Monday, February 8, 2010

Technology and culture

I've recently been aware of a minor conundrum that technology has introduced into my communication with my staff. I have staff located around the world and we use personal video systems during regular 1:1's. My challenge is maintaining eye contact during our conversations. It is such a strong cultural norm in western cultures to look someone in the eye when talking. Unfortunately, if you look into someone's eyes on the video display, you CANNOT look into the camera so it appears you are not really maintaining eye contact. What do we do?
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2 comments:

  1. P.DFebruary 8, 2010 at 9:48 AM

    Hey Mike,

    I webcam with my friend from Singapore quite often and I have the same problem you do. Since ofcourse ours is a very informal conversation it doesn't matter, but I think looking at the person as they are speaking gives you a better sense of one on one communication rather than looking straight into the webcam. This way you are able to look and decipher the facial expressions of the person which might sometimes say more than words.

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  2. Jalpa DoshiFebruary 13, 2010 at 7:06 PM

    Thanks Liz for posting this..It was a very good read:)

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