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What's Lost When a Meeting Goes Virtual
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.'"
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.
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.
The bar meetings and such are very important parts of conferences or any gathering of folks who only know each other thru publishing, mailing lists, etc. or even various forums like slashdot and fark.
Aside from the obvious, it is great to put faces to names you only know from mailing lists, etc. as well as having real time discussions. The value of a meat space meet up is very high, and to have your employer cover part or all of the costs is even better.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
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
There is a benefit to large meetings. But clearly the limitations that mandate large concise time intense meetings do not exist in the virtual world. There is no reason to hold 50 presentations in a day and then have attendees select their favorite 5 which means the get to attend 15-20 over the week. Rather 200 presentations can be held over a month, and one can drop in for an hour when they are interesting.
This would also free up conferences for what they are best. Provided unstructured interaction between professionals. Honestly, too many conferences are so structured that I feel like they are made for elementary school students, or laborers who bill by the hour.
If the value of a conference is the interaction, then lets pay people to go to Hawaii for a week and interact, and not cover the real purpose with these fake structured meetings.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Can we have Congress telecommute, and then cut off their internet?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
"The value is in the halls, not in the presentations" - this was a comment in an article on academic conferences (Let there be stoning!, pdf link). Unfortunately, the article hits the nail on the head - most academic talks are atrocious.
And mingling in the halls is still a human activity - you really don't like to do it virtually. It's like going to a virtual bar with your friends. Even if you have the best cocktail at home, the crowd, the sounds, etc. all play a role in keeping you in the mood.
The only advantage I see is in reducing some of the ridiculous conference registration rates I have seen (I'm looking at you IEEE - student registration of $400?). But I don't expect this to take off.
If you're trying to recreate a physical meeting, I agree. But it's quite possible to have productive virtual meetings if people adapt to working in a manner suited to the medium. I have a regular group of collaborators who I sometimes meet with in person, and sometimes meet with on IRC. The two kinds of meetings are both productive, real meetings, but with different strengths and weaknesses. However it works because we're all familiar with IRC and how to use it productively, rather than trying to shoehorn some other communication style into it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Very large companies have been doing teleconferencing for years. Many have been doing weekly video conferences via Tandberg VC systems for a decade successfully.
Honestly, there is ZERO reason to force everyone to drive to one location for a conference except for the drinking and dining on the company dime afterwards.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.
This signature is false.
I get too distracted wondering if anyone else is not wearing any pants.
Is the point of these gatherings entertainment or communication? I see people complaining about not being entertained...
In an academic conference the purpose is entertainment. The purpose is to get people excited by your work, and want to know more about it. True, you want to communicate the reasons your work is important, and what is great about your work. But the main goal is to get the audience to go home and read your full paper. The paper is the communication medium. The presentation is more about selling the paper.
On a real meeting, you fly 1. Class with your misstress, you are away from the wife and the meeting itself is in 3D.
A pale comparision, indeed.
Can we have Congress telecommute, and then cut off their internet?
They are already not communicating, I don't think we want to make it worse. I think a better solution is to put them in a room, no phones, no internet, no TV cameras and tell them they get out after a solution is agreed on.
This is exactly correct. And as for that "asking about the kids" thing, scientists and engineers aren't supposed to be having kids in the first place (or getting married for that matter). They're supposed to dedicate their lives and all their waking hours to their jobs. Only managers and other people-people are supposed to have kids and family lives.
I think I can confirm this.
We have some team-members, who can collaborate quite well via text, exchange ideas and make suggestions, but we also have 1 team-member who cannot work via text at all, and 1 who has issues when working via phone/concalls. Personally, I prefer face-2-face, but also painfully aware that I fail at interacting socially at these types of events.
It is very much about the people's ability to use the medium, whether that medium is IRC/Chat, Phone, webcams or in-person attendance.