If there are two things the events of 2020 have taught us, it’s the need to remain flexible when it comes to our working practices, and to ensure we maintain the highest levels of productivity as we approach the dawn of a new work-from-anywhere era. Whether we venture back to the office; stay at home; pursue other avenues such as coworking, or opt for a combination of these – it’s safe to say our working culture will never be the same again.

There isn’t much we can say about the perils of video conferencing that hasn’t been said already in the past seven months. But, IT leaders mulling permanent remote workforces should pay heed to video conferencing security and lay the groundwork to ensure corporate data and intellectual property (IP) stays secure when employees are using these apps.

The second time I speak with Colleen Berube, CIO and SVP of Operations at Zendesk, she greets me over Zoom from her backyard in San Mateo, California. The scene looks idyllic, though the reality is that wildfires are raging all over the state, the air is tinged with smoke, and we all remain hunkered down at home as Covid wears on.

Some of us have been striving to build the perfect conferencing system since the beginning of our careers. But what exactly makes such a “perfect” system? Besides high quality media and low latency, which are the basis for any Internet communication system, there are 3 elements: End-to-end encryption is state of the art for providing best-in-class security, where no media can be decrypted on an intermediary server for mixing or other modifications.