4 ms·
One screen, One face That’s really the only way to do it. Any other situation where there are people looking face to face and someone else on a screen makes it
by chasedehan 7y ago
One screen, One face
That’s really the only way to do it. Any other situation where there are people looking face to face and someone else on a screen makes it not fully collaborative. People are naturally more inclined when there is someone they can look eye to eye.
My company is ~50% remote (or distributed) and our all hands are with every person on their own laptop. Some people in the office pushed back, but we went this direction with zoom where you can have up to 100 people on the screen at 1 time and it has been incredible. Plus, you don’t have to set up any a/v equipment because the meeting link is in the calendar invite.
- truebosko 7y agoThis is something we've been practicing as we go distributed and I couldn't agree more. Placing everyone on equal planes in these situations is incredibly important in giving each individual the ability to communicate.
- foxbarrington 7y agoHow do you avoid feedback and other audio issues for people in the same room?
- joeblubaugh 7y agoWe use headphones for everybody. Laptops do a good job avoiding feedback
- rtpg 7y agoMute button + headphones
- theNJR 7y agoHad a meeting today where three were in an office together and I was remote on Zoom. Very sub-optimal setup. I like your philosophy.
- lucb1e 7y agoI think this might benefit my company, we are 2-3 in the office and 2-3 remote (each working from home) for practically every meeting. I'm pretty sure it'll not be accepted though, I'm trying to figure out why I feel that way. Maybe it feels rude? Maybe because we've always done it this way? Maybe because we do have special equipment for it that should work fine? I'm not sure which weighs how heavy or if there is one main reason. People never expressed much friction but I'm convinced that a measurable percentage of words are just lost that wouldn't be in real life. Edit: I should add that none of us are speaking their native language (Dutch, German, Spanish, sometimes Italian, with reasonable English as common language). It's hard to improve everyone's English significantly without large investment but the meeting can at least facilitate communication in the best way possible. /edit Do you have any thoughts on how to approach this? Maybe we should try both alongside for two weeks and ask the remotes which they found worked better, or something else?
- chasedehan 7y agoRemote people will 100% like each person on their own computer better. No question. It is the people in the office who will resist. What you need is someone senior enough to be outspoken and champion it. Luckily for us, a number of people on the executive team are at least partially remote so it was relatively easy to convince to do this.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoMore! Everybody stay at their desks, and all use conferencing software. If there are 10-20 people in the home office in one room, they're going to have their own meeting right there, while the 'distributed' folk struggle to understand who's talking, struggle to hear folks far from the mike, can't see their face because they turn away from the camera. I've worked in a company that's tried it both ways, and the only way that really worked was for everybody to just stay in their office. Not only an equal experience for everybody, but a better experience. Everybody can share a document if needed! Everybody can write on the vitual white board. Everybody can talk.