- The benefits of having the meeting online rather than in person
- Any challenges, inconveniences, or issues you encountered
- If you would meet online with this person again
- If you would meet with anyone else online, and who might that be
- Would a traditional in person meeting have been better? Why?
I have done several work groups in a virtual format including Skype and Google Hangouts. One experience I will draw upon was a book group discussion using Google Hangouts with eight people. Five were in the room with me and two were online.
There are numerous advantages to meeting online including but not limited to the lowered cost of transportation and planning that would otherwise be devoted to organizing the time and place for everyone to meet and then finding the money to pay for their gas, or time to get there. Meeting online also provides everyone a work space where they can send and receive electronic documents or use references on hand.
Challenges include the need to eliminate distractions to focus on the meeting at hand instead of whatever else is in the room, the compatibility of everyone's computer to access the agreed upon platform, the need to have guidelines in place to avoid confusion about who is talking when and the inconveniences of reading more subtle communication such as body language.
For book discussions, I decided this was not the best mode of communication and did not continue with this group. There was a lot of opportunities for someone to dominate the conversation since they could not read the other's need to speak and one person was excluded completely when they lost power to their computer but was unable to get back into the meeting.
If there was a group I had already been working with in person that wanted to move to the virtual platform I think I would be open to that option on a limited basis. I feel we still need to connect in a physical setting to truly understand what is expected of us and more importantly celebrate our success and come to an agreement when needed.
