move, I’m dialing in from my phone. Hope you can hear me well.

E — Echo — When audio gets channeled back.

I can’t hear you well, there’s an echo from your end. Or is it just me?

F — Frozen — From lagging sounds to hazy images.

Your screen is frozen, maybe try re-connecting.

G — Gallery view — Layout option to see all on the call.

I am switching to gallery layout to take a screen shot for all of us on the call. Let’s smile in 3,2,1!

H — Hop on a call — When people are too tired of email correspondence and believe a quick call will fix it. Sometimes it does!

Let’s hop on a quick call to hash it out. That will be quicker.

I — Invite — Send a message or email to those who need to be on the call.

Did you invite them to the call? How come they’re not here?

J — Jump into a meeting — For those who have back-to-back meetings and leave before the final wave.

I have to jump into another meeting in 5 minutes, thank you all for having me.

K — Kicked out — Depending on the Zoom subscription the team is on, time limits apply.

Oops, we all got kicked out, I guess we reached the time limit.

L — Let you in — Zoom hosts hold the power to have you on the call.

The host will let you in in a few minutes.

M — Mute — If we knew this was the channel for embarrassment, we could have gone to Zoom mute class before 2020!

Please mute yourselves and use the chat for questions or raise your hands if you have a question.

N — No comments from my end — For the disengaged meeting attendees.

No comments from my end, I agree with what you said, let’s do that.

O — Organizer — Another name for the Zoom host.

The organizer will share the recording and the slides after this meeting.

P — Poll — A way to engage the audience.

We want to make this engaging. You will see a poll on your screen soon, select one option for the question presented.

Q — Q&A box — Feedback channel to ask questions via text.

Feel free to share your questions as we go on in the Q&A box, we will adress them in the end of the call.

R — Recording — For future reference.

Please note we are recording this and will share it on both our socials and on email. Don’t stress trying to write down everything, we’ll share the slides too.

S — Screen sharing — Having your screen viewed by all.

Can everyone see the slides on my screen?

T — Take over — When asking a collaborator to continue with their bit of the presentation.

Hi Mark, do you want to take over from the next slide?

U — Unmute — mute and unmute buttons are among the most complex things we have had to adapt to.

Please unmute yourself if you are speaking…… (a minute later). I think you are still on mute.

V — Virtual background — Zoom filter when you don’t have an organized bookshelf to signal your reading culture.

I love your virtual background, that ocean is calling for a vacation plan.

W — Waiting room — Space to wait for the host to let you in.

Hi Janet, I am in the waiting room, please let me in.

X — eXit — Didn’t find one for X, eXit will stand in for the leave meeting option.

Feel free to leave (eXit) the meeting after this, or hangout if you want to engage more with the speaker. We can have a virtual happy hour.

Y — Yes, go ahead — Because sometimes the precedence of talking is not very clear in online meetings, people tend to talk over each other or at the same time.

Please. Yes, go ahead. After you.

Z — Zoom fatigue — When we all got collectively too tired to join yet another Zoom meeting.

Zoom fatigue is real, I think we should plan for an in person event rather than another zoom webinar.