While in London last week, I posted Pay Attention to Quality in Collaborative Interactions on The Smarter Office blog. I wrote about the need for quality in audio, video, and text-based collaborative interactions. Here’s the paragraph about quality in audio interactions:

“In an audio setting, having a high quality voice connection is important. Whether you are meeting one-to-one by phone, or from a cellphone, or on a conference call, or on a Skype call, having a clear audio channel is important for the interaction. If I’m calling in from a cellphone and the coverage isn’t great, then you will be struggling to hear me. It’s difficult to have a good conversation under such circumstances; you are spending significant energy just to understand what the other person is saying, and will be breaking the flow of the conversation by asking the other person to repeat what they’ve just said. Likewise, if you are calling in from a location where there is a lot of background noise—be that a crowded train station, a noisy office, or a café—the people you are speaking with are going to have to work a whole lot harder just to hear and understand you. If there is anything you can do to reduce the background noise—by moving to quieter location, or even delaying the discussion to a more opportune time—it will greatly help the people you are talking to. Quality counts in voice-based interactions.“

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