“Showing We’re a Team”: Relating and Acting in Online/Offline Hybrid Organizational Meetings

• In Event: Employing Local Strategies Research to Understand the User Experience (UX)

Abstract

Organizations require software designed to foster relationships between members of the organization and to accomplish the activities that are inherent to the practice. This pre-recorded presentation will describe telecommuting research conducted during an eighteen-month period between 2012 and 2014. The analyses focused on recorded meetings attended via video-conferencing software. The meetings are said to "show we're a team," through pre- and post-meeting talk as well as side conversations between members meeting offline. Members meeting online do not participate in pre- and post-meeting talk or side conversations. Considering the differences between online and offline experiences of meetings and the actions that are expected to occur during meetings provides insight that is valuable to software designers.
Further insight that would provide information for designers can be found through how technology affects the relationships between organizational members during online/offline hybrid meetings. The presentation will conclude with suggestions about possible modifications that can be made to video-conferencing software in order to better accommodate viewing all members and enhance team member engagement.

Author

• Katherine Rose Peters, U of Colorado - Boulder