Re:Running a Business With Staff Scattered Around the World
by JoeAltmaier on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:13PM
(#4484808)
We're distributed across the US. Easier to solve, but still timezone problems. West coast, Midwest mostly. Sometimes folks in the field e.g. Japan, Hong Kong. 75 people in the company.
We're Sococo, and we eat our own dogfood. From the day audio streams came up for Alpha test, we abandoned other tools and have made ourselves live with Teamspace. From the coders to the CEO, we inhabit several virtual spaces by team.
It solves some of the issues brought up here. The presence information is tremendous, making it possible to see who's talking with whom, when a meeting or standup is starting, what they're doing. Yesterday we had an all-hands, the whole company. Half are in Mt View CA, the rest distributed.
I didn't know where the meeting would be (which virtual room) so I looked at the map, saw folks congregating in a big meeting room and clicked in. Spookily similar to what happens when physically present - you follow the crowd.
Anyway we had everybody on video (in groups, so 7 or 8 thumbnails); switched our map between Mt View video, shared docs and shared screens as the presentations went on.
Q&A was very interesting. It was actually easier to follow questions from other virtual participants - they all have their own mic, so everybody could hear the questions. Folks physically present were just some mumbling from the back of the room in Mt View; the speaker would forget to repeat the question half the time.
I cannot emphasize enough how much immediate and present you feel in a virtual tool like this. I actually feel anxious when I have to participate in a conference call or talk to somebody on a phone - the experience is so crappy and disconnected. Instead I 'call out' from a virtual space. At least then I can collaborate with my team while interviewing somebody, or talking through a customer problem. I can add a virtual participant into the call with a click. I can leave the call for a moment, get an answer from an Engineer, get back to the customer transparently.
Sorry for the gushing. Its hard to explain how different it is to be virtual without sounding like an advertisement. Anyway, there are definitely many tools out there to help with the distributed-team problem. And now some are integrated complete solutions, which is a whole new ballgame.
We're Sococo, and we eat our own dogfood. From the day audio streams came up for Alpha test, we abandoned other tools and have made ourselves live with Teamspace. From the coders to the CEO, we inhabit several virtual spaces by team.
It solves some of the issues brought up here. The presence information is tremendous, making it possible to see who's talking with whom, when a meeting or standup is starting, what they're doing. Yesterday we had an all-hands, the whole company. Half are in Mt View CA, the rest distributed. I didn't know where the meeting would be (which virtual room) so I looked at the map, saw folks congregating in a big meeting room and clicked in. Spookily similar to what happens when physically present - you follow the crowd.
Anyway we had everybody on video (in groups, so 7 or 8 thumbnails); switched our map between Mt View video, shared docs and shared screens as the presentations went on.
Q&A was very interesting. It was actually easier to follow questions from other virtual participants - they all have their own mic, so everybody could hear the questions. Folks physically present were just some mumbling from the back of the room in Mt View; the speaker would forget to repeat the question half the time.
I cannot emphasize enough how much immediate and present you feel in a virtual tool like this. I actually feel anxious when I have to participate in a conference call or talk to somebody on a phone - the experience is so crappy and disconnected. Instead I 'call out' from a virtual space. At least then I can collaborate with my team while interviewing somebody, or talking through a customer problem. I can add a virtual participant into the call with a click. I can leave the call for a moment, get an answer from an Engineer, get back to the customer transparently.
Sorry for the gushing. Its hard to explain how different it is to be virtual without sounding like an advertisement. Anyway, there are definitely many tools out there to help with the distributed-team problem. And now some are integrated complete solutions, which is a whole new ballgame.