Documentation Team Sprint

[Paul Sladen]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006, Matthew East wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 08:43 +1000, Stoffers, Robert LAC wrote:
> > The problem with "virtual sprints" is that,
> The telephone can in fact be much more productive than email/irc.

The best combination I've experienced/found is IRC + voice.

The IRC is used to transfer the complicated statements in a clear way and
the voice (Skype admittedly) gets used to give the context, intonation and
the little giggles/laughs/curses;  this also helps to keep the IRC more
terse and to-the-point.

The voice tends to be low quality and cut-off from time to time, but this
isn't a problem---people just have to remember (it comes naturally) that the
voice is *background*, its purpose is to let you know that other people are
"there", you can hear them typing and so be aware of whether they are even
at the computer, having coffee, on the phone.

The VoIP 'background' creates the atmosphere;  while still keeping important
convesation in scrollback and loss-free.  (If you miss something, just look
up a line, you don't have to feel embarassed about having fallen asleep for
30 seconds!).

Gobby + IRC + VoIP may well be a killer distributed-collaboration toolkit.

	-Paul
-- 
Britain is just cold, in a pesky way.  London, GB