Lifehack: How to deposit a physical check from 2,000 miles away

A colleague of mine had to pay me via check, but he was 2,000 miles away. What to do? My bank, USAA, doesn't have any physical branches, so he couldn't just walk in and deposit the check in my account.

He could mail me the check, but why wait? I had him take a picture of the check with his phone. Then I used the USAA app's Deposit@Mobile feature to take a picture of my computer screen which had a picture of the check he'd taken using his phone.

Here are pictures of it all going down. I was able to easily deposit the check while the check was in my colleague's hands, 2,000 miles away.