The Prepared Mind Discussion about designing human interaction.

This past September, when my wife was in Germany visiting her family, we really used videoconferencing for the first time in any real fashion. She and I had both just recently upgraded to a Macbook and Macbook pro, respectively, and both our laptops now have built-in iSight.

Since she was taking her laptop to Germany with her, we figured, why spend all that money on long distance calls when we could now see each other while chatting? WE LOVED IT!!!!

I could show her our doggies over the web cam. My in-laws could come into the room and say “hi” (or in their case, “hallo”). And the mundane daily telephone call was livened up by being able to see your loved one face to face. It really did make it feel like we weren’t so far away from each other, even though we were 4,000 miles apart.

So of course I started asking, why don’t we do this more with our clients? Some of our clients are very much into the whole video conferencing thing. In the past, I was loathe to appear on screen having not shaved or while still wearing my sweats. But those are really silly reasons, as it doesn’t take much time to put on different shirt. And who cares if I shaved that morning or not?

I love the idea of being able to “be there” even when I can’t necessarily. We have made a concentrated effort to give more “face time” to our clients this year but with today’s technology, just because I can’t make it into the office doesn’t mean I can’t “see” a client.

This, of course, got me thinking about the possibilities of remote collaboration. Like many of you, there are vendors and clients I deal with exclusively over the web. Many I have never seen and would not know if they bumped into me on the street. While so far these relationships have worked out well, I can’t say it wouldn’t make me feel a bit better sometimes to be able to see the face of someone I’m dealing with.

.chris{}