‘It’s good to talk’ is an aphorism beloved by marketeers the world over. Monopods are mythological humanoid creatures with a single leg and a very large foot, found in ancient Greek and Roman folklore.
So which is best? Well the monopod, ok I really mean monologue(r) is not so mythical when they hold forth in an online meeting, we’ve all met them, seen them and some of us are even related to them, but the thing is it really is good to talk sometimes.
Now we admit that sometimes a monologuer is a necessary evil – say a lecture/presentation or a ‘town hall’ event where one person is supposed to bang on for ages and we are supposed to listen for ages. But in many online meetings it truly is important to listen to all the voices, not just stand there on your big single foot and project your opinions.
The canary writing this post knows well that he can sometimes be a monologuer. I just have lots of words that I want to say sometimes, okay? So how can Meeting Canary help?
In a real meeting there are lots of ways that you can subtly let someone know you want a turn, shuffling papers, yawning, looking away from the speaker, feigning a heart attack – these all work well, but in a world where your very person is diminished to a tiny rectangle on a glass screen those techniques don’t work so well. The heart attack ploy just looks like you had a office chair malfunction.
So our approach is twofold, the ‘side panel’ we provide has a series of horizontal bars against each person in the meeting – those that speak the most get the longest bar – the second longest speaker the next one down etc etc. This gives a very simple visual cue to all and encourages others to take a turn.
Secondly – and one of my favourite features – there is a ‘relationship’ chart – where all attendees get a ‘blob’, the size of that blob reflected their speaking contribution, the lines between the blobs represent who spoke next – and the width of the lines reflect how often those two people spoke to each other. I know that sounds complicated but actually it’s another really helpful cue to see who has been left out of the conversation – so a good chair person can ask the quieter ones if they want to join in.
This way you can banish the monoped and encourage the chat – after all it really is good to talk, isn’t it?