Day: July 27, 2008

More on replacing business travel from Jessica Lipnack

Flickr CC from linh_nganLast week I wrote about Obliterate or strategically use business travel?

Then I saw this post on Facebook by NetTeams wizardess, Jessica Lipnack. Her emphasis on the social processes resonates. It is worth a link here…

Facebook | Jessica Lipnack’s Notes

…Many reporters, for example, The New York Times’s fine one, Steve Lohr, whose article, “As travel costs rise, more meetings go virtual,” took the headline earlier this week. Nothing wrong with Lohr’s article, good, solid reporting with news for the newbies to the area: Cisco’s telepresence offering, high price tag aside, makes participants feel like they’re “there;” “companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for training and sales;” and this, worth the pull quote:

A report last month by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a group of technology companies, and the Climate Group, an environmental organization, estimated that up to 20 percent of business travel worldwide could be replaced by Web-based and conventional videoconferencing technology.

Twenty percent? Me thinks a lot higher. But, numbers aside, where Lohr’s article is like all the rest – and where it misses the point – is in this: Technology alone does not solve the problem. I’ve harped on about this before. Our old motto, “90% people, 10% technology,” is being drowned out by the reflexive action whereby companies/organizations throw technology into the hands that once held airline tickets.

Here are a couple of more related articles if you are interested in this topic of when and how to replace F2F meetings with virtual meetings.

July 31 Addition: As an added afterthought (I keep adding links) this is also a technology stewardship issue. Who is building the capacity to use these tools well? What does their community of practice look like!)

Photo Credit:
Uploaded on July 7, 2008
by linh.ngân

NTEN’s We Are Media Project

Beth Kanter is stewarding a very cool project for NTEN, We Are Media . There is a veritable blossoming of projects to help people learn about and adopt social media these days. Must be a sign…

Here is the scoop – maybe you have something to contribute?

The We Are Media Project is a community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world.

Curated by NTEN, the community will work in a networked way to help identify the best existing resources, people, and case studies that will give nonprofit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to be the media. The community will help identify and point to the best how-to guides and useful resources that cover all aspects of creating, aggregating, and distributing social media. The resulting curriculum which will live on this wiki and will also cover important organizational adoption issues, strategy, ROI analysis, as well as the tools.

Ultimately, we hope to build this wiki and community into the “go-to place” for vetted resources about social media strategies and tools for nonprofits and/or individuals who work for or with nonprofits and need practical advice about getting started or to quickly access best practices, examples, or experience from other practitioners working in nonprofits.

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We are looking for people who share our passion about this topic. Please read the participate page to see ways you can get involved. Visit the module outline to see more about content and the process for building it out. Please let us know more about how you would like to be involved.