We can’t carry our brick and mortar office environment to our homes. However, we can create a virtual one that will give us similar or even better experiences. During the lockdown, startups are launching brand new work from home tools to help us work better.
We went through the web (and Product Hunt especially) to gather these new tools for you. Right from creating a virtual office to getting the right virtual background for your video calls, there is something for everyone working from home.
Ready to select a tool? Let’s go.
Table of Contents
Zoom Virtual Backgrounds
Zoom Virtual Backgrounds platform allows remote workers to search for thousands of royalty-free images and videos for their virtual backgrounds during Zoom video conferences.
Imagine you just shifted to remote work and in your apartment, your background isn’t ‘‘that’’ eligible for video calls from work. This tool was built precisely for these situations we face.
The platform launched in March 2020, uses APIs to pull these royalty-free images and videos from different sources and make them available to everyone.
Donut
If you want to keep the “social interaction” that went on in the office while you work remotely, then Donut is a good tool to start with. Launched on 19th March 2020, Donut allows remote teams from different departments to do activities together virtually.
You can organize learning sessions, have group lunches, have a cup of virtual coffee, and many more.
When someone on your Slack workspace sets up Donut, they’ll choose the channel, frequency of intros (multiple times per week, once per weekly, biweekly, etc), and time zone for your team.
Markup Hero
As remote teams working from different continents and timezones, it can be daunting and time-consuming when it comes to generating ideas from employees.
Thankfully, Markup Hero is built for this. With Markup Hero, not only is your team able to capture ideas with its screenshot features, but they are also offered annotation, editing, and sharing features to help your team stay on top of ideas. When it comes to brainstorming, team communication, and sharing of ideas, Markup Hero is really a hero.
Festival Hunt
Missing the beach life? The music shows? Why not participate virtually? Yes, it’s possible with a new tool from Festival Hunt that comes with a curation of all the virtual musical shows and festivals to help you spend your quarantine time with excitement.
Self-Quarantine Book Club
“A community on Slack where book lovers around the world are coming together to discuss what they’re reading. Each book has its own Slack channel, so it’s easy to find other readers, share thoughts and questions, or just sit back and follow the conversation.
VirtualOffice
VirtualOffice allows remote workers to create branded virtual offices for use as virtual backgrounds during Zoom video calls. It has created to let remote workers feel like they’re in their brick and mortar offices and comes with different office settings, including luxury offices, the startups with ping pong tables, formal meeting rooms, and many more.
Quarantine Together
Quarantine Together brings remote workers and the quarantined a curated list of communities and events around the world – helping you meet new people and experience a different side of the world virtually. The platform is updated daily through user submissions and events from around the world.
Compliments by Disco
Disco wanted to make remote workers’ lives more fun and that’s why they launched Compliments.
Built for teams going remote as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, Compliments allows remote teams to send anonymous compliments to team members to help boost morale and encourage a positive work ethic while staying apart.
Have any tool you want us to add? Tag us in a social media post with the tool, and we’ll add it to the post.
