Are Forums a Convenient Way to Communicate at Work?

[Guest blea0009]

We are considering using forums to help displace meetings...especially for people who only have one thing to say and don't want to attend an hour long meeting. Has anyone tried this and is it effective?

[ecoli]

If you don't mind not having instant communications, I suppose its a good idea. Hopefully everybody where you work can express themselves fully by typing.

[Guest blea0009]

Good point Ecoli....definitely won't replace meetings all together but will filter out those not needed.

[5614]

Try it and see how it goes, experiment, take a risk!

[Dak]

i remember hearing something about wikis being adopted in the work place, although i think that was more for progects than for meetings.

[Sayonara]

Although this would save time and resources, there is a risk involved.

 

If someone only has "one thing to say", and can post it on a forum instead of staying in a meeting, they may make their statement and then stop participating. Which means nobody can feed back comments to them.

Based on the experiences I have had with the kinds of people who know they are going to go to an hour long meeting yet can't imagine saying anything other than the fixed lines in their head, I'd suggest this is going to be a likely scenario.

 

When they are required to make their point in front of other people, they can then be asked for more information or have problems highlighted to them.

[LucidDreamer]

I think that a forum could be a useful tool for communication at work.

 

Advantages:

1. Its an excellent means for many people to discuss an issue, compared to email where it is quite difficult for several people to coordinate a meaningful discussion.
    
   
2. Everything that is said is permanent and easily accessed. In a meeting, things that are said are often forgotten or misremembered.
    
   
3. It is inexpensive to set up and manage a forum.
    
   
4. A forum is easily accessed and it's user-friendly.
    
   
5. A forum gives people the freedom to think about ideas and search for more information before responding to questions or issues raised by another member. In a meeting, questions often go unanswered or are poorly answered because everybody must come up with answers on the fly.
    
   
6. A forum allows people to respond on their own time. People are not required to attend a long meeting at inconvenient times.
    
   
7. A forum would allow people to only spend time on issues and projects that concern them, instead of requiring people to attend long meetings when "they only have one thing to say."
   

 

Disadvantages:

1. A lot of the ability to communicate is lost on a forum, compared to a face-to-face meeting. Things that are said can be more easily misinterpreted.
    
   
2. People are not present face-to-face to answer questions at a set time.
    
   
3. When you have somebody in the room with you it is difficult for them to ignore or avoid you. If something is going badly, it may take longer to know about it.
    
   
4. There could be additional security issues associated with a forum, depending on how it's set up.
    
   
5. A new communication medium requires time and effort to implement and get people use to using it.