DEG Consulting: How to Have Face to Face Communications when ...

It used to be interpersonal communications in the workplace meant standing above the partition, waving to a colleague, and then starting a conversation sharing the topic of discussion. Today with the dispersed workforce, outsourcing, teleworking, globalization, partnering and so on this isn?t feasible and we need to resort to other means.?
It?s fine we can easily stay in touch whatever the hour or relative time zone but is it really effective communication or collaboration? What do I mean by collaboration by the way? A nice if somewhat utopian definition of collaboration might be ?face to face?. But until we get an iHolodeck in our pocket we might need to look for something else!

So what tools can we resort to and how do they stack up against my definition of effective communication or collaboration?

Email is virtually ubiquitous so reaching out is easy but it?s hardly a conversation especially if there are several people in the distribution list. Instant messaging (IM) is close to instantaneous but abbreviated and imposes a lot of waiting or dead time on the participants. Phone calls and audio conferences are actually pretty effective in the ease of communicating but lack, as in the aforementioned, the ability to share is nil. Collaborative wiki like tools show promise, although not a means of face to face communications, but a helpful prop.

Needless to say the need for effective collaboration is becoming more challenging with the increasing stress in the workplace, the expectation that responses will be forthcoming rapidly, and the general volume in media such as email. The need for effectively communicating, let alone collaboration, is becoming more challenging with the increasing stress in the workplace, the expectation that responses will be forthcoming rapidly, and the general volume in media such as email.

Recently, I might have serendipitously stumbled on an answer! I had to meet with a prospective partner to discuss and review ideas actually around blogging! We met via HD quality desktop video conferencing and it was really about as close to sitting across the table as I could imagine. Crisp DVD like HD quality in large and full screen panels; superb audio with no clipping, fuzziness, and in full duplex; and the ability to review collateral on the screen really was a revelation. I?d always thought of video conferencing in a separate conference room with giant very impressive but very expensive monitors with lots of infrastructure networking demands. And who wants to book and walk to a special room? Phones would be used much if they were in one part of the building!

No this is a facility that can be used on all your devices and more or less from anywhere. There are now options to engage in a HD (high definition) video conference from a desktop or laptop PC whatever its flavor of operating system, a smartphone or a tablet and over any decent internet of mobile connection. Not only do you ?see? whom you are communicating with but can share and update material being discussed.

A colleague works with a company who has been using desktop video conferencing for a couple of years now and if fact it?s so ubiquitous it?s used in lieu of one on one phone calls.

In my next post on this topic I?ll elaborate on how one can be more productive using HD desktop video conferencing by linking to a recording of a conference. I?ll even show the attendees collaborating on creating some Evernote and Springpad collateral!

Source: http://www.dangoldesq.com/2012/12/video-conferencing.html

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