How Can Interactive Web Conferencing Be More Productive?
Have you ever seen a poorly written email that got misinterpreted?
Has an email you've written ever led to an incorrect response or caused an emotional reaction?
And caused tension for days before you even noticed?
Then interactive web conferencing can make communication more efficient.
For example...
You receive an email from someone in your organization asking if you would be willing to support a proposal for a new project.
You think the project is a great idea and want to participate in it. But you need additional details and more specifics on what is being requested of you. Plus, you'd like to inform the person that you'll need to submit a budget and get it approved before you can proceed.
Sounds straightforward, right? You'll just send a reply stating these points.
But you're in a hurry because you were out of the office yesterday and are behind in your emails. So you're playing catch-up by replying to emails via your PDA during a meeting.
You have hundreds of messages in your Inbox and you need to get through your responses as quickly as possible.
You notice that the distribution list on this particular email has twelve people on it. Since you're just getting clarification on the request, you'd like to respond only to just the original sender plus three members of your staff that may help with the project.
But since you're using your PDA, it's time consuming to reduce the distribution list. So you decide to hit the REPLY ALL button assuming that the eight people who really don't need the information in your response will just delete it.
You want to get your response out quickly to get to your other remaining emails, so you type the following in on your PDA:
Wow! What r u asking 4? Give me a plan - no resources or $$ w/out this.
The problem is that the person receiving your message (and some of the 8 of the other 11 on the distribution list) interprets your response as:
"Wow! How can you ask me for something like this? And you're asking me without any detailed plan? You think I'm going to give you people or funding without a plan?!?"
So instead of the interested, supportive, willing-to-help person that you really are, you are seen as a rude, terse, resistive, and judgmental person.
Email is an excellent tool for many situations, but it's often overused and misused resulting in significant productivity losses and communication breakdowns.
Not to mention a waste of time!
Having a face-to-face conversation is much more productive.
See how affordable interactive web conferencing can be...
Conversation is the quickest and most effective way to clarify any uncertainty and allows for visual and verbal clues, such as voice tone, facial expressions, and body language, to be used to explain your message.
So there's less room for error.
Dialogue can also help to diffuse any misunderstandings or improper reactions and can uncover new information that is valuable to the situation.
Let's compare face to face interactive web conferencing with other types of communication.
Can you see why communication effectiveness may decline as fewer cues are available to help understand what's being said?
Here Are 6 Situations Where Interactive Video Conferencing Is Most Effective:
1) Conflict resolution: Avoid long threads of public arguments and drawn-out emotional strife.
2) Reprimanding: Otherwise the recipient feels like they were "convicted without a trial."
3) Brainstorming or Problem Solving: Create immediate two-way communication and feedback
4) Messages that may cause strong emotional reaction: Deliver your message with empathy in an interactive web conference. If an adverse reaction occurs, address it immediately instead of days or weeks later. Or worse, not realizing it caused a negative reaction.
5) Group Decisions: Get valuable and pertinent information from a group discussion to make the best decision.
6) Important Negotiations: It's very difficult to break down someone's concerns or read their immediate reaction without direct interaction. Also, once the recipient "publicly refuses" a request over email, it is more difficult to persuade them to change his or her position.
Also...if in doubt...talk it out!
Here Are 12 Reasons to Hold an Interactive Web Conference:
1. When you are mad or emotional.
2. When the other person is mad or emotional.
3. When there is a conflict on an item.
4. When you need to convince someone to change his or her position.
5. When you aren't sure that others will interpret your email properly.
6. When someone sends you an email that seems out of character for him or her.
7. When you aren't sure how to interpret someone else's email.
8. When someone asks you something ambiguous or general over email.
9. When you believe repeated two-way dialogue or lengthy explanation is required.
10. When you are concerned how the other person may respond and want to address his or her response immediately.
11. When many people need to provide repeated input into an issue.
12. When the tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, etc. will add value to communicating or understanding an issue. For example, you may want to express concern, show empathy or get an immediate read on the other person's reaction.
It only takes 2 minutes to set up an interactive web conference on the fly with VideoLive Conferences.
Why not get started today?
Interactive web conferencing will help you to be more productive, build stronger relationships, and not get bogged down with email drama.
