Virtual meetings are extremely useful to dispersed workplace teams, and, yes, they may help harried college students. Some of them brave terrible traffic and commute vast distances to attend colleges and universities. When doing research for a group project, students often struggle to find a convenient time to meet because they may work on weekends or have family duties. Although wikis such as Google Docs can aid collaboration on shared files, a video chat conveys much more nuance than e-mail or IM can. Real-time video chatting allows for a fast exchange of information with almost the media richness of face-to-face conversations.

Your Task. Settle on the type of communication software or app your team will use. Some popular group video chat applications are Skype, Google Hangouts, Fring, and WhatsApp. Following the guidelines in this chapter, prepare and conduct a virtual meeting with your collaborators. Ensure that everyone knows the technology; establish ground rules for the virtual meetings such as when to ask questions, letting everyone speak, and so forth. Your instructor may ask for deliverables by e-mail or in memo form such as an agenda and meeting minutes. You could also be required to write a short memo report on the experience, summarizing what you did before, during, and after the virtual meeting.