Dancing to your own drummer ? ubiquitous music and face to face communication
Two really good sections of this article. First is on a legal
Russian music download service. I used Puretracks myself with no
problem. Of course I had a $10 credit as a Telus high-speed
customer.
The second section is very, very interesting.
Gillian dives into the whole, do you need face-to-face meetings and
what defines “being there”. I'm often in several places at once
during meetings…reading a webpage, e-mailing, IMing, etc. So
where am I? I'm including only the first bit of each section, so
visit Gillian's blog for the complete articles.
Part one:
After
several years of waiting for legal and easy-to-use online music
services to be available in Canada, and several frustrating and
expensive months trying out Puretracks, I’ve begun using a legal Russian service called AllofMP3.com. I found it in a typically detailed and irritable conversation in Slashdot (“News for Nerds. Stuff that matters”) and it’s reviewed in Museekster and the Sidney Morning Herald.
You can pay through Paypal (no credit card risks) and they charge less
than $1 per album. Actually, it’s usually under 60 cents US per album,
priced by the file size that you download, and you can choose the
conversion format and bitrate you want (e.g., MP3s at 192 kbps).
Astonishing. Addictive.
Part two:
So here’s the thing.
For
the past few years, I’ve been trying to understand and promote
collaboration between people who are not in close physical proximity,
without resorting to face-to-face meetings. In other words, how can
teams work productively together over distance, using various tools
like teleconferences, web conferences, discussion groups and so on? I
know it’s possible because we do it in our own teams at RealWorld
Systems. I’m continually mystified by statements like, “Everyone knows
that teams need regular/occasional face to face meetings in order to
bond”. What’s so special about face to face meetings (or ‘meat time’ as
it’s called on the internet)?