Guest Post: Nitin Grewal

Nitin is one of Chris' Summer 2010 Professional Speaking students. This is his second guest post. Here he writes about virtual communication.

Today I had my exit interview, the outcome of resignation from the company. I am happy to be out of professional world and be a student again. In the interview I was asked about my team members. I was speechless for a while, searching for an answer. I did not know a single person of my team personally. I was working on-site and those members were just a voice over the telephone or a folder name in my mailbox. The culprit was virtual communication.
So what is virtual communication? Let’s try to answer that. Theoretically speaking, it is a method of transferring information to a distant location. Virtual communication is possible due to extensive improvement of technology. Now I attend a lecture and even earn a degree without going through the hassles of waking up early in the morning. The development of virtual communication tools has flattened the world, bringing people close to each other.

There are different aspects of communicating virtually – internet telephones, instant messaging, and video conferencing. Virtual communication has its own advantages. Now we do not have to drive to the office at 5am to attend a meeting with a team in different time zone. This mode naturally saves time, effort, and is also cost effective. We can share information via email to a person halfway round the world in a matter of minutes. Through virtual communication we are able to share desktops and files, which are much needed in today’s competitive world to work collaboratively. Today, keeping up with your family is possible merely by means of a few clicks. Besides education and the business world, the medical field is using these tools for training and knowledge transfer. Virtual communication helps us in communicating across time and distance. It increases the potential for hiring highly-skilled experts.

Every coin has two sides, and so does virtual communication. Some experts have reservations about virtual communication. In the effectiveness of presenting of an idea, verbal clues amount to only 7%, while the rest is attained through visual clues. In some of the tools of virtual communication this crucial effect of the visual clue is missing. Research indicates that as proximity among team members decreases, the level of teamwork decreases. In the virtual world there is no bonding and trust present in the team, which directly affects the team work. There is limitation of instant feedback and interruption; hence there is a high risk of the information being misunderstood. Also, virtual communication requires high setup and maintenance costs.

Extensive research is being conducted to overcome the shortcomings of virtual communication and Hologram reporting, in which the image of a person is transferred to another place, is being considered as an alternative. This technology might provide us a combination of virtual and real communication. But being in the initial stage, we have to wait for actual results. For today’s business world, I would recommend a mixed approach of face-to-face plus virtual communication. In the beginning, face-to-face meetings are imperative to build up a team environment, and then one can proceed to virtual communication and use the technology to cut down on stress and traveling.

Bibliography
http://www.leadingvirtually.com/?p=53