What's Lost When a Meeting Goes Virtual 96
nbauman writes "This summer, NASA's Lunar Science Forum became the largest scientific gathering to embrace the new world of cyber meetings. The experience drew mixed reviews, according to a report in Science magazine. Mihály Horányi, who has been a regular, sat down at his computer at 1:45 p.m. on the first day of the conference and began talking into a webcam perched above the screen. 'Last year it was a performance. This year it meant staring at myself, being annoyed that I kept leaning in and out of the picture, and thinking, "Boy, am I getting old."' He and other participants say the virtual conference was a pale imitation of the real thing. At previous forums, 'You see your friends, you ask about their kids, and then the discussion flows into the science.' He participated much less this year, 2 hours a day. In addition to the physical challenge of sitting at one's computer for hours on end, participants say that their day jobs competed for their attention. 150 to 200 people "attended" at any one time. Even without distractions, the quality of the interaction was much lower than in person. 'I received a handful of short comments [from my talk] and had maybe one e-mail exchange,' Horányi recalls. One scientist who didn't present this year—and who listened to only one talk after the fact—said that he much prefers an in-person meeting because 'you get a much better sense of how the audience is reacting to what you're saying, especially any negative feedback.'"
There was one perk (Score:5, Insightful)
After the second day's talks were over we got to watch Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon.
The griping about gossip being more important than the presentation is very real: a lot of science is the result of serendipitous conversations and meetings at conferences.
This is my experience too (Score:5, Insightful)
I have done a number of meetings remotely, and it is just not the same (nor is it better).
Of course, it is cheaper, and if it is a question of attending remotely, or not at all, I go remotely.
It is a much better experience with immersive full room telepresence, but part of the reason for that is that you actually have to go to a telepresence unit so that, even if you are just down the hall, you are much more focused on the meeting.
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of real issues at tech standard meetings get solved in the corridor. It's really hard to get a real-time compromise that way in a virtual setting.
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I call dead presidents by their first names, before they get into my pants
Re:The bar meetings (Score:4, Insightful)
I think these scientists lack imagination. You can interact with people through forums, where there are no time constraints on gathering together at one time. And you can still ask about kids, only it looks more stupid in print. Because it is.
Re:facebook effect (Score:3, Insightful)
The Facebook Effect: Where you might think you are interacting with other humans, but you find you are really just interacting with a machine that is trying to reflect back yourself to you in order to fool you (in facebook's case to get you to linger your eyeballs longer).
What the hell are you talking about?
Re:Stupid title (Score:5, Insightful)
Came here to post exactly this.
I have a cyber-meeting every Wednesday morning with folks across the pond. Attendance is 4-12 people. There is no lack of idle chitchat or constructive feedback, or any of the other problems mentioned here.
TFA takes a forum, conference, seminar, or something like that, calls it a "meeting" when it's clearly not, and tries to shoehorn all cyber-meetings into having the same problems that the conference did. Overall, just shitty reporting trying to make a point that doesn't mesh with reality.
Re:old habits in new medium (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. This a conference, not a meeting. Big difference. A productive meeting should last no more than an hour, and involve less than a dozen people. A conference involves hundreds of people over several days.
I attend virtual meetings all the time, and don't find them any less productive than face-to-face. I do find, for reasons I've never quite figured out, that having met my colleagues face-to-face at some point makes collaboration go much more smoothly. But it only has to happen once or twice, maybe repeated once or twice a year. That's the sort of thing that happens at a conference. The rest of the time colleagues and collaborators can send email and have phone calls (desk top sharing can be helpful, but video I find useless).
Re:The bar meetings (Score:4, Insightful)
Real life does not work that way. In the real world social cues and conventions are important. A face-to-face conversation follows a very different arc than a similar online chat does. Both have their uses, but one cannot replace the other.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're trying to recreate a physical meeting, I agree. But it's quite possible to have productive virtual meetings if people adapt to working in a manner suited to the medium. I have a regular group of collaborators who I sometimes meet with in person, and sometimes meet with on IRC. The two kinds of meetings are both productive, real meetings, but with different strengths and weaknesses. However it works because we're all familiar with IRC and how to use it productively, rather than trying to shoehorn some other communication style into it.
Re:Audience Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
If the audience is confused by your material, you will see it. If they are disturbed, interested, bored etc.
By noticing how the audience reacts you can tailor your 'performance' for the audience. For example if the audience is more familiar with your material than you originally thought you can gloss over the background. If they are not as versed as you thought you can provide more details.
You can also change your terminology. We have discovered that the terms we use when talking about our field are sometimes different than what other people use and there is no one standard. For that reason it is important to make sure we are all using the same words and assigning the same meaning to them. This can be difficult without knowing which terminology set the audience is using.
Both? Both. Both is good (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is the attitude that we MUST decide which is best, and shun the failure of the other
Each have pros and cons : Virtual meetings are much cheaper, easier to setup on the fly, and are more malleable in size; able to accommodate two people without bogarting a conference room, or expandable beyond the number of bodies that can physically fit into a single conference room. Meanwhile, meatspace meetings must be setup months in advance to ensure everyone can make it, require a lot more expenses, potential arguments over the proper location, plus all of the potential pitfalls of travel (lost luggage, delayed/canceled flights, outdated GPS directions sending you to the wrong place, etc.)
But as previously discussed, actual human interaction has a LOT more potential to engender real ideas and changes. It allows us to better know our colleagues and understand each other. If a buddy of mine tells me that I dun goofed, I'm a lot more likely to take an honest look at my work and try to fix the problem than if I had received the same message from some random stranger on the other side of the country, to whom I've never before spoken. Maybe that's a problem on my part, but I'm certainly not the only one (as I've been the random stranger trying to correct someone else, only to receive a "Who the fuck are you" response.)
What needs to happen is utilizing both systems to their strengths. If you're a part of a big project, encompassing hundreds of workers across several geographical locations, and spanning several years, start with a big in-person conference. Make sure everyone knows their peers from different sectors, understands what roles everyone fills, how they operate, etc. Give it 2-3 days, include some after-hours meetups, and get things started right. Schedule these annually (or biannually) to introduce new team members, work through any major sticking points, and keep things flowing well. In between those, use virtual meetings for weekly status meetings, or 1 on 1 discussion between engineers at different locations.