Profile pictures and trust

Your profile picture influences what others think about you. Social media sites and user based applications such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail, offer the ability to upload a picture of yourself to a profile. The importance of this picture and the power it holds is worth a careful look.

In this post I hope to convince you that a quality profile picture is worth having and can be a valuable tool in helping others get to know you as a person. In particular for profile pictures associated with personal or professional work or when collaborating with others over time and distance. I hope to convince you to use a recent picture that has qualities like being well lit, features only you, has a neutral background, with a facial expression that is calm, welcoming, or open. Smiles are good because they encourage others to smile and feel more relaxed.

Encourage recognition and familiarity

Familiarity with your face and voice helps people remember you. Using a recognizable and carefully selected picture of yourself reinforces you as a person and helps people remember your name, who you work with, your good ideas. Recognition and familiarity cultivate trust and human connection.

First impressions can last and your profile picture might be someone’s first impression of you. People happen upon your profile picture when seeing your activity in chats, document histories, or in the comments you left somewhere. In absence of anything else, your profile picture is part of what makes a first and lasting impression if you rarely if ever change your profile picture. Consider how important a person’s picture is to match-making sites with millions of users. Lots of opinions formed based on that picture.

For business purposes, having a profile picture that includes just you in a simple environment with a relaxed or happy look on your face can be effective in cultivating more than just trust. It can communicate your approachability, accessibility, personality, even confidence. A profile picture that is your favorite cartoon character, super-hero, or abstract imagery, while creative and evocative of your personality, doesn’t enable others to connect with you as a person.

Show others you care

A quality picture of yourself shows care and attention to detail. Respect is afforded to detailed people and having an example of that be so visible is a good thing. Perhaps more important is the impact of a poor quality picture. Poor quality pictures can suggest you don’t care, aren’t approachable, lack confidence, are hiding something (maybe just your face), and whether we like it or not this can influence what people think about you.

Taking the time to create and upload a good picture communicates confidence. How you present yourself in profiles represents a type of personal brand. It doesn’t have to be so formal, but there is value in investing a little effort to make a good impression.

Another aspect to showing you care about the quality of your profile picture is how often you update it. Once a year or every few years for example. Prior to talking to a group of university students on trust and influence in the technology world, I updated a profile picture to be me wearing the same thing I was going to wear when I talked to them. I made a joke about it as well as a point about recognizability. It’s important to use a current picture versus a decade old image cropped from a group shot. Using a profile picture that wasn’t taken for the purpose of being a profile picture can give the impression you don’t care and that details aren’t important.

Summary and Recommendations

Using a quality picture of yourself is good for your career. It can impact the impression you leave with others as well as your ability to influence. It might be what people stare at while you’re talking during an online meeting. A good profile picture is the next best thing to using your camera.

Take the time to review your current profile pictures. See if they are consistent, have good lighting, focus, balance, neutral backgrounds. Consider other things like whether your head is positioned effectively within the thumbnail space, is the expression on your face too intense, too silly, bored. Maybe your face is unrecognizable because it’s not a picture of you, you’re too far away, there is a lack of contrast, or you’re wearing a hat and/or sunglasses. Look at other profile pictures, find a good example and copy it (but not literally).

For this purpose, selfies are perfect. Don’t dismiss the value and quality of the camera in your phone; you don’t need a professional camera to take a good picture. Try taking a couple selfies with the sun on your face, blue skies in the background, a field, or a line of trees in the distance. Think of something positive, turn your head, smile, click, fake laugh, click, sly grin, click. Take five of them. Pick the best and upload it. You might be surprised at how easy it is to take a quality selfie that makes a perfect profile picture.

Lastly, when there are multiple systems having their own profile pictures, consider keeping your profile pictures in sync across them. It shows awareness and reinforces you as a person outside these different systems. The consistency and attention to detail says you understand how things work, are confident, and take care to represent yourself well. Your profile picture is an important and valuable tool to your career. Use it to make a positive impression.

References

Audio quality and credibility

How you sound during online meetings impacts your credibility. Studies on audio quality and credibility have made a link between how clearly you are heard and the degree to which others believe or are influenced by what you’re saying.* Credibility isn’t just about trustworthiness, it’s about people’s perception of your trustworthiness.

Last month I tried to convince you to use your camera during online meetings for several reasons, but mainly because it’s the next best thing to meeting in person. I deferred talking about audio in detail, but it’s even more important. If you’re trying to talk and people can’t hear you very well, that’s no good. In such cases, video doesn’t help. Quality audio is more important.

Sound quality is impacted by many things; hardware, location, position, volume, and awareness. Understanding how to make the best use of your audio situation can improve your credibility, ability to influence, and effectiveness in online meetings.

Muting and Visibility of Audio

Always mute yourself when not talking. If you take away anything from this post, it’s to see the value in managing your mute. Muting yourself eliminates the opportunity for unwanted noise during a meeting and shows respect to other participants. Microphones are very sensitive and can pick up typing, tapping of pens, etc., all heard by everyone on a call. In open work places, background noise can be significant.

When muting yourself, use whatever means is most visible to others in the meeting. Some devices have their own mute, and while convenient, it means your mute status isn’t visible to others. For a meeting organizer, or others trying to determine the source of unintentional sound (noise), seeing who is already muted is helpful.

Another advantage of toggling your mute is using it as a signal in place of raising your hand. When hosting a meeting, I continuously watch the participants list and video thumbnails. I’ve seen attendees unmute themselves before offering a comment or feedback and I’ve taken to looking for it as a signal someone wants to talk.

Sound Quality and Equipment

How you sound depends on the equipment you use. Knowing what sounds best and how to control input and output settings for your rig is critical to being heard clearly.

A key aspect to sounding good is speaking close to the microphone you’re using. The most effective way to do this is to use a headset that positions a microphone on the end of a wire or boom placing it within inches of your mouth. This is optimal and allows for your voice to be clear and for you to talk at a normal volume.

Wireless or Bluetooth headphone audio quality can vary by brand and purpose. Some are designed to be used for online meetings and some are designed for convenience or listening to music. Bluetooth or wireless headphones not designed specifically for meetings, don’t sound as good due to proximity of the microphone to the mouth and latency during back and forth conversation. I’ve demonstrated by switching between microphones and headsets to illustrate the difference to people. It can be eye opening.

Speakerphones make sense to use in conference rooms where headsets would be weird. It’s easy to tell who on a call is using a phone, speakerphone, or headset. “A poor-quality speakerphone causes anguish for everyone else on the call. They’ll struggle to hear you well, even as they suffer through hearing every keystroke and pen tap like thunderclaps.”(**)

Location, Volume, and Position

Position and location are as important as the microphone you use. Location refers to where you are physically. Position refers to where the microphone is relative to the speaker. In an office or in a cube, there will almost always be background noises to contend with. When talking, the microphone picks up and amplifies your voice and the sounds around you. Too close and we hear breathing. Too far away and you sound distant.

The volume of your voice and how loud others hear you can be controlled and adjusted. I often do a quick soundcheck to assess volume settings before meetings and (unsurprisingly) let others know (privately) when they’re hard to hear or too loud.

Headphones with a microphone attached to a headphone wire are common. I often see people holding the microphone part close to their mouth when talking. It doesn’t help much and you can actually cover the microphone making you harder to hear. Be careful about moving around as the sound of the microphone rubbing against clothes is significant.

Speakerphones don’t sound as good due to the distance of the speaker from the microphone. When others on a call are using headsets with microphones close to their mouths, they sound like they’re sitting right next to you and those on speakerphones sound like they’re sitting on the other side of the room. They also pick up background noises more easily.

Summary and Closing

The ability to hear and interpret non-verbal information from someone’s voice is fundamental to effective communication and connecting with others. Beyond what we’re saying, how we sound conveys a lot more than words through tone, pace, intensity, and using sound to convey feeling and nuance.

Paying attention to sound quality, testing out volume controls and how different hardware sounds with your friends and coworkers, is important to developing an understanding of what makes you sound the best. Sounding as good as you can is important to your credibility.

For open offices, cubes, etc., a dedicated headset with a microphone held near your mouth offers the best audio quality. Quality microphones for broadcasting type purposes can be used effectively in offices and quiet places but their location relative to speakers matters; you risk echo and feedback.

Through personal testing with different hardware, headsets, and speaker configurations, I’ve compiled the following recommendations from best to worst.

USB or wireless headset with a boom style microphone
1. Positionable microphone, output close to your ear
2. Microphone positioned 3 to 4 fingers from mouth (avoids breathing sounds)
A quality microphone with careful placement of speakers
1. Use headphones for output and a USB microphone for input
2. Cardioid microphones allow control of direction of input
Mobile phone with wired headset
1. Minimize your movement
2. Don’t hold the microphone close to your mouth
Speakerphone or speaker with integrated microphone
1. Location and situation dependent
2. Effective in conference rooms or quiet places
3. Use as a last resort
Laptop or machine based microphone and speakers
1. Super important to manage your mute
2. Feedback and echo is common
3. Can be effective for presentations where you’re doing the talking
Bluetooth headphones not designed for conference calls
1. Microphones are lesser quality
2. May not work as well for back-and-forth communication
3. Can be effective for listening to calls

References and See Also

Camera use and cultivating trust

From telegram to radio to moving pictures and television – each advance significantly changed the world, bridging distances, bringing people closer. Though television has long been a one-way feed, it allowed for a deeper more meaningful experience than radio alone through body language, facial expressions, and its ability to take us to other places.

As cameras started appearing on every laptop, mobile device, and tablet, two-way video became possible and more commonplace. This has had a profound impact on how we connect, communicate, and interact with others. Video conferencing has fundamentally changed the experience of meeting by allowing for more complex communication than audio ever could.

Research has shown people develop trust more quickly when they can see who they’re talking to, even if it’s just a picture. Interestingly, if you already know someone well, a picture or video isn’t nearly as important as good audio. This was affirmed recently when someone I know and have worked with for years said during a virtual meeting (we turned off our cameras because of bandwidth issues), “I don’t need to see you, I know the expression on your face just by the sound of your voice!”

When meeting with people you don’t know very well, or even if you do, it’s so important and valuable to be visible. If you’re unable to use a camera, a picture of yourself uploaded to whatever application you’re using is important and worthwhile. Equally important is good audio, but I plan to cover that in a future post.

In this post I hope to convince you to always, always, always, turn on your camera when meeting with coworkers. Treat every meeting like an in-person meeting and show your face. There are few reasons not to and many reasons you should.

Some reasons I’ve heard for not using a camera during meetings:

Don’t have a camera (or computer)
In a public place
At home, don’t want people to see your house
Concerned with how you look
Don’t like seeing yourself
In a meeting you don’t want to be in
Don’t need to talk, just there to listen

I’ll say this as nicely as I can; those are excuses. If you were invited to meet in person, some of these reasons aren’t valid. Either way, none of them are good reasons to not use your camera.

When distance does not allow for meeting in person, we should strive for the next best thing. When telephones were the only technology we had for real-time communication, conference calls were the “next best thing.” These days, with access to cameras and headsets so ubiquitous, treating virtual meetings as conference calls is a missed opportunity. It’s time to move on to the next best thing.

Reasons why you should always turn on your camera:

It’s the closest experience to meeting face-to-face
Improves working relationships
Shows you’re present (being here now)
Cultivates trust with people you don’t know
Helps people get to know you faster
Shows you’re paying attention
Allows for non-verbal communication through body language, facial expressions, etc.
Improves your ability to influence outcomes
Adds value to your interactions with others in the meeting

During a recent one-on-one meeting, the person I was meeting with happened to be home and didn’t want to turn on their camera. The excuse was it was too early. With sadness in my voice I say, “That’s a bummer…I guess it’ll be like a phone call.” and turned off my camera. There was a pause then, “Okay, okay, let’s turn our cameras on, but don’t judge me!” That experience made me feel good, like the person cared about the quality of our interaction and recognized the value in being able to see each other. I really appreciated it. While I didn’t judge, I will note there were teddy bears in the background. His willingness to be vulnerable (teddy bears) meant a lot. It cultivated feelings of trust. Hopefully sharing this doesn’t undermine that trust because it was an interesting and eye-opening experience.

In another virtual meeting with about 15 participants from different states and countries, only three of us had cameras on. Of the other twelve, many of whom I didn’t know, one or two were working from home and joked “you don’t want to see me!” (see excuses above). A few chuckled, but in truth it impacts our ability to trust, connect, influence, and be influenced. Working from home or with others remotely is not an excuse to do less than the next best thing to meeting in person.

Of the remaining ten people in the meeting who did not turn on their cameras, they didn’t speak at all. It made me wonder if they were there or if perhaps, they were only attending because they had to. I didn’t feel like I could trust them as much. Even if you don’t talk in a meeting, you can participate by being visible, using non-verbal communication. Nodding or shaking your head, raising an eyebrow, scrunching up your face, these cues can speak volumes and are so valuable to others. The ability to communicate non-verbally is key to building trust, consensus, or to drive outcomes.

Summary and Closing

Every work meeting, whether virtual or a combination of in-person and virtual, should be treated as an in-person meeting. This means being visible, audible, and present. The applications and hardware available to us are nothing short of incredible and go a long way to mitigate the consequences of not being in the same room. When using your camera, pay attention to your space, the location of your camera, the lighting, where you’re looking when someone is talking.

If you want to improve your ability to connect and communicate with others during virtual meetings, turn on your camera. If you’re interested in improving your ability to influence others you can’t meet in person because of distance, turn on your camera. If you want to cultivate trust when working with others at a distance, turn on your camera. If you must attend a virtual meeting during transit or when driving, maybe don’t turn on your camera. Be safe please.

Hopefully this helps you understand the importance and value of using a camera when possible. I always appreciate when people turn on their cameras during meetings or presentations. I bet you do too. Be one of those people and see if it doesn’t improve your conversations.

The Value of Positive Pressure

I started this post at the beginning of the month knowing days would fly by and I’d be scrambling to finish. It’s the last day of March and time to post. I’ve learned to recognize that this internal pressure is healthy and worth some study.

This pressure, pushing myself to focus and write with purpose, is something only I experience. Nobody is asking me to do this. Writing one blog post a month is a goal I’ve set for myself as a way of developing my writing skills and contextual intelligence. The pressure I put on myself to do this I call Positive Pressure and in this post I share what I’ve learned about it and why it’s important to recognize.

The Origin of Positive Pressure

The term “Positive Pressure” came out of my experience with a mentor many years ago who challenged me to have conversations about my career with two people above my manager.

At first thought, the idea of having conversations about my career with leaders higher in the organization was intimidating. It wasn’t something I’d done before. My mentor encouraged me by saying there was nothing wrong or inappropriate about requesting a 30 minute conversation every few years with upper management to talk about my career. I knew it would be difficult and felt a certain pressure until I had those meetings.

After learning about positive pressure, and noticing when I was feeling it, I continued to think about what it meant and the value of seeing it for what it is. But what is it exactly?

Recognizing when Pressure is Positive

I used the idea of positive pressure as a topic of a guest talk I recently gave to a group of first year graduate students. I told my mentoring story and how I was challenged to do something uncomfortable that could be good for me in the long term. I talked about learning to see those uncomfortable feelings as signs of positive pressure. No one in the class had heard the term before, so we talked about it.

Using their situation as an example, being graduate students, they had a lot of pressure on themselves. The pressure to meet with groups, complete assignments, take exams, complete their courses of study…was it positive pressure? Whether self-motivated or encouraged through friends or family, an education is an investment in oneself. The reason they endure the pressure of going to class, group work, writing papers, was for their future.

A student raises a hand and asks how someone who is shy or introverted can know when pressure they feel is positive pressure and not just anxiety at the thought of doing something uncomfortable or that they don’t want to do?

It was a good question and part of the reason I’m writing this. I didn’t have a good answer at the time and said something like, “whatever it is that is causing the feeling of pressure should not be unhealthy, harmful, or otherwise destructive to you.” I admitted to needing to think about it more. After some time, and while working on this post, an answer worked itself out.

In order to understand whether the pressure one feels to do something is considered positive or not-positive, it is necessary to think in terms of short and long term consequences. What might happen as a result of me writing this blog post? If nobody reads it, there aren’t any. But if somebody reads it and finds a new way to think about dealing with pressure we have in life, that would make it positive. It already has value in helping me distill ideas and improve my writing.

Reflections and Final Thoughts

Learning to recognize whether the pressure one feels to do something is positive pressure or not requires reflection and consideration of the circumstances. This reflection and thinking through possible positive and negative outcomes is a powerful and useful way to recognize if pressure one’s feeling is positive. Doing so also helps develop contextual awareness which is critical to effective decision making and can help build relationships and cultivate trust.

When you recognize the pressure you’re feeling as the positive kind, that the consequences aren’t harmful to yourself and have the potential to be of value to others, it can give you energy to empower your actions. In this way others develop respect and trust for you by seeing you push yourself to grow and learn. You also learn to trust yourself and your ability to execute on a vision. These are valuable things.

Space and Trust

You might be wondering why a software architect and former programmer is interested in behaviors that cultivate trust. I believe trust is fundamental to effective interactions and relationships. Professionally, personally, and academically, I am motivated to apply lessons from software architecture and research on human-computer interaction to improve the ways we interact.

This post focuses on spatial awareness and how behaviors relating to one’s awareness of space can influence interactions happening within it. It is important to understand the different types of spaces and how interactions in them encourage trust and engagement.

Types of spaces

We generally work and interact with people and things in three types of spaces.

Physical spaces
Digital spaces
Mental spaces

Physical spaces, the domain of traditional architecture, includes our office, cubes, home offices, building, meeting rooms. The spaces offer certain affordances like chairs, tables, whiteboards (often with no markers), and speakerphones or conferencing hardware. The number of microphones, position of camera (if there is one), and arrangement of tables all influence the quality and effectiveness of interactions in that space.

Digital spaces are the places where we store files, organize meeting notes, author blog posts, write reference documentation, store code, etc. All the things we store in digital spaces require applications to access and manipulate those things, all this happening within the context of other digital spaces. Conferencing, chat, and texting applications are becoming our common digital spaces where we interact in real time and shared cloud storage solutions where we interact asynchronously with shared artifacts.

Mental spaces correspond to the intellectual domains associated with digital and physical spaces. I realize this might be stretching the definition of “space” but it’s necessary to discussing trust in relation to spaces. Our willingness to be open and trusting with others is influenced by our mental space interacting with the physical and digital spaces we share. Getting one’s head in the game to discuss critical business strategy might mean gathering in a quiet, neutral venue versus a noisy bar during happy hour.

Interactions in these spaces

The types of things we interact with in these spaces share similar qualities in that things are arranged, visible, hidden, organized, unorganized, etc. It’s easy to think about these qualities in physical spaces; are there places to sit, are seats arranged in a way supporting discussion or instruction, are there plugs for people if laptops are being used.

In digital spaces, the things are documents, spreadsheets, web pages, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, recordings. The way we interact with things in the digital space is through applications. These applications support behaviors similar to those of the physical space. They allow for viewing, sharing, collaborating on the things. The items in the digital space, similar to physical space, have histories and metadata about their use which communicates something about them and their value to others.

As I’ve become more aware of how digital spaces are places, I’ve paid more attention to the experience others might have encountering these spaces. When I create a new space in SharePoint, or add a directory in a shared directory structure, I’ve started creating a README.docx file where I put my name, date, and some words for why that directory or channel was created. My goal is to help orient new comers to the space. The bathroom is over there, the creamer in the fridge is shared, and here is how you make coffee when it’s out.

Behaviors that cultivate trust

There are behaviors shared among the three types of spaces which when observed cultivate feelings of trust, confidence, and reliability.

The space is organized and intentionally structured
Content of the space is accessible and open
The space is designed for a purpose
The space is cared for, attended, and used

Digital spaces might be a project on GitHub, a MediaWiki instance on your company Intranet, or a shared Dropbox or Google folder. When interacting with artifacts or content in these spaces, you’re looking for evidence of activity, engagement, structure, commitment. An organized space with visible activity, design, and structure communicates life and encourages engagement.

These qualities work for mental spaces as well. Think about trying to organize a training for a new technology that isn’t well understood. Giving thought to how information is shared, the order in which learning takes place, the context in which the learning is useful, or respect for those who’ve contributed to the subject; these behaviors show others that the topic is important and coming from a trustworthy ‘place.’

In Summary

Being aware of how physical, digital, and mental spaces influence our interactions with others can help us improve those spaces. How things in any of these spaces (pictures, files, ideas) are arranged communicate whether the place and things in it are cared for and deserving of similar care and respect.

When you take time to consider the interests of others and how interactions will take place in spaces, you can improve outcomes and engagement. When you find or create a space, be it a new subject, an updated meeting room, or a renovated home office with a stand-up desk…give some thought to how others will interact within that space and prepare it for them. Doing so can promote openness and trust.

Context and Trust

Working at a distance while collaborating in real time requires applications and technology for interacting which can hide context and subtler communications so important to effective working relationships. As we work with others we may never meet face to face, thinking about behaviors which cultivate trust at a distance is important to creating lasting, meaningful relationships.

In a guide on embracing remote work and myths surrounding worker effectiveness, Trello noted how “tools can mask the intention and humanity of people involved.” This should be a real concern to companies whose products are applications and whose business is based on relationships people have with each other using those applications.

This is the first of a series of blog posts I’m planning for 2019. Each post will focus on a different topic and explore related behaviors which influence trust. The first topic is “context” and how behaviors that communicate contextual awareness and contextual intelligence influence our willingness to trust others.

Contextual awareness

Context describes the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea. Contextual awareness is how well you understand the circumstances and details surrounding a situation, event, statement, or idea. At work, understanding our circumstances means being part of ongoing efforts to deliver value to the business so you should know about those efforts, who is doing what, and the value of what is being delivered.

As a meeting organizer or presenter, you can exercise contextual awareness by making sure everyone knows why they are there, being clear what the meeting is about, making sure everyone can see and hear each other, recognizing when others on a call want to speak and making sure they get a chance. Respecting peoples time and attention by being aware of what is important at the moment is one way to cultivate trust.

Contextual intelligence

If contextual awareness is how well you understand the circumstances and details surrounding a situation, event, statement, or idea, then contextual intelligence is what you do with it. It is knowledge leveraging experience applied to circumstances. “Contextual intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge to real world scenarios and situations. It is the proficiency at adapting knowledge and skills to different situations and environments.”

Developing contextual intelligence is what I hope to promote by writing posts like this. It helps develop my contextual intelligence through the act of distilling personal experience and education to produce a message of value. I had an opportunity recently to exercise this distillation process with a reminder about contextual awareness.

A former teacher invited me to speak as a guest to her class of students attending the same graduate program for which I was an alum. The idea was for me to share something useful or interesting that could help them. I decided to talk about soft skills, contextual awareness, and the cultivation of trust. I get into my talk, going on about trust and alluding to research on it they’d probably read, etc., then ask if trust had come up in their classes or readings yet. Not a single person raised their hand.

From the side of the room the teacher reminds me they are all first year, first semester graduate students.

Realizing the class wasn’t as far into the program as I assumed, I apologized for my lack of awareness and felt embarrassed as I probably could have figured that out myself had I not been so distracted on distilling something valuable to share with them. Pivoting my message, I shared how the courses they could take had influenced my life, career, and opportunities like talking to them. My reaction to lacking contextual awareness was to admit how I’m really bad at it sometimes. We had a good laugh.

Using our experience and lessons to help others via mentoring, coaching, or writing blog posts, are ways to develop contextual intelligence. When others derive value from that mentoring, coaching, or blog post, trust develops.

Closing

Hopefully you nodded your head a few times reading this, perhaps thinking some of it common sense, which would be great. While talking about this blog post with a coworker in the U.K. he shared that the Dutch term for “common sense” translates to “healthy understanding” (Gezond verstand). What a great way to look at things, with a healthy understanding.

I hope we all desire a healthy understanding of how our behaviors define our culture and cultivate trust when working with others across geographic and organizational boundaries. I certainly do and look forward to continuing this exploration in my next blog post.

References and readings

Trust and Working at a Distance

A question was asked near the end of a recent town hall in Ann Arbor by a coworker connected via WebEx chat (visible on the big screens). The question was, “What behaviors cultivate trust when working at a distance?” It almost didn’t get answered but there were no more questions in the room so they turned to remote attendees.

There were minutes left of the scheduled meeting and the smell of pizza filled the air when the question was read. Out CTO offered an answer by alluding to earlier messages on communication, transparency, accessibility, and it being okay (and important) to make mistakes as part of learning and growth. And while everything she said was true, I desperately wanted to say more.

The matter of developing trust while working at a distance is a subject of strong personal and professional interest. Our ability to collaborate and interact in healthy and productive ways is directly related to how comfortable and familiar we are with each other. Trust is the currency of influence. When I need guidance or help, I go to someone I trust.

After the town hall I approached the CTO to talk about this question and the importance of cultivating trust and working across boundaries such as distance or culture. I told her how passionate I was about the subject and would like to do more. She was curious and reached out to me later. We had a great conversation. She suggested I share some of it via a blog post in hopes of promoting broader discussion on the topic. And here we are.

It was in graduate school at the University of Michigan School of Information studying Human-Computer Interaction from 2006-2010 that I was first exposed to formal research and studies on developing trust at a distance. Big corporations were funding studies to understand the behaviors of their workforce through anthropological like research involving cross disciplines like psychology and sociology. There was, and is, a need to understand how technology can improve or enhance how people work together and ways in which it can work against us when culture and personality are critical factors.

Imagine electric typewriters were an amazing new technology to you and suddenly the person typing next to you could type on the same piece of paper you are typing upon with your large incredibly loud electric typewriter. It would change things. You could have a conversation, create a living letter. Imagine you knew what it was like before telephones. Studies were done to understand key factors influencing trust when people interacted using technologies like chat, texting, phone, conferencing, video conferencing, etc.

Back to the question asked in the town hall; what behaviors influence trust when working at a distance? Our CTO referenced things like communication and transparency as being important to developing trust. Looking more closely at the nuances of communication revealed in some of these studies include things like time to reply to email versus chat, punctuation and spelling, formal/informal tone (and what makes it so), and how we perceive and trust others when audio or video were poor quality or unavailable. Or the importance of having a face paired with a voice when meeting someone virtually for the first time.

With so many of us are interacting via technology on a regular basis, the importance of recognizing, studying, and sharing information on behaviors which cultivate trust is more critical than it has ever been. As an architect I’m fascinated not only with how we engineer our products and deliver them, I’m equally interested in how we engineer our interactions with each other, how we collaborate, influence, and are influenced toward our shared goals. I hope this blog post is the start of a broader conversation on developing trust when working at a distance.