Thursday March 03, 2005

A conference call with a Twist

Last night we had a call with my manager and his staff. We normally all dial into a preset conference call number which is setup for the call. I use the same facility for my phone call with my European staff every week.

This time it was different; we used meeting technology from the SunLabs folks . It is really cool. You launch a java program, make sure your number is in the tool and join the meeting that you have created or been told about ( you can search for meetings or people) A popup window lists the folks in the call and when you speak an audio wave appears by your name. This helps you know who is talking. Muted folks show up with a red bar around them. A short while after you press join your phone rings and you then press '1' to join the call. The name of the meeting appears on your phone's display. No long numbers and PIN numbers to remember and forget

With the tool you can do 'text chat' with individuals or the group and also share documents on the fly between the folks on the call. So you can have private conversations before speaking in public. "Should I tell them about..." There are loads of other features I have yet to find.

I am sure other similar solutions are out there but its nice to be using something written by Sun that replaces the old technology conference call. It also seems a more personal experience for me. I intend to migrate my own use of a conference call to use this exciting new technology.

Communications

Many years ago when I managed a global team I felt that communication was not as it should be. A few people said "he doesn't reply to my emails" or "never answers the phone". So we got together on a conference call to discuss it. I set the ground rules for the conference call first, to give it some structure.

It was very clear to me as the call progressed that each of us has personal preferences in communication as you would expect, as we are all different. No ones preferences are better than anyone elses. My preferences are simple.

If the phone rings I will answer it unless I am already on the phone or during a one on one.

If you send me an email I will answer very quickly - if I cannot I'll email you and tell you so.

I don't like people wasting my time. I like quick simple questions and to the point. I am not the sort of person who has long tiresome conversations about things. I like things to be kept short and to the point.

So the conference call progressed with everyone's preferences being revealed. At the end of it I felt we all understood each other better and communication improved. I also learnt what my people wanted/liked in staff conference calls.

As an aside one morning we had some urgent stuff to do in the lab. I knew pretty well that if I sent an email to lab folks that by the time they got to my email it would be too late. We were also not using an instant messenger at the time. Also some of the students have mobiles that do not work in this building. So my simple solution was to get a box put a piece of paper on it with the words " please come into the lab as soon as you get in". Steve White said to me later "we have email , voicemail and now we have tripmail". What he meant by that is I left the box in the middle of the lab folks office 'cube area' so they could not fail to see it. Low tech but it worked.