Virtual Holiday Parties: Where's the Spirit
This weekend I’ll be celebrating the holidays at my husband’s company Christmas party. We always have a good time mingling with his co-workers each year and talking about things other than work. I, myself, enjoy it because it is one of the few times a year I have an excuse to get all dolled up and get out of the house for a bit. A change of scenery and entertaining with other adults is always a positive thing when you work at home like I do.
The upcoming get-together has got me pondering the options available to those of us who work online to have gatherings with our business partners, mentors, assistants, etc. There are so many people I work with on a regular basis, but have never met and would love to come together with, especially this time of year. Some of the options I have found so far are good ones, but let’s face it; they just aren’t as personal or festive as I would like them to be.
There’s always web conferencing, which is great for getting together a group of individuals, no matter how big or small. You can chat about things as a group or even separately with others. It’s usually just one person talking at a time and many people are not completely involved for various reasons. You can add video conferencing or webcams to help make it more like you are “together”. Heck, you can even play a bit of holiday tunes in the background to help stay with the theme of the party. There’s still something missing when you do it this way.
Depending on how scattered across the world everyone is and how much money you have, you could buy everyone a plane ticket to a central meeting place and have a 1 or 2 day adventure that way. Wrap it up with a holiday party I guess. That'd definitely be an expensive venture and who has time to get on a plane just before the holidays?
You also run the risk of forgetting someone. That wouldn’t be the best thing to do at a time like the holidays now would it? Happy Holidays, I forgot you, which no matter how much I didn’t mean to (and no, I would never intentionally leave anyone out) you are still going to feel left out. If I was filthy rich then maybe I could afford to do this, but I’m not. So, nah, I think I’ll pass on this one too. Sorry ladies!
I guess that leaves me the option of sending cards and gifts to everyone I work with online. Yes, I can make it a bit more personal by catering the gifts to each one and writing out the cards by hand. I can even throw in a few photos if they are fitting for the individual. Don’t get me wrong, I love sending gifts and letting all of my “co-workers” know that I appreciate them and am thinking of them, but it somehow leaves me missing the festivities of a party.
I’m curious to know how those of you who do business online celebrate the season with your partners, fellow business owners, assistants, etc.
The upcoming get-together has got me pondering the options available to those of us who work online to have gatherings with our business partners, mentors, assistants, etc. There are so many people I work with on a regular basis, but have never met and would love to come together with, especially this time of year. Some of the options I have found so far are good ones, but let’s face it; they just aren’t as personal or festive as I would like them to be.
There’s always web conferencing, which is great for getting together a group of individuals, no matter how big or small. You can chat about things as a group or even separately with others. It’s usually just one person talking at a time and many people are not completely involved for various reasons. You can add video conferencing or webcams to help make it more like you are “together”. Heck, you can even play a bit of holiday tunes in the background to help stay with the theme of the party. There’s still something missing when you do it this way.
Depending on how scattered across the world everyone is and how much money you have, you could buy everyone a plane ticket to a central meeting place and have a 1 or 2 day adventure that way. Wrap it up with a holiday party I guess. That'd definitely be an expensive venture and who has time to get on a plane just before the holidays?
You also run the risk of forgetting someone. That wouldn’t be the best thing to do at a time like the holidays now would it? Happy Holidays, I forgot you, which no matter how much I didn’t mean to (and no, I would never intentionally leave anyone out) you are still going to feel left out. If I was filthy rich then maybe I could afford to do this, but I’m not. So, nah, I think I’ll pass on this one too. Sorry ladies!
I guess that leaves me the option of sending cards and gifts to everyone I work with online. Yes, I can make it a bit more personal by catering the gifts to each one and writing out the cards by hand. I can even throw in a few photos if they are fitting for the individual. Don’t get me wrong, I love sending gifts and letting all of my “co-workers” know that I appreciate them and am thinking of them, but it somehow leaves me missing the festivities of a party.
I’m curious to know how those of you who do business online celebrate the season with your partners, fellow business owners, assistants, etc.
4 Comments:
I wish we could all get together too. This year I'm sending cards to everyone - gits to a couple. I wish I could do more, but I simply don't have the funds this year. I'd love a great big Christmas party with all my online buddies :)
Now that I work with quite a few people online I've been thinking about this too. I was thinking it would be great to get together at a web conferencing board, guess it's better than no party at all.
Nothing beats meeting people live and I guess that's just a downside of everyone being all over the place..
I'm sending out cards a few gifts too :)
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I think the closest to close you can really get being scattered is still web conferencing and yes I'm biased ;) But, we usually have a good time in Verbal Networking maybe we shoudl converge there. Though the audio/video is one person at a time this is kinda offset in the text chat where it's always busy.
That was me before Blogger Beta is confusing for contributors and commentors. Hope they sort this out quick.
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