Professional Etiquette for Videoconference Meetings and Conference Calls
A new baseline in professional expectations
All photos and screenshots by DJ Kaiser
With the ubiquity of Skype, FaceTime, and Facebook’s newer arrival with Portal, we are seeing a lot less of each other in person and mediating more of our face-to-face interactions through technology. Even Google has branded their group chats with video as Hangouts connoting that computer-mediated communications (CMCs) can replicate the casual coffee-shop interactions of a Friends episode.
These programs and devices are great for making calls home more personal and more importantly getting to see your dog when you are traveling halfway across the country or globe. But conference calls have become common in the workplace as teams are distributed geographically, new cross-country and international partnerships are being forged, and more companies are allowing people to work from home and telecommute.
Sometimes I am in a committee meeting with colleagues calling in from all four U.S. time zones, in addition to Argentina, Turkey, and Japan. Sometimes I videoconference in to provide professional development to a group of faculty in Thailand. Other times I am leading a series of videoconference interviews with potential faculty each…
