It’s your turn.
Silence.
It’s your turn.
People online have to introduce themselves, too.
I sigh inwardly and speak my name, rather than the thought in my head.
Oh. You’re talking to me?
Or, perhaps . . .
What exactly do you think I can see?
Because I can’t see you lookin’ at me.
We’ve been doing video calls of various kinds for decades; for six years, since Covid, we’ve been doing them intensively. You’d think we’d have learned how to do them, and in a way, we have. We’ve learned, mostly, to mute and unmute ourselves. We’ve learned, kind of, to remember to include the people attending remotely. We’ve learned, some of us, to raise a virtual hand to attract the attention of the meeting’s leader when we have a question or something to contribute. What we have not learned is to think about the view the remote attendees have: their visual field. We haven’t learned to think about what they can see and what they can’t.
Those in the room can see the whole room, including the remote attendees who appear on a screen at one end of the table. But those remote attendees aren’t actually sitting there. Unless the camera is atop that screen, they can’t see the whole table. And the camera, usually, is in a speaker/microphone contraption in the middle of the table. Depending on the settings selected, the remote attendees can see the person speaking (or at least the person currently making some noise). As any take-a-turn activity rolls around the table — self-introductions in this case — the remote attendees have little to no sense of when all have spoken, and when it becomes their collective turn.
It’s your turn.
Yeah, thanks, that doesn’t help. Are you speaking to some absent-minded someone in the room? To someone who just walked in? Are you speaking to me or to one of the other remote attendees? Who knows? You do.
Meetings where everyone is in the room, or where everyone is remote, are relatively straightforward: it’s the hybrid ones that get us into trouble. But I have good news: there’s a simple fix. Just stop and think: What, exactly, can the remote attendees see? Then adjust your procedures and use your words accordingly. I figure we’re halfway there: we already think to check that the remote folks can hear everything that’s said.
If we can beat this — and it’s a big “if” I’ll admit — maybe we can move on to tackle other communication challenges that arise from people not seeing things the same way.
It’s your turn.
It’s hard to break old habits, isn’t it?
Tom
Tom – Apparently it is, for some. I, of course, am endlessly adaptable… 🙂
The generic “you” — as in “It’s your turn” — depends on either eye contact, or a nod in someone’s direction. It doesn’t work Zoom, because Zoom assigns visual screens randomly. The host may be looking at MY picture way over on the right side of her screen, or down at the bottom, wherever. But on MY screen, I’m on the host’s left. Or in the second row. Or even in a gallery on a second screen.
Learning to use people’s names might help.
Jim – We need a Zoom school/workshop. I expect there are such – the rest of us just muddle through. My favourite such muddle was when I was remotely attending a “starter” Hebrew class and we took turns running a line of exercises. The instructor looked at people around the table to indicate it was their turn – and at the screen when it was my turn. I couldn’t see or hear him! Yikes.
Isabel – another advantage of being retired. No more video meetings.
John – Fair enough – I don’t miss work meetings at all, not in any medium. These aren’t work meetings, though; they’re classes at my synagogue.
And I don’t miss classes of any kind either.
Trying hard to remember the last class of any type I was in, but no detailed memories are surfacing.
Keeping my retired mind active doesn’t seem to be a problem; what with email replies to friends, trip reports, trip planning, planning where to eat lunch, and newspaper crossword puzzles, just to name a few.
John – That’s great! This is very much a “what works for you” thing.