
Have you had a videoconference collaboration fail because you couldn’t nail a time and date?
Have you ever participated in an email exchange that went like this?
Email: “Hey, when do you want to do our videoconference?”
Reply: “I can do it anytime.”
Reply: “How about Monday?”
Reply: “Sure, what time?”
Reply: “10:05-10:45 is best for me”
Reply: “Ok that works for me. ”
Later reply: “Oh what time zone are you in?”
Reply: “EST”
Reply: “Oops that’s 8:05 my time. I can’t do that time. My kids aren’t in school by then.”
9 emails later. Now you have to start ALL OVER again! In the meantime, a week has gone by and you’re past the curriculum that you wanted to cover in this videoconference, so you decide not to do it.
How about this exchange instead?
Email: “Hey, when do you want to do our videoconference? I could do any Monday between 10:00-12:00 EST (my time) / 8:00-10:00 MST (your time)? I’d like to do it before December 8 if possible. Can you fit that in your schedule?
Reply: “Sure, I can do Nov. 23 at 9:00 MST / 11:00 EST for an hour.”
How many emails do YOU want to spend negotiating the time and date for your VC?
Take the initiative and suggest some dates & times!!!
A nice web tool to use, especially if you have multiple sites, is http://doodle.com/ . Doodle provides an easy way to poll multiple people for available dates and times. It’ll even use the local time for each participant.
Great tip – thanks Craig!!