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Adjusting to the Temporary "New Normal"

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 2, 2020
Filed under

Message From The NASA Administrator: Adjusting to the Temporary “New Normal”
“It’s been just over two weeks since NASA transitioned, as an agency, into Stage 3 of its coronavirus (COVID-19) response framework. In that time, several facilities have moved into Stage 4 due to on-site COVID-19 cases and/or an increasing number of cases in their surrounding communities. Marshall Space Flight Center recently became the latest to move to Stage 4. Approximately 75% of our workforce is now working from home – some in home offices, some at the kitchen table. Some of us have taken over the dining room, or other room that, just weeks ago, had been a shared space for family, friends, roommates, etc. I want to thank everyone who supports a NASA employee on the home front.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

13 responses to “Adjusting to the Temporary "New Normal"”

  1. rb1957 says:
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    the new definition of “business casual” …

  2. Jeff2Space says:
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    Please wear pants when on video conference calls. You never know when you might need to get up for some reason and, you now, you’re not wearing pants.

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      Will a kilt do? Though of course I’ve no Scottish heritage…

    • fcrary says:
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      Embarrassing goofs aside, how important is the video element? I’ve had good experience with voice-only teleconferences with presentation documents distributed by email. With schools and universities shifting to remote teaching, I’ve started to hear about the available bandwidth being stretched. I certainly don’t see the need for video of every single person, at a large (say over 10 person) meeting, for the whole time.

      • Bob Mahoney says:
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        In my teaching (AP Physics) I’m using video of myself much less, even after just a week. Seeing my face contributes little to the learning, but sharing my screen is key. Having video of the students does provide a form of real-time attendance, but when you call out a particular student who isn’t vidding and they don’t answer…that gives a good clue that they went AWOL somewhere in their house. Video provides some insight re: how the students are doing, but their voice provides much of that.

        It’s still like holding a conversation with folks distributed around a hotel…through the plumbing.

        • fcrary says:
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          That gets into a point about how teaching is done, and I’m not sure my ideas would apply at the high school level. But I believe some countries don’t have the usual, American expectations for attendance. (The United Kingdom, for example, and some correct me if I’m wrong.) The emphasis can be on passing the exams, with attendance at lectures and homework being a much less significant part of the grade. If the student can pass the exam after skipping the lectures, that’s fine. If the student flunks the exam because he didn’t go to the lectures, then that’s his own fault and his own problem. I think someone made an earlier comment about working from home requiring a focus on the results, and this might be another form of that idea.

      • jimlux says:
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        The video element is quite important – for one, it reduces “multi-tasking” (i.e. not paying attention to the telecon and doing other work) – it also allows people to stop the presenter by waving or otherwise indicating (yes, most conferencing tools provide a “raise hand” button, but presenters don’t always see the flag) – and on a “dial in only” there’s no way to interrupt.

        The video, when *everyone* is on, also creates a more cohesive team spirit. These are people with whom you’ve been working for years (or maybe only a few months), you know their expressions, you can be aware of body langauge and they can be aware of yours.

        Interestingly, the limited screen real estate has another positive side effect, you tend to limit the number of people in the meeting. I’ve been in straight telecons with >100 people, most of whom probably could have just read the information being presented in 5 minutes, but instead are listening to someone present it over 30 minutes.
        I’m differing here between a “webinar” and an actual meeting – the former is a passive observation, mostly, perhaps with Q&A at the end. The latter is something where you want many to many interaction.

        • fcrary says:
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          Multitasking can actually be quite valuable. I spent years on weekly to daily Cassini telecons, where most people were only needed for a small fraction of the meeting. I tried, repeatedly and without success, to get the person running the meeting to set a better agenda. One that would let people call in for the fifteen minutes where they were needed, and not force them to stay on the phone for the full hour (or more.) That never happened, so most of us ended up multitasking, and listening with half an ear for the issues we were needed for. And, I’ve seen many people to this at face-to-face meetings. Including professors who go to department colloquiums and sit in the back grading papers (or worse, checking email.) So I’m not sure if this is a problem that video conferencing can or should solve.

          In terms of team spirit and knowing the people you’re working with, that is important. But I think occasional face-to-face meetings (e.g. monthly) work well. Especially if the meeting is an all day or all week one, with people having dinner together, or just hanging out together, in the evenings. Contact in those sorts of settings lets you get to know people far better than simply seeing their faces during the official sessions.

          When it comes to screen space and bandwidth, I was thinking of the large meetings. Especially since that’s become an issue with remote teaching. Many intro courses at universities have over 100 students, and I don’t think we need to see and transmit all of their faces. But that’s an issue you weren’t addressing, so I won’t make a big point of it.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        Thank goodness, we typically don’t use video chat for our meetings. We’re far more likely to be presenting someone’s screen so they can see our product running, a PowerPoint presentation, source code, and etc.

        As for bandwidth being stretched, many people are using their personal machines to Remote Desktop (or similar) into their machine that’s still at work. Many companies simply do not allow company documents, source, and etc. on personal machines, so this is the only viable solution at the moment. This certainly uses more bandwidth than what you’re suggesting, but it keeps company property on company computers inside the company’s firewalls.

        • fcrary says:
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          I believe the instructions from my institution are to avoid using things like remote desktop. To deal with the security issue, we already have some servers which can be accessed from any machine inside the firewall. That includes machines at someone’s home using a VPN connection. I haven’t needed to do anything requiring that, so for all I know it may be a bit cumbersome. But it does reduce the bandwidth. The other potential problem is large classes with over a hundred students, all putting video of themselves on Zoom. The solution to that, I think, is not to do it.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            The basic problem is that folks are so used to synchronous meetings they are not able to recognize the potential of asynchronous ones which leverage the strength of the Internet rather than its weakness in terms of bandwidth.

            What I am talking of is trying a quick 6 hour (9am to 3pm) discussion supported by MS Power Points with recorded narration. You would be surprise how effective it is, more so than live interactions. It is also very effective when working with young folks whom have already replaced those “ancient” email/phone tools with texting as their preferred communication system.

            As a side note, it will also be how you have meetings in the future when parts of your class/group is on the Moon, Mars or out in the Asteroids. ?

          • fcrary says:
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            I’ve also had good experiences with back-and-forth email exchanges, with replies perhaps half an hour apart. With what you call “synchronous” meetings, something can come up, someone says, “Hold on, I can look that up in about five minutes.” And everyone else ends up killing time for a few minutes. That happens fairly often, and it’s not at all a good use of people’s time. The same exchange by email is a little slower when everything goes well with a live meeting. But there is built in time for someone to look up a detail while everyone else can go off and do something useful.

  3. Roger Jones says:
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    I continue to be grateful and pleasantly surprised at this Administrator’s leadership and performance.