đč 3 reasons why âvideo onâ is more effective than âvideo offâ
Itâs Wednesday and weâre back! A quick note before getting started - there will be no letter next week as we head into the holidays. Thank you so much to everyone who signed up for this letter and our remote email course. Itâs incredible to see so many eager folks ready to learn and grow as a remote employee, founder, freelancer, or maker. As we head into the new year remember to reflect on your learnings and growth this year. I canât wait to share with you what Remote Newbie 2020 will offer!
Now back to our regularly scheduled letterâŠ.Todayâs hand-picked article is from the Outklip blog featuring an interview with Outklip CEO, Sunil Kowgli and the co-founder and CEO of Gitlab, Sid Sijbrandij. In this piece, they talked a ton about running a distributed team as well as the importance of using video in team meetings and 1:1s.
Letâs dive inâŠ
Iâm a big fan of Gitlabâs remote work transparency and its focus on documenting literally everything. Within their culture and remote team processes lives remote team collaboration. And a big piece of that is chatting on Slack but another huge portion of collaboration is incorporating meetings. I know, I know, we all love meetings. Hear me out.
In an office environment, weâre used to having impromptu meetings in the form of walking up to the Sales Lead and talking for 10 mins. to quickly resolve an issue. Otherwise, youâre coordinating conference room chats with the rest of your 9-5 pm co-workers.
NowâŠletâs switch to a distributed team. Gone are the drive-by meetings and guess what? Coordinating meetings just becomes 10x more difficult. On top of that conversations are happening over chat or quick conference call.
The big piece that many teams and people transitioning to remote have to get used to is turning on your webcam in meetings.
Here are 3 reasons why âvideo onâ is more effective than âvideo offâ
01. Itâs unclear who youâre talking to.
Sid was asked by Outklipâs CEO what their usage of video conferencing vs. phone calls was. Sid said that phone calls never happen with customers and for good reasonâŠ
Yeah, itâs unclear whoâs speaking, you canât see non-verbal communication, itâs hard to share something and we use screen sharing a lot.Â
02. When providing feedback to a co-worker itâs usually better received.
Feedback is definitely hard to give and even harder to receive. So, sharing that feedback via a video call where you can see the body language, the facial expression of your co-worker or employee upon receiving your piece of negative feedback allows for a better response.
03. Itâs the secret sauce to building trust and rapport.
In an office environment, itâs easy to take for granted the benefits of seeing your co-worker as youâre talking through a difficult technical bug or leading a presentation about an upcoming feature release or even casually chatting about the vacation youâll be taking in a week. When youâre having a conversation over video it almost feels like youâre face to face. When so much of working remotely is asynchronous being open to hopping on a call with video on bridges that missing or lack of human connection with your team.
đĄTakeaways
Itâs simple. Video on. As much as you can. When you can.
Itâs also totally okay to have video off, sometimes. At times Iâm in a meeting and I donât feel too well or Iâm having a quick bite to eat and I do turn my video off. Or Iâm calling in because Iâm about to board a flight. And thatâs a-okay.
Transitioning to remote work and find video a little uncomfortable? Start looping in as many 1:1 video calls with friends, family, etc. The more you practice the easier it becomes to turn your video on in work meetings.
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đč Tool Share Corner
Speaking of video - Iâm excited to share with you a neat tool for video communication and collaboration, introducing team.video.
Iâve asked their team to share a quick blurb about what you can do with the tool, here it is đ
Hey Remote Newbies! We've been working on a video collaboration tool for remote teams and would love your feedback. With team.video, you can work together on collaborative notes and agendas, share feedback in real-time with virtual expressions, and assemble and work in dedicated project rooms. Try it with your team at team.video/welcome and let us know what you think!
đSee everyone next week! As always hit âreplyâ if you have any questions.
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