This Week I Learned: Use video calls for critical thinking and not idea generation [2022–05–13]

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

We spend at lot of time on work video calls now. Some of us see almost 100% of our colleagues like this almost 100% of the time. Are we using them the right way?

Some recent research suggests that video calls are:

• good for critical thinking and head-on critiquing of an idea that was previously suggested & digested, but
• bad for brainstorming a creative variety of those ideas in the first place.

So do your brainstorming in person or in a remote way that’s not “do it live on this video call with us right now”, then when you want critical responses give yourself some life time back by avoiding the commute (or use this as a chance to get the most out out remote colleagues). How you best do brainstorming and ideation with remote colleagues is a challenge you’re going to have to get creative with, just not by putting everyone on the spot on a video call. ;)

How virtual meetings can limit creative ideas