Getting The Wires Crossed

As I have posted about several times now, communication and collaboration are two of the biggest challenges to telecommuting. On a recent conference call, these two challenges became very clear.In a discussion about an assessment process, we came to a point where I disagreed with a few members of the group. Once I expressed my thoughts, and the appropriate time of “group reflection” passed, the conversation continued as if I had said nothing. The observation I made was this: Telecommuters face an up-hill battle when it comes to winning boardroom confrontations, especially in work cultures or with peers not fully accepting of the situation. Where as in a face-to-face meeting you can stand your ground or use your physical posturing to influence the outcomes, the phone is just a little box that crackles to life every so often.

On a much larger scale, this scenario plays out to be very important to the impact telecommuting can have on higher education. If colleges distribute their workforce and only those who are on site weld the real power and influence, those who are forward thinking enough to successfully work remotely will have reduced influence on the institution. Even if the telecommuters can attend the meetings, they lose out because they do not have “boots on the ground” at the campus. As for faculty, this issue is extremely important because it dilutes their input on the operations of the college, a common complaint of faculty who are already on site.

A solution to the phone call show down is video conferencing. Unfortunately, my college does not have the bandwidth to support a two-hour video conference, but there are plans to change that. Currently, when the video conferencing fails to perform it only further taints the opinion of telecommuting to some on campus staff.

First Visit Back To Campus

I had to travel back to the college for a presentation of the Workforce Preparedness Inventory (WPI) to the Board of Trustees during their annual strategic planning retreat (Covered in the next post). The trip allowed me to not only talk to my peers face-to-face about how they felt about my work situation.
All of my peers commented their only negative comment would be the phone calls that are sometimes dropped due to bandwidth. Otherwise, most said they could not tell the difference from me working off-site. During my trip down, I reflected on the communication pattern discussed in my post Keeping in Touch - Is there anybody out there? where there are different levels of courteousness based on the communication medium.

What I have noticed are these levels, ranked from highest to lowest, of inter-personal communication and the corresponding attributes, benefits, and complications.

Face-to-Face
Attributes: Participants are in close physical proximity to one another. Offers the best opportunity for communication because they must survive the encounter (get out of the room) with each other’s ego intact.

Benefits: Participants are very aware of the other’s body language, mood, and attention.

Complications: The physical meeting has a separate layer of thinking where the individual is trying to maintain decorum appropriate for the conversation. This monitoring may alter the conversation in order to ease or expedite the end of the meeting (i.e. make it out of the room).

Phone Conversation
Attributes: Much like a face-to-face meeting, but facilitated over the telephone.

Benefits: Location of the conversation can be in a neutral or more comfortable location for both participants.

Complications: Participants are less formal and congenial. Without body or environmental langue to assist in the conversation, some context or meaning may be lost. Because the reaction cannot be measured, there is also less attention to framing the conversation towards more positive “feeling” reactions. Participants are less personable.

Email/Memo Correspondence
Attributes: Written communication via email or physical means.

Benefits: Email- Instant delivery of message. Memo and Email- Clear communication of reason for communiqué. Reader can interpret the message and respond accordingly.

Complications: Communication is one sided. Sender does not have to have any concern for recipient’s response to reading the message. Messages can be ignored or not opened. Messages can be short and quickly written; therefore lacking in the proper format for concern over the contextual interpretation of the message.

Instant Messaging
Attributes: Quick, information specific conversations using a messaging client of some type.

Benefits: Quick communication from almost any location with a variety of devices.

Complications: Instant messaging has an anagram language not know to everyone. This format also is the most impersonal form due to the quick nature of the conversation, which may or may not be performed during other work or social events.

Of course, none of this is backed up by any research; these are just my observations on the different forms of communication available in the workplace.

Multi-Tasking vs. Multi-Threading

It used to be, the way we were encouraged to take on our jobs was via multi-tasking: switching from one thing to the next when our attention was diverted so that everything got attention… and we were busy as can be. This work style lends to piling on work, moderately giving attention to each new thing while old work is sifted to the bottom of the pile. At the end of the day, I really felt unfulfilled with my progress on projects because I was never paying total attention to anything.

Enter multi-threading: focused time and energy to one task, with a set queue for other items. I have split up my day into the three major tasks of my job: Data Mining, SACS committee work, and the Workforce Preparedness Application. By focusing on one job aspect at a time, I have found myself to be more productive, positive about the tasks, and objective about what I can accomplish in a day.

Of course, this schedule is not for every day. I still have to attend meetings and produce emergency "ad-hoc" data and reports, but having this to help me on days where I feel aimless is very beneficial. Before telecommuting, my days were intersected with drop-in meetings, coffee machine talks, and post-meeting data requests. Without these normal "ticks" to break up my work activity, having a set schedule for work keeps me on task without allowing me to spend all day on a problem that could be solved with a good night's sleep and an fresh set of eyes.

A brief Google on the idea of multi-threading reveals it to be descriptive of the "Nonlinear New Student":

The new students perceive text-based, visual, and multithreaded multimedia "as a single entity" ("monomedia"), and they need an "Integrated Environment" including "Multi-threaded stream of discourse". http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~x28/en/36.htm

To summarize: Blame it on Nintendo. The gaming culture, of which I am a part of, has conditioned me to think on several levels simultaneously, but to see them as one experience branching off as needed. As applied to my work ethic, my goal- completion of my daily tasks, is accomplished by direct attention in lieu of broadcasting or multi-tasking.

Closed Daycare

One of the unique things about working from home is being available to be home, work, and watch over the kids when the daycare is closed or one of them are sick. While in theory this sounds like a great idea, in application it becomes much more difficult. Small children, which I have two of, require attention on a regular basis. My children are accustomed to attention by both parents, all of the time. The challenge to me is communicating to a 3 1/2 year and an 18 month old that dad does care about them- but he must be at the computer most of the day for his job; and when the phone rings it is not Mommy, but dad's work friends that really do not have a need to talk about Elmo.

What is fortunate about my telecommuting situation is I normally have long stretches where no one calls or I am simply writing a query or report- things that I can at do or at least think about while changing diapers or fetching juice.


The biggest downside, to me, is resorting to the TV nanny for the majority of the day. Thankfully, my boys like the commercial-free PBS kid’s channel- I can convince myself they are learning something in-between the occasional fighting over toys and dad's attention. We are all learning