What is it?
We can't go on meeting like this. But we will.
The software Microsoft promotes is called NetMeeting. Even if
you have a fast Internet connection, it's not quite ready for prime time. But it
will be. It will appear, reincarnated, as a retailer's shop, a professional's
office, a family reunion, a town hall, a game room, a museum, and a clubhouse.
It will be a classroom for that third-grader recovering from the mumps -- too
sick to be in school but too well to stay at home.
Online meetings won't replace face-to-face human interactions
all the time, any more than movies replaced live theater or algebra replaced
arithmetic or Einstein's physics replaced Newton's. Online meetings will replace
face-to-face meetings some of the time when we're too far away or too busy. It
probably won't be used much for cold-calling. But for ongoing relationships and
routine meetings, it will be faster, easier, and cheaper. Thus it will prevail.
Skills
managing
complex hard-to-use software with barely enough
bandwidth
overcoming
cognitive load so that you can concentrate on the
task at hand
participating
in meetings: business conferences, games, distance
learning, communities
Tools
Microsoft's NetMeeting, MSN Messenger, Hotmail account
microphone and video camera
NetMeeting
NetMeeting is software that runs on each participant's computer.
It has a lot of competitors, but since they all rely on a central server to
establish contact, the future is clearly with Webtop
services, which provide the same tools online through a browser.
NetMeeting is built into the Microsoft XP operating
system. Until then, it was a separate piece of software currently
in version 3.01. NetMeeting is a step up from instant messaging, a form of chat,
which shares typed text with one or more people synchronously (at the same time;
email is asynchronous). NetMeeting adds point-to-point audio and video, file
transfer, and shared whiteboards and programs.
Tip | If you are using Windows XP and NetMeeting
doesn't seem to be available, click Start, then Run, and enter Conf.
Best Bet ! NetMeeting:
How It Can Work for You
by Lara Thurman
Microsoft, March 21, 2000
This 50-minute video presentation will cover the basic usage
of Microsoft NetMeeting. The session will cover different calling methods as
well as an overview of available features.
Microsoft's Netmeeting section
Microsoft-sponsored NetMeeting
Zone
MeetingbyWire.com
NetMeetingHQ.com
Laura Schneider's Navigate Your
Way Around NetMeeting
Are you a current Microsoft NetMeeting user? If not do
you realize the capabilities and features that NetMeeting gives you? Many
companies and individuals are choosing NetMeeting over competing products,
because it offers the most comprehensive, manageable solution for real-time
communications and collaboration for use on the internet and company intranets.
Starting a NetMeeting session
Your computer can already play audio and video. If you want to
send audio, you may have a microphone built in. If not, one may have come
with your desktop PC. You can plug it into any desktop or laptop. You can also
get a headset, which will keep the conversation private and keep it from
intruding on anyone else's airspace.
If you want to send video, you will need a video camera.
The ones with USB connections are better than the ones with a parallel port
connection. Check your desktop or laptop; unless you purchased it within the
last two years, it probably doesn't have a USB port and even then, it may well
not have one.
step 1: Download and install MSN Messenger.
step 2: Get a Hotmail account and establish a list of
buddies.
step 3a: From NetMeeting, click on the name of an online
buddy in the Directory "Microsoft Internet Directory".
step 3b: From MSN Messenger, right-click on the name of an
online buddy and select Invite | To start NetMeeting ...
Then it's explore and discover time!
Netmeeting features and options
If you don't see exactly what's in the the screen shot below on
the left, pull down the View menu. You'll probably see a check mark next
to Compact. Un-check it.
If you hover your cursor over any of the ten buttons, a
tooltip should pop up to identify the feature.
On the right of the video window (which you can replace with a
dialpad in the View menu), you'll see three buttons, from top to bottom: Place
Call, End Call, Find Someone in Directory.
The row of three buttons in the middle will start and stop
video, adjust your video image size, and adjust your audio volume.
If you pull down the Tools menu, you'll have the same
four choices as the bottom row of four buttons: sharing program, chatting,
sharing a whiteboard, and transferring files directly between computers.
Pulling down the Tools menu, select Options. The General
tab asks for information that will be publicly available if you are going to
meet with strangers. If you're meeting only with friends and colleagues from the
offline world, I wouldn't worry about anything on the Security tab. On
the Audio tab, I would enable full duplex and automatic audio adjustment.
The Tuning Wizard might give you some insight into what's going on. I would also
adjust silence detection automatically.
The Video tab will let you adjust
video size and quality. They should call this a trade-off instead of an
adjustment. The larger and more sharply the video displays, the slower it
updates. For sharp video updating more than the 24 times per second that you
need to fool the eye into seeing smooth movement, you will have a very small
image, maybe postage stamp size. If you are willing to put up with some jerky
movement and fuzzy images, you can blow them up to a fairly large size. If you
move farther away, you'll probably still notice the jerkiness, but the fuzziness
won't bother you as much.
The screenshot above on the right shows NetMeeting in action.
The whiteboard is in the back and the accompanying text chat is on top of it
with the blue, brown, and green text. The left-hand box on the top shows the
original MSN chat connection. The right-hand box on the top is ready for video
and shows the two users, Jason and Michael, who are participating in the current
NetMeeting.
Tips
Preview
your video; adjust your camera. You can't have enough light in the room. More,
more, more!
Turn
off unnecessary background sounds and use plain monochrome backgrounds.
Turn
off your microphone when you aren't talking (checkbox next to microphone icon).
Cognitive load
It's too hard. It's not as good as face-to-face.
The psychologists give it a neutral-sounding turn of phrase: The
cognitive load is too high. About video conferencing, we would say that it is
too different and the mental adjustment is a lot harder than the technical
adjustment. We don't want to change, so we blame the tool for being too hard to
use and for being different.
Working Memory and
Cognitive Load
by Sam J. Horodezky
People commonly justify their strong aversion to computers
by saying that 'they don't think like that' or that they are flat out petrified
of technology. But the problem seems to be more than an emotional reaction to
computers. I would theorize that what is going here is another form of cognitive
overload, and that some forms of technophobia stem from what is actually a
particular case of a more general cognitive phenomena.
We long ago made adjustments to face-to-face meetings. We know
that it's rude to stare at certain parts of other people's bodies. We negotiate
direct eye contact. We read and send three-dimensional head-to-toe body
language. There's cognitive load there, but we deal with it.
Then we go to video conferencing. We have the computer to deal
with, first and foremost. We have the low bandwidth, which restricts our ability
to send nonverbal information. The extra cognitive load of dealing with the
technology produces a new set of stresses and anxieties on top of the meeting's
purpose, whether business or fun.
This page is not the place to address cognitive load beyond
encouraging you to recognize that it's inevitable and not to project your mental
stress onto the tool itself. Only then can you begin to reduce the load.
Other meeting software
Learn more at the Toolkit's Business Media
video page or the Showroom's
streaming media page.
Business Video Conferencing
HelpMeeting.com's demo
Vuechat - VCC (Vuecam
Communication Software)
A handy software that alerts you when any of your friends
are online, and you can talk to them via the internet, ON VIDEO REALTIME!
It's the first IM/Chat program integrating streaming videos, involving webcams.
By adding your friends' login names to your contact list, you can talk to and
see your friend chat simultaneously.
Conflab.com - your private
Internet voice communication centre
You can talk directly with your friends, family and
associates online; Use video to see each other; Transfer files directly that are
too big to e-mail; Use text-only Chat, or share a white board across the world,
all from your private Conflab Homepage.
Smith Micro's VideoLink
Pro
video conferencing, ... video mail, motion detection, and
answering machine functions.
Chordiant's Collaborative Connect
- Maximizing the effectiveness of your Web-based services
What if you could enable agents to see what your customers
see? Answer their questions in real time, push informative Web pages to them,
walk them through Web-based forms or even complete online requests for them?
You’d reduce your abandonment rate to near zero and close more online sales.
MailingBuilder
Feedbackchat
Games
Multiplayer Online Games
Directory
Game Loft -
for interactive TV multiplayer games
Distance Learning
Masie Center
Communities
MyFamily
CUseeMe, the original
Telepresence
Regardless, you have some questions to start thinking about. How
do you come across visually and orally in an online meeting? How do you play to
the camera? What are reasonable expectations of others?
While this Toolkit section will emphasize the software, two
other issues soon arise.
writing
clearly and quickly
developing
a telepresence appropriate
to business
Meetings
