Suddenly Virtual

Preface: The Collision and Convergence of Two Areas of Expertise

In mid‐March 2020, the world of work transformed before our eyes. While essential workers continued to valiantly do their jobs in the face of a global pandemic, the vast majority of corporate offices closed their brick‐and‐mortar locations and moved to entirely remote operations to protect the lives of their employees and loved ones. Suddenly, so‐called knowledge workers were working from home, often in environments that were never designed for this new purpose. Important sales calls were taking place from the back porch. Training was being conducted virtually from dining room tables. Teams were navigating a dispersed workplace through the camera lenses of their home computers, smartphones, and tablets.

It was about a week before the “stay‐at‐home” orders swept across the United States that Dr. Joseph Allen and Karin Reed crossed paths. They were both working as subject matter experts for Logitech, the market leader in video collaboration tools, but they brought very different experiences and insights to the table.

Joe had been studying workplace meetings as an academic for over a decade, publishing more than 100 articles, book chapters, and books on the topic in academic outlets. He edited two volumes related to meeting science, including The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science and Research on Managing Groups and Teams: Managing Meetings in Organizations. As a recognized thought leader in this area, his work ...