Comments on: The Emergence of E-Schmooze http://www.hardingco.com/blog/2010/02/01/the-emergence-of-e-schmooze/ Mimi Spangler's Blog on Rainmaking and Business Development Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:48:43 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Ford Harding http://www.hardingco.com/blog/2010/02/01/the-emergence-of-e-schmooze/comment-page-1/#comment-37160 Ford Harding Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:49:18 +0000 http://www.hardingco.com/blog/?p=628#comment-37160 Marc: Many thanks for this historical insight and the additions to our thoughts about e-schmoozing. The picture of what it is and how it works gets clearer. Ford Harding and Mimi Spangler Marc:

Many thanks for this historical insight and the additions to our thoughts about e-schmoozing. The picture of what it is and how it works gets clearer.

Ford Harding and Mimi Spangler

]]> By: Marc Sokol http://www.hardingco.com/blog/2010/02/01/the-emergence-of-e-schmooze/comment-page-1/#comment-37159 Marc Sokol Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:32:00 +0000 http://www.hardingco.com/blog/?p=628#comment-37159 Great set of observations. Almost 25 years ago, while working for Bell Laboratories, one of my "human factors" projects was to figure out why people were not using video conferencing as expected by the designers of that technology. It wasn't just that the bandwidth of transmission was much lower then (so much so that if you moved to quickly, you would get 'trails' of colors - very trippy, but not much of an incentive for real communication). What was far more of a barrier was the loss of the schmooze factor (we even called it that) -- Any manager who saw value in MBWA - managing by walking around -- would find the video technology of that time too restrictive, especially since it still wasn't desktop enabled as we have today. Certainly with global video conferencing we have learned to warm up with lighter discussions of differences in weather, etc. Most webinar technology now allows individual chats between participants on the webinar. The combination of IM, LinkedIn discussion groups, twitter, being able to work on multiple windows at once (so an IM window can stay open as you work), along with easy video all combine to create a better capacity for e-schmoozing than ever before. Great set of observations. Almost 25 years ago, while working for Bell Laboratories, one of my “human factors” projects was to figure out why people were not using video conferencing as expected by the designers of that technology. It wasn’t just that the bandwidth of transmission was much lower then (so much so that if you moved to quickly, you would get ‘trails’ of colors – very trippy, but not much of an incentive for real communication).

What was far more of a barrier was the loss of the schmooze factor (we even called it that) — Any manager who saw value in MBWA – managing by walking around — would find the video technology of that time too restrictive, especially since it still wasn’t desktop enabled as we have today. Certainly with global video conferencing we have learned to warm up with lighter discussions of differences in weather, etc.

Most webinar technology now allows individual chats between participants on the webinar. The combination of IM, LinkedIn discussion groups, twitter, being able to work on multiple windows at once (so an IM window can stay open as you work), along with easy video all combine to create a better capacity for e-schmoozing than ever before.

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