Thank you Teams/Zoom/Skype, but I miss IRL so much.
I was collecting screenshots from the different meetings that I had during the first 2 weeks of COVID19 pandemic in the end of March 2020. I thought it will take only 2 weeks and then we will be back to meet IRL. I was so excited about making these screenshots because they were something extraordinary during a temporary situation. Only two weeks then we will be back. I met people who were happy, sad, depressed, energetic, positive, angry … different people with all kind of moods during these meetings. Sometimes I felt like I am a psychologist. I loved the part when people complained to me about the previous meetings that they had.
In the past weeks, we all read everywhere and specially here in Linkedin about
“HOW TO” have a great digital meeting?
“HOW TO” use the best tools in order to have the perfect digital meeting?
“HOW TO” maximize the outcome of a digital meeting?
Thanks for all the authors, really good advices and thanks for giving it and sharing it with us. But I miss a human being advises in the majority of those “HOW TO” articles and vloggs.
I want to share some take away messages that I missed in many of the “HOW TO” advices:
-It is fine to express our feelings and ask for help from a co worker digitally.
– It is fine to be ourselves, to be honest with the others and not fake our mood for a meeting. We will not have a good meeting if we fake our mood. It is not fair to ourselves, not fair to the our co workers and to the company. We will not gain something in the long run.
– Excuse and show more love to the other people who we meet. People have untold stories that we do not know about it. Especially now during COVID19. There are so many things happening behind the scenes.
– It is fine if we hear kids playing, eating, crying in the background. Children are also humans, just like us. It is fine to give some time to parents/caregivers to check kids.
– It is fine to give some time to people before starting a meeting to take some fresh ari, to go to WC, to check their phone etc.
– We should not push everyone to have a specific costume during a meeting. Sometimes it is not fun for everyone as how we think.
– It is fine to not to buy a super expensive microphone, a LED ring light, a fancy setup for laptop, an iPad for reading the chat and our notes. We just need to make sure that people see and hear us clearly.
In the end, do not forget that we are humans not robots.
I guess you have many stories as well. How about you? what is your take away from your digital meetings?
Mustafa Sherif 