| There is a a relatively small group of folks (eight to nine of us) who
all do this same job, and we are spread out all over the US; some work
from H.O.M.E. program, some in Digital offices. We have monthly to
bi-weekly con calls with our functional management at MRO, and they
work out very well. MRO gets what they need, we get a chance to vent
and/or to discuss issues, compare notes on how to get the job done
better/faster/cheaper, etc., and generally get a lot done in a short
period of time.
I think that both the intent of the call, the agenda communicated in
advance, and the appropriate chairperson are important to making a con
call a productive experience. If everybody knows what business needs
to get done, and the chair is careful to go around the entire virtual
table, it can work well. I like those calls.
I do not like mass concalls where 60 or 70 people get on the phone
and listen to one or two other people make some sort of speech, and
then ask for questions. Those always turn out like .0 -- you can't
hear the questions, so the answers don't make sense. And, of course,
if, by chance you *want* to ask something, you have to hope that you
can fit in to the 10 minutes reserved for Q & A, along with the other
60 or 70 people who also want to ask a question! Just send me an
e-mail; it is faster, more efficient, and actually gives me a chance
to *absorb* the information before asking a question!
M.
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| Having worked most of my years in Engineering on the European side, I
definitely recognize what the base-noter is talking about. One of the
fundamental problems with teleconferencing is that you generally lack
even a single image of the other guys. Meaning, you have never met them
and you will never ever find out how they look like.
It is virtually impossible, without serious dicipline, to keep a anonymous
minority on par with the friends you have around the table. Even if you
have a good agenda. It is all too easy for the majority to begin private
dialogues and even go as far as pressing the Mute button when they get
so side-tracked that they want to "fork off" for a few moments.
If you at least have a photo of the people on the other side so that
you can personify your anger and frustration it would work better.
Perhaps a few ICON buttons on the phone-box for "Smile-face", "Speak-up"
and "Request-to-speak", etc, would also help
>Per
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|
I spend a majority of my meetings on concalls (95%). I find them
very interesting. It is not the nature of concalling versa
a face-to-face meeting that is the problem - it is usually the
people chosen to attend and the person who is running the
meeting/concall.
One advantage of concalling is that the subliminal
prejudices are not there, because you can not see them for
their color, race, creed, dress, religion - but their thoughts.
It does however place upon each individual attending to be able
to express themselves verbally and not depending on someone to
pick up on their subtle or not so subtle gestures.
Unfortunately I have seen in face-to-face meetings where a
scowl (physical intimidation) from a participant shuts up a
person with a great idea.
Finally, if you depend upon body language to determine what a
person is thinking - I would like to invite you to our "Friendly
little poker game".
Bruce
|
| Conference calls, as any form of meetings, can be very effective
or a total waste of time. There are many parameters affecting
this. I am not going to even try to analyze them all here.
However, from my last 5 year experience working in Finland and
reporting to the US, a short summary of things to pay attention
to:
- preparation before the call; if you are not prepared well,
you can't expect to get much out of it (applies to most
meetings anyway!)
- technology in place; voice quality, conference room
acoustics, other tools (about which a bit more further)
- time reserved and the agenda: try to build the agenda to
handle the subjects needing remote participants first. This
will shorten the time the audio links are needed and the
propability that the remote participants' activity level
stays high
- rules of behaviour; a "hall way discussion" just does not
work; always say who you are before you speak; speak clearly
and try to avoid interrupting others
- write down agreed action items and send them as a mail
message asap after the conference ... and follow up well
before the next con call
- as a rule of thumb; avoid con calls where a large group is
in one room and a few remote participants are alone; if at
all possible try to do the con calls as one-on-one calls
in the preparation phase and use remote participants in
larger meetings to GIVE an opinion or a presentation and
let them go after they've done that; thus, try to avoid
arranging con calls where a large number of people in the
same room give several presentations and the few lonely
participants are expected to absorb all the information
and all the interaction happening in the room!
- avoid "rat holes" and brain storming while you expect the
remote participants to stay actively on-line! Optimally
get the input in advance and act as a representative for
the remote team members
- etc. etc.
To provide visuals and visual interaction during Conference calls
a multipoint networked whiteboarding tool called "TeleVenue" was
developed in an advanced development project with the Distance
Education centre of the University of Helsinki. There is a separate
notes file
48649::TELEVENUE
See notes 3.* for pointers to the software.
While TeleVenue does not provide interactive Video, it does
provide interactive communication with graphics, text, images,
OLE-objects (Powepoint slides, Excel graphs etc.) and annotations
over TCP/IP and DECnet networks (including SLIP connections - I'm
using it from home with a 14.4Kbaud modem at least weekly).
While TeleVenue does not solve the behavioral and preparation
issues, it does provide a tool to avoid advance printing of
presentations or documents and gives a possibility to ask
questions in writing and the possibility of visual viewing
without expensive set-ups of video. It currently has clients for
MS-Windows PCs, Ultrix and OSF/1 workstations. One of the
difficulties with TeleVenue has been the availability of PCs or
workstations in conference rooms and attached over head
projectors that are needed if any of the attending sites has
many participants.
I am willing to work together with anyone to see if TeleVenue
or something similar could be piloted to help your conference
calls be more effective.
-- best regards, Petteri Heng
Applied Research Manager
OMS Technical Services - AR FNO
----
heng@fno.mts.dec.com
eemeli::heng
Petteri Heng @FNO
DTN: 879-5245
ps. Attached is a general description of TeleVenue
TeleVenue General Description
Dec-1994
Petteri Heng
*************************************************************
Notice: The information in this message is subject to change
without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by
Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital Equipment Corporation
assumes no responisbility for any errors that may appear in
this message.
*************************************************************
TeleVenue is a network whiteboard that allows multiple
users to share text and images and to annotate them in real
time. The principle characteristics are:
-client/server design
-multiple client conferences
-TCP/IP or Decnet transport
-MOTIF or Windows client or mixed
-full OLE/drag-and-drop/copy/paste and screen capture
-full conference discipline tools
-conference recording
Introduction
TeleVenue provides a shared whiteboard facility to
multiple,local or remote users.
It emulates the environment of a conference room where
multiple people share and discuss what is displayed on a
whiteboard and annotate and modify it in a disciplined or
non-disciplined manner.
Users can open and share a window with other
users, display any stored information on the shared
window (Postscript, DDIF/image or text files on MOTIF, text and
OLE objects - Excel graphs, Powerpoint slides, Word document
portions. BMP, GIF, TIFF images etc. on Windows from any
source), annotate the window and store the result. The
application is of particular use whenever joint sharing or
use of information is needed as, for example, in remote
presentations or project coordination at remote sites.
Functionality
Any user with access to a RELAY server can either
create a conference or enter one already open. RELAY is the
name given to the server which provides optimised transport
of shared data over the network between multiple clients.
On entering a conference,the user can observe the
conference whiteboard from the moment he enters the
conference. He can see who is in the conference and can
request from the conference leader(moderator), the right to
draw on the screen. He can send comments and receive them via
the chatline (see below). If the user hasn't entered a
conference form the start of that conference, he will have to
request the moderator to re-display the whole whiteboard to
be able to see it.
If he creates the conference, then he may take on some
of the disciplinary roles such as conference housekeeping
and moderation (determining who speaks).
TeleVenue Overview
Conference Moderation
TeleVenue, as its name suggests, is a tool that you can
use to "meet" in a data network. The meetings are called
CONFERENCES that you either CREATE or ENTER by selecting the
appropriate option from the 'Conference' pull down menu.
If you CREATE a conference,you will automatically be
the MODERATOR of your conference. The moderator has special
rights - for example the right to decide if the SHARED
WHITEBOARD (one of the most important components) is
available to all participants of the conference
simultaneously or only to one attendee at a time. A whiteboard
can always be seen by all participants but only annotated by
one at a time in the moderated mode.
The moderator also decides whether the conference is
available to anyone for making annotations or if access is
restricted to only those who know the conference password.A
conference moderator also has a certain responsibility to
maintain discipline in much the same way as a meeting
chairman. TeleVenue allows any user (once he has the right to
draw) to do anything with the whiteboard,including erasing it
or replacing it. As a consequence,the moderator is given all
the tools to maintain conference order.
Voice communication
In a multipoint wide area conference
probably the most practical way to have a conversation is
over the telephone network. With TeleVenue, visual information
display and real-time interaction with pointers is made
possible during telephone conversations. Also,in
videoconferences, TeleVenue may prove to be very useful as a tool
to display computer stored information without the need to print
it on paper or transparencies.
The Chatline
To support environments where telephones are not
generally available to computer users (for example university
campuses), TeleVenue features a CHATLINE function. This enables
users to communicate with the keyboard. The CHATLINE
may also prove to be useful in environments where spoken
language is a barrier to effective communication or it may be
used to write the minutes or action items of a meeting. It
also may be used as a channel to present questions in a
written form to the current speaker.
PC/Windows Client
The PC Client has a number of features which are not yet
available to the clients on OSF/1 or Ultrix:
.Twin whiteboards with one used for preparation of slides
.Cut/copy and paste from other applications via the clip-board
onto either whiteboard
.Object linking and embedding from tools such as Excel, Powerpoint
etc.
.Drag and drop of files onto the whiteboard.
.Screen capture to display information that for some reason can
not be copied via the clip-board
Additional Features
Voting
The conference moderator can initiate a vote on any
decision. Conference users can then vote secretly and the
result displayed once the moderator so decides.
Participants list
A user can see a complete list of conference
participants. There is a facility to display the business
card and image of the current speaker.
Request queue
When a user wants to draw on the whiteboard in a moderated
conference, he simply requests the 'token' and the moderator
can then assign the right to speak to this user. In this
instance the user will see the traffic light icon change from
red (can't speak) to green. In an unmoderated conference, all
users will see their traffic light as amber.
Save and restore
The current content of the whiteboard together
with all changes can be saved and restored at any time.
Recording
Any conference of portions thereos can be recorded in
sequence and replayed to show the exact sequence of drawing and
displayed events.
The HW/SW Platform
The RELAY server software runs on an Ultrix, OSF/1 or
DOS/WINDOWS system. TeleVenue clients can be OSF/1, Ultrix or
Windows systems. A VMS user (or in theory any MOTIF user) can use
TeleVenue via "Set Host" and by redirecting the diplay to the
VMS/MOTIF workstation. A single Ultrix or OSF system can act as
both client and server. Communications requires TCP/IP or DECNET
and for TCP/IP Windows Sockets for a Windows client.
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