Comments on: How to Win Friends and Influence People Remotely

By: squelart

squelart — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nice classification of communication tools and tips to use them.

I’m personally intrigued by Google Wave, it looks like a mix of traditional email (or gmail) with real time text, group sharing, media integration. It’s still in closed beta, but I’d be interested in hearing about your experience (if any) or thoughts about it.

By: coupon

coupon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Handy Breakdown. I am about to launch a google wave project and can’t wait to see how it turns out. For me, email has broken down with more than a few people. There are too many side conversations and real-time text solutions never involve all of the people needed. Google wave seems to solve many of the issues associated with other text solutions.

By: tonant

tonant — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I do have a Google Wave account and a few associates who are keen users. At this point it’s not really part of my toolkit, my remoteness makes its real time nature somewhat superfluous. However it’s not hard to see the value in relation to teams that while distributed are within a couple of hours time difference. I for one would like to see these kind of activity streams starting to appear within applications and the content they generate bound to their associated objects – this is the enterprise dream

By: clarewarburton

clarewarburton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’d have to differ on the video conference comment “Real time video brings marginal value to distributed teams.” While there are certainly technical challenges to overcome, if its doable, it makes all the difference in getting a “team” to communicate effectively.

By: stuee

stuee — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Pat. I too live in Australia and work remote (Sunshine coast) for a company in Brisbane. It’s not a huge distance, but a distance no less.

My company has a fairly small and tight team, and my role as designer within our structure doesn’t require a lot of conference type meetings – I deal and consult mainly with our head of marketing and head developers. We rely on good old email and real-time text/chat. For instant clarification on issues that are not easily recorded in copy we resort to landlines phone. For more than 2 people involved in real-time decisions we do group chats via real-time chat clients and can enable voice if need be (Specific VOIP apps and services are superfluous to us as we can use our free chat client to do achieve the same). These methods, for the specific nature of our projects and team, have been effective for over 2 years now.

I imagine where communication daily regarding decisions and providing direction to individuals and groups where instant feedback is required, Voice, Video or Web conferencing is a necessity (especially working with teams abroad).

Having looked at your write-up and some of the comments, perhaps Google Wave might be worth a look. However, with an already winning formula for our team, it may just be counter-productive if everyone involved isn’t willing to adopt it as an alternative – even though it may be more efficient. I guess the only way to find out is to give it a try.

Thanks for the post

By: tonant

tonant — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Clare, I guess my perceptions of real time video are tied up with the limitations of my companies systems. Actually there are lots of meetings I would really like to be running Skype video with a white-board in the background to facilitate interaction design discussions, but our VPN just does not allow for it. Also with my current thinking around ego in the enterprise every opportunity to brand as an individual becomes important, making video even more attractive, this area is moving fast.

Stu, sounds like you have a pretty tight team, some of these other options might come into play when/if you scale.

By: conservatoriespriceuk

conservatoriespriceuk — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

great insight. especially useful for people who are really into outsourcing!

By: expertde

expertde — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

great tools for people working at distance.

By: gilbertmidonnet

gilbertmidonnet — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I work remotely as well and face much the same problems. I do NOT think telephone conference calls by themselves, especially when discussing a layout issue, are very effective. The only exception to this is if it is a very localized problem whose solution doesn’t have a spillover effect elsewhere on the page. What I’ve found to work very well is to upload the competing ideas and (this works best with multiple monitors) markup the competing designs. This can be slow but, in my experience, it tends to be deliberate and effective.

How is the markup done? Sometimes super-low tech: a print out is marked up, scanned and emailed/uploaded. A few reiterations – it’s a little slower than face to face – but as mentioned before often times which much more thought and deliberation.

As Patrick Stapleton mentioned Skype plus a Whiteboard would be ideal – but too often other issues interfere with this, the best of all scenarios. And, as you all know Google Wave, as interesting as it was is no longer. Too bad, it seemed promising.