Talking to my Shanghai teams over the skype conferencing is so fun. Yes we are so darn backwards (or cheap) we have to use skype. We are company of $40 mil yet we cannot pay for a conferencing line like our clients do. Anyways, their English is not great and I have to be careful in using puns, acronymns, and slang terminology. Trying to explain stuff is just plain painful over the phone. Even better when the network is slow you get dropped faster that the laser guided free falling weapon.
So being in Shanghai is much easier to deal with the teams on a personal level.

As for the conferencing with clients, some people work from home. You can hear their children crying or talking or TV turned on in the background when they do not mute. Even better when you hear heavy breathing and everyone can hear. The best is when one guy yells to answer his wife and we get to hear some sordid details. You hear keyboards banging away as people are working. The someone pipes up and assume it is you or someone else and tell them to mute or move away from the phone. Oh the best was when some ppl are traveling and the conference in from their cell phone, you get some pretty interesting things like you hear the airport noise (i.e. boarding calls, bullhorns, airplane engines, people talking) and the best was one guy was in the bathroom and you hear toilets flushing (I kid you not). Mute is your best friend always. :-)

Also since we use netmeeting, it is so much fun when you netmeeting in and you see blackscreens with occasional windows dialog showing up. And when you are there because you are required to and one or two ppl dominate the conversation, then a questions props up to one person who isn’t talking, that person will say “I am sorry, could you ask that again.” or “Sorry, I was doing something personal/work what was the question.”

I had conference calls that I *had* to attend when I was in China for months, they like to hold meetings at 2AM which is 3PM EST so I am up groggy without caffiene or trying to stay awake, you tend to say something incoherent that get’s the “huh?” comments. Conferencing is such a pain.

The diverse horrors are far too familiar: the hold music broadcast to all, the person’s loud keyboard that obliterates the conversation, the person taking the call on his cell in the car with such a noisy line that no one else can hear…

Typically on these calls, 80% of the participants are on just to monitor what is being said, and to answer a question if asked one. And then there’s a small handful of people who actually do the talking.

The only large conference call I’ve ever been on had about 40 participants, and it was mostly a “let the leader give you all information, and the rest of you are the audience” situation. We were all instructed at the beginning of the call to mute our phones, and only to unmute them if we wanted to ask a question. This actually worked, although there were several “Oh, hi, I forgot to un-mute my phone, let me ask my question again” comments, and probably several participant comments that the rest of us never heard. :)

Enrique, who is on the double hop circuit, is the last to join the conference -

Moderator: “Enrique, are you with us?”

Silence from Enrique….

Moderator: “Guess not, Jan are you ready to present?”

Enrique, whose circuit has finally caught up: “Yes”

Silence from Jan, who has put the conference on hold already. Fortunately, no music on hold there.

Moderator, who can’t recognize voices: “OK, we’re ready, go ahead.”

More silence, Jan is on hold, Enrique is just now hearing the moderator’s comment and responds, naturally enough, “Huh?”.

Jan figures out that the conference is finally underway, now announces: ” I’m ready to present.”

Moderator, by now totally out of it responds as you might expect: “Huh?”

This starts a round of people simplexing “hellos” out into the ether like some crazed multipoll network.

Fortunately, for all concerned, the conference carrier picked this particular moment to accidentally drop three of the five participants, including the moderator, leaving, – you must have guessed it – just me and Enrique on the call. Since I’m apparently the only one who figured out Enrique’s situation, I tell him goodbye, wait patiently for the second and a half of delay, and hang up.