Today’s post is a bit of a rant, and a bit of an etiquette note about meetings which involve groups of participants from different locations meeting either via teleconference or virtually online.
I was recently in a meeting which was conducted via teleconference and webinar and some of the behaviour in this meeting made me uncomfortable, as it has done so many times before in other situations. As such, I feel the need to express one lone underlying point about meetings which contain a combination of physical and virtual participants:
Just because someone is not physically in the room does not mean they are not “there” at your meeting. They are “there” online.
This means that behaviours that exclude virtual participants can range from confusing to plain rude.
Things like putting phones on mute to have conversations, passing notes, asking detailed questions of the person beside you while someone on the phone is speaking, checking your emails, taking other calls on your mobile and so on are not acceptable.
If you’re unsure of whether your actions may be off-putting, confusing or insulting during a meeting with virtual participants, ask yourself something like the following:
“If I were the virtual participant in this meeting and knew what was going on in the room, how would I feel?”
A final thought? Maybe if you’re so easily distracted from what’s going on it’s not a sign that you’re a <reader: insert your own slightly insulting word here>, maybe it’s a sign you’re bored and you don’t need to be in the meeting at all.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: business etiquette, business meeting, etiquette, meeting, meeting etiquette, netiquette, virtaul meeting, webinar
