A review of Skype

14 February

We used Skype for the first time today to have another team meeting. It is brilliant, but for those of you using Skype, you may relate with the frustrations we felt as well!?

Our difficulties lay with the Video Conference facility. The first issue was that some members needed to download the most up-to-date version of Skype – version 5.0 – in order to use the facility. Unfortunately, one team member’s computer crashed when she tried to do this and we lost her from the meeting (her internet connection had actually caused some difficulties in test calls before the meeting so it appears that a strong internet connection is vital for the smooth operation of Skype video calls). The second issue was that another team member had problems hearing us because of the background noise in the room she was in so she needed to find a quiet room in which to talk. When she resettled, we were not able to actually see her (but could hear her voice). I’m not sure why this happened – it may have something to do with the settings in Skype which just need tweaked.

Lucky we had Chat tools to back us up while all of this was going on…!

In my last blog, I addressed that I wanted to specifically assess the following:

• the sound quality of the conference call – it was excellent.
• if team members are comfortable using it to interact – everyone seemed to be.
• if team members speak in turn and not over each other – yes they did. It was just like communicating as if we were in the same room.
• if the connection and quality is good and consistent – the connection was good except for one team member’s computer crashing (which resulted in her not being able to attend the meeting).
• if we need to use the other tools/features, provided by Skype, for the discussion. And if so, if these tools are effective for their purposes – we used the Chat tools feature briefly and it was fine (in fact it was a life saver when some team members were having problems connecting to the video call). We didn’t need to use the other tools.
• if it is successful for resolving any issues and moving forward in our project (some of the articles on this subject mention how it is particularly effective for problem solving and negotiation in teams) – yes, we were able to discuss any issues much faster than if we were using Chat tools or other forms of technology.
• if body language has an effect on the interactions, i.e. whether you can see it clearly on webcams and if it helps (this is largely subjective but interesting all the same) – it was great to be able to see each other – I felt it added a personal element to the interaction. Although, we were not able to see one team member which made it difficult to know if she was there or not (especially when she was listening to the conversation).

After we discussed the report, we chatted casually about Ireland and America. I imagine this is what the literature terms as ‘socio-emotional communication’ – the type of communication that builds rapport. I am not sure if it did not but it added a bit of fun to the communication in my opinion.

We used both Pamela and Audacity to record the meeting. However, we had some problems with Pamela and were relieved that we had Audacity to back up the recording. Use Audacity!