{"id":3794,"date":"2023-03-19T21:17:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T03:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=3794"},"modified":"2024-03-12T08:57:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T14:57:28","slug":"in-person-or-zoom-how-to-navigate-the-no-mans-land-of-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/in-person-or-zoom-how-to-navigate-the-no-mans-land-of-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"In-person or Zoom? How to navigate the no-man’s land of meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before the pandemic I spent a lot of time in my car.<\/p>\n

I still remember in detail the week before everything shut down.<\/p>\n

I had meetings at four different Starbucks, Bongo Java, Fido, Satco, J. Alexanders, and three client offices.<\/p>\n

That was the norm back then\u2014in-person meetings all over town.<\/p>\n

A week later of course my calendar, along with the rest of the world\u2019s calendars, looked totally different. \u00a0The \u201cnew norm\u201d took over.<\/p>\n

Between Zoom and Microsoft Teams and the coronavirus, the definition of a meeting quickly changed from something you do in person to something you do only remotely over the internet. Quite a change, but over the past three years it\u2019s something we have all grown to accept and even embrace as the new norm.<\/p>\n

Until now.<\/p>\n

Now, in a (sort of) post-pandemic world, no one knows quite what to do when scheduling a meeting. \u00a0Some prefer Zooming, some prefer in-person, and there are a few out there who just like an old-fashioned phone call.<\/p>\n

We are in meeting etiquette no-man’s land.<\/p>\n

I was thinking about this as I looked at my calendar for the next few weeks. It\u2019s a collage of online and in-person meetings with no discernable pattern.\u00a0 Some days I\u2019m 100% Zooming and other days all of my meetings are in person. But most days its a combination of the two.<\/p>\n

So, now that we have the choice, which is better?<\/p>\n

Online meetings have the advantage of being very time efficient.\u00a0 With no commute you can have meetings back to back. Online is also handy when you\u2019re trying to coordinate schedules for more than a couple of people.<\/p>\n

Granted, you lose out on the face-to-face social cues that are helpful when you meet someone in person.\u00a0 And it\u2019s sometimes hard not to be distracted by the other commotion on your computer screen. But especially for a quick meeting, or one that comes up last minute, Zooming can be hard to beat.<\/p>\n

Online meetings have the advantage of being very time efficient.\u00a0 With no commute you can have meetings back to back. Online is also handy when you\u2019re trying to coordinate schedules for more than a couple of people.<\/p>\n

Granted, you lose out on the face-to-face social cues that are helpful when you meet someone in person.\u00a0 And it\u2019s sometimes hard not to be distracted by the other commotion on your computer screen. But especially for a quick meeting, or one that comes up last minute, Zooming can be hard to beat.<\/p>\n