To Zoom or Not to Zoom, That Is the Question

Eight months ago – which now can be thought of as the ‘Before Time’ – I wrote about attending a talk by horticulturalist Dan Jaffe held at a garden club in a neighboring town.  There, in front of 35 or 40 people, Dan put on a virtuoso performance under the most unimaginable of circumstances: he could not project his presentation onto a screen.  Rather than cancel  as would have been his right (the club had promised a compatible projector), Dan pivoted to a different strategy: he pared his visuals to a minimum and walked the room, holding his modest-sized laptop for groups to see. 

I truly enjoy presentations

I was reminded of that talk twice this week.  Wednesday evening, I again watched Dan (doing a different presentation) speaking to a group numbering more than 300.  The presentation was via Zoom, a computer program that had become our de facto tool for education in a time in which we cannot assemble in groups.

Dan’s topic that evening was about incorporating native plants into landscapes.  He has dazzling visuals for his presentations and he possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic.  But his hour-long talk was marred by technical glitches beyond his control: video freezes and audio that was often hard to hear.  At one point, his audience got a tour of Dan’s home as he moved from an office/study to sit adjacent to his router in a different room.  Further, Dan's slides aren't especially compatible with a small computer screen (see the photo at right).  Most of his slides contain multiple images, which look fine when projected on a six- or eight-foot screen – but were difficult to absorb on a 14-inch monitor.  And, without a laser pointer, deciphering which cultivar he was discussing was sometimes problematic.  Also, in the February presentation, Dan was interrupted every few slides by questions from the audience, which added to everyone's understanding of the presentation, and had the added benefit of forcing Dan to slow down. On Wednesday evening, Dan fairly raced through his slides.  All in all, it wasn’t a disaster; just a disappointment. 

Many of Dan's slides incorporate
 multiple images - hard to see
on a small screen

I can feel for Dan Jaffe because, this week, I did my first Zoom presentation.  It was a fund-raising project for the Central Atlantic Region of National Garden Clubs.  Mine was the kick-off talk of a four-day, seven-speaker event that likely raised close to $10,000 for scholarships.

As much as I genuinely enjoy speaking to groups, I have turned down several dozen remote speaking opportunities since Covid-19 became part of our national language.  I did so because I did not think I could do justice to an audience.  Mine is not a set of canned presentations; a group of lectures that never need vary.  Rather, I continually ‘read’ my audience and adjust as I go.  As a result, no two audiences ever see and hear exactly the same talk. Also, my subject matter is tailored for a live audience.  It is intended as entertainment; to make people laugh (and laughter is infectious), and is ‘educational’ but certainly not 'education heavy'.

Zoom has become the de facto
tool for enabling meetings

In agreeing to do the presentation (the organizer was exceptionally persuasive), I knew I needed to re-think many of my visuals for ‘the small screen’.  I also would need to tailor the talk for an audience that would be viewing in Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland (among other states). I also rehearsed multiple times (including in a Zoom call with the conference organizer) and mastered (or so I thought) Zoom’s screen-sharing options.

Those requirements paled next to the elephant in the room: that I would be unable to see or hear my audience.  In my ‘dress rehearsal’ with the organizer, we were one-on-one and I could see and hear her reactions.  I could also see myself.  I knew if I were properly positioned within the camera’s frame and could judge whether my gestures were appropriate. I also had that wonderful crutch offered to all users of PowerPoint: a miniature image of my next slide alongside the current one. When you see a presenter doing effortless segues between topics, it’s because of that ‘preview’ pane on his or her laptop.

A speaker's best friend is the
preview pane (in the lower
right) showing the next slide

All of that disappeared when I presented at four in the afternoon this past Monday. I logged on half an hour early but quickly discovered the ‘dirty little secret’ of Zoom: unless you’re the host (as I had been in my rehearsals), you a) can’t see yourself, b) can’t see or hear your host or the audience, and c) don’t have access to that preview pane.  All I saw was my presentation and a small black rectangle with my name in it, where everyone else would see me speaking.  My audience, according to the Zoom counter visible to me at the bottom of the screen, was 133 strong.  Were they laughing, or were they going to the sideboard for another glass of wine?

I calmed down after a few slides and blew only one transition.  But, in my own estimation, I did a mediocre job.  I move around a fair amount and use hand gestures a great deal.  Because I could not see myself, I rigidly stayed in one position and minimized gestures.  I also went too fast (I know this because Betty kept holding up a sign that read SLOW DOWN!!!!).

Afterward, the organizer offered praise and said comments from attendees were uniformly positive.  I respectfully disagree.  I think I gave the audience less than half of what they deserved.  They got a well-rehearsed talk but there was no spontaneity because I couldn’t see or hear their reactions.  It was a two-dimensional talk that lacked depth and shading.

I enjoy connecting with my
audience (and, yes, selling
 books)

I realize I also failed in one other way:  When I present, I am invariably one of the first people to arrive (I even help set up chairs).  I speak to members as they come in.  I join conversations.  Sometimes, when it is a group with spouses, I even seed the husbands with the answers to arcane horticultural questions, then ask those questions before or during my presentation.  This pre-meeting chatter helps me to better understand my audience, with or without the mischief.

I haven't done a live, in-person presentation of any program since the first week of March - more than 40 presentations have been canceled.  While I miss those audiences, based on my Zoom experience, I'll wait out the pandemic and hope clubs remember me in 2021.

The Apple Antidote to a Covid Autumn

I turned down $50 for this mask

Between us, Betty and I own 14 face masks.  Four of them are of the blue surgical variety and two are wince-worthy, home-made efforts from patterns printed in The New York Times back in March.  Eight, though, were crafted from the best silk ties from my long-ago working days.  These masks were sewn by two home-sheltering college students and look quite professional.  I was even offered fifty dollars for one of them – an authorized replica of the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album – while standing in line at a bakery one recent Sunday morning (I turned down the deal).  

A sign of the times by the back door

The masks, which hang on a rack by the door into our garage, are a continuing, cautionary reminder of the reality that, seven months after we first recognized we had a pandemic on our hands, the out-of-doors are still a place where a dangerous disease lurks and chance encounters on a walk around the block – let alone in supermarkets – are inevitably awkward exercises in you-go-that-way-and-we’ll-go-this-way social distancing.  And, this is in Medfield, a town of 11,000 that had reported fewer than 50 Covid-19 cases as of the end of September.

Every garden has its way to
remind us to social distance

Even trips to gardens, with all their color, texture, and scents; are sobering reminders of the ‘new normal’.  We have enjoyed day-trip sojourns as far away as Maine and as close as the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Elm Bank, but every trip has been an exercise in safety: masks must be worn at all times and hand-sanitizing stations are placed wherever you might be required or tempted to handle something. Even with timed tickets to limit crowds, garden paths are the scene of polite pas-de-deux to determine who will backpedal to the nearest cove to let the other party pass with a six-foot buffer.

Ripe Macoun apples

On the last day of September, however, Betty and I made our annual pilgrimage to Doe Orchards, a place un-scarred by the events of 2020.  Each year, when the Macoun apples are ripe, we make at least one near-hundred-mile round trip to this family-owned orchard located on a hilltop outside Route 495 in the rustic town of Harvard, Mass.  There, we fill a large bag with apples and, for quality control purposes, enjoy one or two along the way.  

I wore a mask for this
photo just to prove
it was taken in 2020

The orchard has 15 varieties of apples (each trunk is color-coded) on 60 acres, but we inevitably head directly for the Macouns, an apple with superb taste that is also ideal for cooking.  There were only five cars in the parking lot when we arrived so, as soon as we were out of sight of the farm stand, we shed our masks to enjoy a warm, early autumn day. It was a leisurely exercise: we inspected five trees before we picked our first apple.  I grew up knowing only Red Delicious apples that had withstood withering heat and oppressive humidity on their 600-mile trip from orchards in the mountains of North Carolina to supermarket shelves in tropical Miami.  Betty, on the other hand, grew up in upstate New York’s apple country and has sworn by Macouns for decades.  She inspects each candidate and takes only those that meet her high standard.

The bag will be empty in two weeks

We devoted more than an hour to filling our admittedly large bag and, in the time, saw just one lone, bag-toting picker pass down a path 50 feet distant.  When the winds were right, we also heard voices which turned to be orchard employees picking off ladders seven rows away.

We also just… wandered.  The orchard thoughtfully mows the aisles, so moving from one tree – or variety – is an easy task.  There are also vistas where you can take in the surrounding terrain.  In such a place, and with masks stowed in pockets, it is possible to forget about the world and its troubles for an hour or so.  We certainly did.

Our first Molly O'Neill apple
walnut cake of the season

The apples will become crisps, cobblers, snacks, and a special treat called the Molly O’Neill Upside-Down Apple Walnut Cake.  In a few short weeks, long before they have had an opportunity to soften or lose flavor, our bag of apples will be gone.  But, while they last, they will be a reminder of both a pre-mask path and the hope of a mask-free 2021.