The Polycom Ghost

Last night I spent a couple hours at E. P. Clarke Elementary setting up for our ASK: Author Interview with Janie Panagopoulos today.

We had a funny experience with their Polycom VSX 7000. We had set everything up easily for the classroom layout. You can see in the picture we have the students facing the author (off screen to the left) and the microphone is in between the author & the student asking her a question.

We set the presets and then discovered the alert about the remote battery being low. (Isn't it great that the new Polycoms report this! Someone was thinking when they invented that feature!) As we were finishing changing the batteries, we were talking and joking, and someone set the remote down and we heard a weird voice from the Polycom. We looked at each other and we all thought the other person had said something. It was very funny, as such things can be late at night when we should be sleeping instead of working!

Then I looked at the Polycom and it was on the dialing screen and with three extra nines at the end of the IP address we had just tested with. So I hit the 9 and it was exactly the sound we had heard. Nine. In that "Polycom voice." We all laughed hysterically.

Do YOU have a funny Polycom story?!