Translating...
The advent of the video conference should have marked a quantum change in the way international project coördination meetings are conducted, however, a combination of the technology initially being both extremely expensive and complex, along with the immature technology at its launch, made it difficult to access for the majority of organisations. This led to the video technology becoming seen as an expensive option for many companies, which consigned the equipment to being kept in a special room to be used by a few managers on special occasions.
At the same time, the explosion of home use video conferencing through some of the initial free to use offerings such as CuSeeMe, which were then rapidly overtaken by Skype and its similar packages has led to the technology having a huge following in peoples personal lives. In my own position, I have access to my employers video conference equipment but would only use it once a month if that, while I have both Skype and iChat at home and use it weekly or more frequently to keep up with my family.
From an international project perspective, the lack of uptake of video has been a real missed opportunity, humans are extremely visual communicators, there is nothing most of us like more in a conversation than to see the other person’s reactions and actions to what we say, you only have to look at someone on the telephone making hand gestures to understand that we can not stop ourselves. Seeing your colleague in a conversation is a hugely bonding experience that is so readily afforded through the video technology.
So, for those with access to video conferencing, and I would encourage anyone involved in international projects to explore the tool aggressively, what can it give you and how to use it?
To answer this you first need to consider how far you are prepared to deploy it, a single installation in each office will mean that its use is confined to pre-agreed meetings, while having multiple installations, perhaps up to the point of having those ubiquitous little camera’s on everyones workstations, will mean that everyone can use them as they need and they will soon start to take the place of, or at least supplement, the telephone in day to day conversations.
If you opt for the single installations, the meetings should follow the format of a traditional face to face meeting, the biggest difference, aside from the obvious one of only some of the participants being in the same physical location, is that everyone needs to give each other time to say what they have to without interruption, the small time lags inherent in the technology mean that to be effective everyone needs to leave a bit of space between statements, aside from that, I would suggest that everyone participating in the meeting should be visible on the screen during the meeting, so no hiding around the corner just out of frame, this is really an inconsiderate thing to do, a bit like hiding in the cupboard in a face-to-face meeting.
If you opt for the larger installation of putting cameras on at least some of the workstations, treat calls like any one-to-one face-to-face meeting, again allow for the transmission timing between statements but aside from that, speak as you would normally.
However, a couple of cultural matters to consider in these situations;
- Be considerate of time zones and the work calendar of all participants, just because you may have a gap in your calendar at 11am does not mean that your colleagues on the other side of the world are happy to have a video meeting at 10pm.
- Make allowance for language differences, not everyone speaks your language with the proficiency you do, if necessary have an interpreter in the meeting to support any problems, just because it is by video does not mean the language barriers will go away, also be careful in the use of colloquialisms, again, these can get you into trouble if you are not considerate.
- Be conscious of cultural differences, different cultures will have different levels of eye contact in meetings that are not apparent on the telephone, equally, in some cultures it is acceptable for meeting participants to sleep between times they are needed to participate, this is not disrespectful in their culture and as such you should not take offence if they happen to do it in a meeting you are part of, equally, gender differences in some cultures will need to be considered, treat the meeting as if you were all in the same place and you should be well on the way there.
- Use visual aids — If your technology will allow, share documents in the video meeting this will make the meeting even more effective, you can view reports, drawings and charts etc.
However you choose to use it, video technology is an enormous enabler, it lets personnel in virtually any part of the world see one another and interact almost as if they were face to face.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Francis Norman
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