Asynchronous video

Asynchronous video is a recording sent to be watched on the viewer's own time, in place of a conversation that would otherwise have to happen live. The sender records once, when it suits them. The recipients watch when it suits them, pause, rewind, or read the transcript instead of watching at all.

It sits between two older formats and borrows from both. Like an email, it does not require anyone to be available; unlike an email, it carries a face, a voice and whatever is on the sender's screen. That combination is why it replaces a particular kind of meeting so effectively — the kind where one person talks and everyone else listens, which describes most status meetings, most demos and most walkthroughs.

The economics are the usual argument for it. A thirty-minute meeting with six people costs three hours of company time, spent simultaneously. A ten-minute recording costs the sender ten minutes and each recipient whatever they choose to spend, which for many will be seven minutes at one and a half times speed. The saving is real, and it is also the trap: because recording is cheap for the sender, teams produce more of it than anyone will watch.

The format has genuine limits. It is the wrong tool when the answer is not yet known and the conversation is the way to find it, when the message is personal or difficult, and when two people disagree — exchanging recordings lets each side make an uninterrupted case and answer none of the other's objections. Teams that adopt it well tend to replace broadcasts and keep their arguments live.