Communication

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TimStannard
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Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Communication

Post by TimStannard »

Prompted by some comments in the COVID-19 thread.

In response to comments about different ways of keeping in touch, I'm optimistic that this accellerated takeup of various technologies might also help accelerate the development of associated conventions and etiquette - although i do fear it will become worse before it gets better.

A problem I have, shared with many, is that with all these different means of communication I spend as much time trying to manage it as using it.

For example - I have several email accounts - a personal one, a business one, a "video business" one and several associated with diferent business/schools for whom I do work. Then there are various "chats" in Microsoft Teams associated with some of these accounts. Add to this many WhatsApp groups (some of which are different sub-sets of the Stannard extended family) and a couple of Facebook accounts (one for Staines Video Makers, one Personal) - and associated Facebook Messanger. SMS on my phone. If I don't respond to a message immediately, I know that I might spend an inordinate amount of time down the line, trying to find out on what platform and on what account I received the original. How often do I find myself in the position of "I know <whoever> told em the date/time of <whatever>" but can't find the relevant message.

As I say, hopefully we'll become better at dealing with all this, but I can understand why many people want little to do with it.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Communication

Post by Dave Watterson »

I share that problem, Tim.

Jan and I have been trying to standardise on Zoom. It works well and has the usual handy sidelines like a chat board and screen sharing. It also works on all systems.

If anyone want to start using it, Jan is a great resource and has talked lots of people through the set up process.
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TimStannard
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Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Communication

Post by TimStannard »

Dave Watterson wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:43 am Jan and I have been trying to standardise on Zoom. It works well and has the usual handy sidelines like a chat board and screen sharing. It also works on all systems.
Argghhhh ... yet another form of communication in which messages can get lost!

In all seriousness, we used it for an extended family quiz on Saturday and itr worked fine (apart from widespread panic when the 40mins were up and we all had to reconenct) and it's great for immediate interaction.

If you tell me details of UNICA 2021 on it, would I be able to find that six months down the line? (Yes, I realise that's not what it's intended for, but if we only communicated via one email account each, at least i'd know where to look for the info)

I have to say how incredibly impressed I am that the infrastructure for power and comms has stood up so well to the massive shift in emphasis from office to home and the accompanying massive increase in business traffic and in particular video streaming for both business and leisure. I realise there have been hiccups but I fully expected massive outages as surely the likes of Google, Microsoft, Apple, as well as all the smaller organisartion (like Zoon, Teamviewer etc) hadn't modelled for such a shift in demand. Perhaps they knew somethig we didn't (conspiracy theorists feel free to comment :D )
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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