Physical meetings will never be replaced

Have you ever had that feeling in a Teams meeting where you interrupt each other by starting a new sentence “simultaneously”? And then you realize your interruption, so you go quiet, wait a little and start again because it seems as if the other person is giving you the que to go ahead, only to interrupt each other again. This almost never happens when you are talking to someone in the same room. I think the crucial difference here is latency. Over Teams, you introduce a handful of precious milliseconds, and they can make a world of difference. This is analogous to playing music in a band. To play in time, “tight”, the latency must be very low. This is also the reason why it is almost impossible to play music together online.

Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistNovember 28, 2023communication, internet, latency, music, conversationComment

Questions are a sign of quality

When I give a lecture or do a presentation, a bullet-proof way to know whether I did a good job or not, is if I get questions afterwards. Take note of this the next time you listen to an awesome presentation. When the lecture ends, that is where the real conversation starts. The best lectures get the most questions, and the inferior presentations get few or no questions at all. If the audience could not understand a single word of what you were talking about, how are they supposed to ask a question then? And on the contrary, if they clearly understood your message, asking questions will be simple.

EducationRikard ÖqvistJanuary 16, 2021lecturing, presentation, powerpoint, communication, experience, diversity, educationComment