Facilitate Proceedings » Online collaboration

Are meetings still relevant?

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:06:20 +0000

In a webinar earlier this year sponsored by NewWOW (New Ways of Working), David Coleman posed a provocative question: “In the world of enterprise social collaboration, has the social construct of “meetings” become anachronistic? In other words, are meetings obsolete?”

I’ve had a few weeks to ruminate his question. My initial reply: Of course! To have a real conversation, people really have to be talking together, at the same time, in pretty much the same way. Otherwise, we’re just pushing out (or pulling in) a bunch of potentially disconnected thoughts that often cross paths somewhere in the clouds. That’s not the stuff authentic conversations are made of, IMHO.

The Art of Steering a Virtual Session

Julia Young — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:50:36 +0000

Recently I responded to a question from one of my LinkedIn professional groups. Someone asked: “During web conferences involving several locations, I often find myself sending SMS’s to my boss at the same time so as to steer or modify the meeting/discussion on the fly – does anybody else do this? Yes, indeed I do.

July Webinars – How to keep participants fully engaged

Julia Young — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:50:17 +0000

With our Interactive Webinars series, we’ve been exploring the concept of building highly interactive elements into virtual meetings and webinars. We invite anyone who is interested in exploring these ideas with us to engage in an interactive experience of creative thinking about ways to design collaborative activities in what is too often a one on many, presentation heavy format. Our series continues this month with more opportunities to collaborate on ideas about designing interactive webinars and virtual meetings. We’ve got two great webinars planned for July.

Inside All of Us is a Great Virtual Collaborator

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 02:35:44 +0000

In any given team, there are bound to be differences—in cultures, personalities, communication styles, work habits, expertise, seniority, and many other aspects. Rather than view differences as a challenge the team must address, think instead about how we can leverage differences, and at the same time nurture each team member to thrive in a virtual work setting.

Paying Attention to the Virtual Meeting Place

Julia Young — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:12:29 +0000

As virtual meeting facilitators we don’t control the meeting space in same way as we do for face-to-face meetings but there is value in paying attention to the physical surroundings – props, physical space and prompts – of our participants in order to optimize participation, attention and stimulation.

Death by PowerPoint or Web Conferencing?

Julia Young — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:24:03 +0000

The New York Times reports on Death by PowerPoint in the US Military. Is web conferencing going the same way?

So, you want to solve problems and generate quality ideas in your meeting?

Donna McAlister Kizzier — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:29:37 +0000

If solving problems or generating high quality ideas are among your primary meeting goals, which of the many meeting venues available to facilitators should you select? Face to face? Teleconferencing? Audio and video conferencing? Text messaging? Asynchronous or synchronous? With or without collaborative systems? Does it make a difference which meeting tools you select or the time frame you select? This month’s Research Brief addresses these questions, with a clear winner emerging.

As a reminder, each Research Brief refers readers to the full published article. Click on the link to read today’s full Research Brief. These Briefs are intended to communicate the results of my already published research to practitioners in the field. I appreciate and encourage your feedback; you are the best qualified to judge the relevant application of my research in the workplace.

How To Use Social Networking Tools To Strengthen Virtual Collaboration

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:56:54 +0000

I recently plunged (well, maybe dipped a toe or two) into the world of Twitter. It was inevitable, despite some of my early protestations. Pretty much all of my colleagues are doing it, as are my competitors, and more and more of my clients. Social networking (SN) tools like Twitter really are opening up new ways for virtual workers to connect, communicate and collaborate. SN tools do what email, instant messaging and other more traditional communications means cannot: They foster emergence, meaning that people and groups can naturally and easily link together based on their common interests, skills or profiles, often with people they never even realized existed.

Of course, any tool can be disruptive in a group if used in inappropriate ways. Based on my work with clients and colleagues who work as part of geographically dispersed teams, here are just a few helpful ways to use SN tools.

Synergy or Oxymoron? Reflections on Asynchronous Facilitation

Gurpreet Gil — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:54:10 +0000

In this research brief I will share some of the experience of Synergy, a project exploring the use of collaborative meeting software to facilitate asynchronous group activities.

Most staff developers see themselves as facilitators of the learning process – knowledge is distributed throughout the organisation and the learning process happens when people successfully collaborate with others. The role of the facilitator is to encourage this process by providing a clear framework for discussion, creating opportunities for dialogue to occur across different groups and communities of practice. Sounds great doesn’t it? If only it were that easy!

In reality, availability of the right people at the right time is often a major issue and what appears to be a successful outcome for the group who attended can subsequently be undermined by the absence of key individuals. This is where collaborative meeting software comes in, by offering a solution that enables people to be involved in a facilitated meeting, irrespective of their geographical location and existing diary commitments.

Where Rubber Meets Road (2): Six Traps to Avoid When Designing Your First Virtual Workshop

Julia Young — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:15:24 +0000

Where Rubber Meets Road is my way of bringing some of the practical experiences I’ve observed with clients to bear on the theory of transitioning our successful face to face events to the virtual world. My last post talked about one client’s experience converting their two day workshop to a virtual event. Here are some of the traps they almost fell into along the way.

Trap #1: Starting with the technology.
Thinking about what technology tools support our virtual workshop should be the last step in our planning. Coming from a F2F workshop environment, we are likely not familiar with online technology, so considering this at the start of the planning process will only limit our thinking. Start with what we know – good group process. Pick the technology to match the requirements of the group, the process and the learning objectives.