Hello, dear reader, I hope you’re doing well. Have you ever been assigned a school project or been asked to work with a team over the internet? To work through a Dropbox account? It can be difficult, frustrating, complicated, frustrating and did I mention frustrating? Well, this article will help you prepare, or give you some new strategies, for communicating by internet.
Some of the tools available to you include Skype, Google hangouts, instant messaging services, and Dropbox. I’ve been using a mixture of Skype and Dropbox with the Golden Pigeon team. An important note, I think Google hangouts works better for groups because you can see who is trying to talk due to their video feed being pulled up when Google detects noise from that microphone. Skype doesn’t have that feature and it’s easy for people to talk over one another if you are trying to get a thought out. Still, Skype and Dropbox have worked very well for us so far. Dropbox allows shared folders for work projects, in-app comments on projects, and provides about 5 GB free storage. Remember after opening a file on Dropbox that any changes you make and save will carry over to the Dropbox file unless you specifically change the destination of the saved file. This is one reason why it is good to have the original creator of a comic page to have a copy of it on their computer and on Dropbox. It’s really easy to open a file and make accidental changes if you’re not aware of this as a potential catastrophe. Also, 5 GB may not go as far as you need it to depending on the size of your files. I like backing up the folder on my computer in case we need to free up space on the Dropbox folder. Google Drive actually has more space available than Dropbox (I believe it is 15 GB), and has several apps team members can work on simultaneously. One tool I am currently trying out with the Golden Pigeon team can be found at this link, http://www.michaeleregina.com/blog/managing-the-crunch/. It is an Excel spreadsheet that automatically calculates the days it will take to finish portions of a work project. For comics that includes how much of a day you need to spend writing, inking, drafting, and so on in order to meet your deadline. Michael Regina has some cool comics you should check out and he was kind enough to provide this resource to other artists for free. This was pretty technical so let’s move on to actual team management.
The first and most important step in managing a digital team is creating one. Are you hiring from a reputable site, are you communicating with someone in a different time zone, and most importantly do you know if your teammates will keep you in their communication loop in case of any problems arising? These are some important questions and answering them will help you figure out the best ways to manage the team. For example, is one of your teammates good at keeping you up-to-date with their availability? Do they let you know if a conflict arises as soon as they learn of it, or do they wait until right before a meeting to let you know their grandma died last week and they are boarding a plane in two minutes? Remember no one is perfect. The question is, are they a good communicator, or do they only pay attention to their schedule with no regard to the bigger picture? If they’re only good at managing their own schedule the team can still work things out as long as other team members are flexible. It really depends on the type of project you’re trying to do. A comic page which updates once a month has a lot more flexibility than a daily comic. In my experience, it’s very hard to get an unmotivated teammate to effectively communicate with you. Sometimes it’s better to let them go. Once you know how your team members approach scheduling it can help you figure out how to structure the process of getting work done.
Now it’s time to talk about process. Make sure to delegate tasks if you’re working on a document simultaneously (Google apps) because it’s quite possible to step on someone’s toes when correcting grammar, or formatting a table. Simultaneous does not always equal instantaneous. So when you correct “Lincoln” to “Lincoln’s” in a paper and your teammate does the same thing it can look like “Lincoln’s’s”. I don’t like forums for digital teams because it’s easy to forget to login and check it every day. I think being able to text, or email your team members to set up a date and time, is one of the best options because it forces you to take the time to think out the schedule and plan accordingly. Make sure your teammates respond affirmatively or negatively to your suggestions for a meeting. Some people may think of it as being overbearing, but you don’t have the luxury of being loose and free with your time and your team’s time. You’re trying to make a living for yourself, and for those dependent on you. This includes your team. This doesn’t mean you should be nasty, negative, or mean in order to coerce free spirits into conforming to a master plan. It takes time to adjust from being able to meet a person face-to-face to discuss issues as a team, to looking at a computer screen and hearing a mysterious voice. A voice which lags, experiences technical difficulties, and may be accidentally muted. Yeah, don’t forget to unmute your mic if you’ve been clicking away on your keyboard and no one seems to respond to your voice.
I hope whether you are in school, working on a project for a corporation, or working as a contractor across the world from your boss that this helps illuminate the possibilities you have thanks to the Internet. It can be frustrating at times, yet there’s a reason online teams are ubiquitous across industries. You can connect experts from around the world easily. As long as everything works. Oh, and everyone checks their email. Have a good day, dear reader!
Some of the tools available to you include Skype, Google hangouts, instant messaging services, and Dropbox. I’ve been using a mixture of Skype and Dropbox with the Golden Pigeon team. An important note, I think Google hangouts works better for groups because you can see who is trying to talk due to their video feed being pulled up when Google detects noise from that microphone. Skype doesn’t have that feature and it’s easy for people to talk over one another if you are trying to get a thought out. Still, Skype and Dropbox have worked very well for us so far. Dropbox allows shared folders for work projects, in-app comments on projects, and provides about 5 GB free storage. Remember after opening a file on Dropbox that any changes you make and save will carry over to the Dropbox file unless you specifically change the destination of the saved file. This is one reason why it is good to have the original creator of a comic page to have a copy of it on their computer and on Dropbox. It’s really easy to open a file and make accidental changes if you’re not aware of this as a potential catastrophe. Also, 5 GB may not go as far as you need it to depending on the size of your files. I like backing up the folder on my computer in case we need to free up space on the Dropbox folder. Google Drive actually has more space available than Dropbox (I believe it is 15 GB), and has several apps team members can work on simultaneously. One tool I am currently trying out with the Golden Pigeon team can be found at this link, http://www.michaeleregina.com/blog/managing-the-crunch/. It is an Excel spreadsheet that automatically calculates the days it will take to finish portions of a work project. For comics that includes how much of a day you need to spend writing, inking, drafting, and so on in order to meet your deadline. Michael Regina has some cool comics you should check out and he was kind enough to provide this resource to other artists for free. This was pretty technical so let’s move on to actual team management.
The first and most important step in managing a digital team is creating one. Are you hiring from a reputable site, are you communicating with someone in a different time zone, and most importantly do you know if your teammates will keep you in their communication loop in case of any problems arising? These are some important questions and answering them will help you figure out the best ways to manage the team. For example, is one of your teammates good at keeping you up-to-date with their availability? Do they let you know if a conflict arises as soon as they learn of it, or do they wait until right before a meeting to let you know their grandma died last week and they are boarding a plane in two minutes? Remember no one is perfect. The question is, are they a good communicator, or do they only pay attention to their schedule with no regard to the bigger picture? If they’re only good at managing their own schedule the team can still work things out as long as other team members are flexible. It really depends on the type of project you’re trying to do. A comic page which updates once a month has a lot more flexibility than a daily comic. In my experience, it’s very hard to get an unmotivated teammate to effectively communicate with you. Sometimes it’s better to let them go. Once you know how your team members approach scheduling it can help you figure out how to structure the process of getting work done.
Now it’s time to talk about process. Make sure to delegate tasks if you’re working on a document simultaneously (Google apps) because it’s quite possible to step on someone’s toes when correcting grammar, or formatting a table. Simultaneous does not always equal instantaneous. So when you correct “Lincoln” to “Lincoln’s” in a paper and your teammate does the same thing it can look like “Lincoln’s’s”. I don’t like forums for digital teams because it’s easy to forget to login and check it every day. I think being able to text, or email your team members to set up a date and time, is one of the best options because it forces you to take the time to think out the schedule and plan accordingly. Make sure your teammates respond affirmatively or negatively to your suggestions for a meeting. Some people may think of it as being overbearing, but you don’t have the luxury of being loose and free with your time and your team’s time. You’re trying to make a living for yourself, and for those dependent on you. This includes your team. This doesn’t mean you should be nasty, negative, or mean in order to coerce free spirits into conforming to a master plan. It takes time to adjust from being able to meet a person face-to-face to discuss issues as a team, to looking at a computer screen and hearing a mysterious voice. A voice which lags, experiences technical difficulties, and may be accidentally muted. Yeah, don’t forget to unmute your mic if you’ve been clicking away on your keyboard and no one seems to respond to your voice.
I hope whether you are in school, working on a project for a corporation, or working as a contractor across the world from your boss that this helps illuminate the possibilities you have thanks to the Internet. It can be frustrating at times, yet there’s a reason online teams are ubiquitous across industries. You can connect experts from around the world easily. As long as everything works. Oh, and everyone checks their email. Have a good day, dear reader!