Tag: meetings

What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?

The topic and practice of facilitating online meetings and webinars is cropping up all around my work and play life. People are asking a) when to use online meetings and b) how do to them – WELL! I am in the midst of preparing some resource materials, so I’d like to ask for your favorite resources. And to kick it off, here is a little three minute introduction Chahira Nouira of UN University in Bonn and I made this morning. We had tried Wetoku but the images weren’t so great, so we reverted to Skype and my Flip Camera. Keep it simple!

YouTube – What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?.

Don’t forget, please share your best online meeting facilitation tips!

Travel Budget Slashes, Meeting Crunch and Going Virtual

Flickr Photo by http://farm1.static.flickr.com/199/517610028_956361eb2c.jpg?v=0Throughout the year  I’m involved in quite a few conferences and meetings. This year, the ground is shifting. Travel budgets are being slashed (faster here than in Europe as far as I can tell) and people are starting to think more seriously about the non financial costs such as carbon emissions of the travel and the plain old wear and tear on our bodies traveling across time zones and geography.

Financially, meeting organizers have serious concerns. One US based conference coming up this Fall is seeing a 30% reduction in registrations and they feel LUCKY! One of my core communities of practice, KM4Dev, just had a call to discuss how we could meet, and scuttle our more ambitious S. Africa plan and do something more focused and less expensive because we could not get funding. Ed-Media, a conference I’ve been invited to speak at (in Hawaii – and yes, I feel both thrilled and carbon-guilty, even with offsets), sent email today announcing opening of virtual presentation submissions and participation. I say “good on ya!” Here are a few snippets from their note:

>>  Virtual Presentations included in Final Call  <<
http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/VP/
 > Please forward to a colleague <
http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/call.htm
_______________________________________________________________
ED-MEDIA 2009

World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications
June 22-26, 2009  *  Honolulu, Hawaii

INVITATION:
ED-MEDIA 2009 serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the discussion and exchange of information on the research, development, and applications on all topics related to multimedia and telecommunications/distance education.

ED-MEDIA, the premiere international conference in the field, spans all disciplines and levels of education and attracts more than 1,500 attendees from over 60 countries. We invite you to attend ED-MEDIA and submit proposals for presentations.

All presentation proposals are peer-reviewed and selected by three reviewers on the respected Program Committee for inclusion in the conference program, Proceedings (book and CD-ROM formats) and EdITLib (Education and Information Technology Digital Library),   http://www.EdITLib.org

VIRTUAL PRESENTATIONS:
————————————-

In consideration of presenters who may be unable to attend ED-MEDIA in person due to funding or time constraints, Virtual Presentations have been added to the program with the same validity (publication, certification, etc.) as the face-to-face (F2F) conference and with the capability to interact with session participants.

A limited number of presentations in these categories will be accepted:
– Virtual Brief Papers
– Virtual Posters
– Virtual Corporate Showcases

Why a Virtual Presentation?
————————————
* Saves money.  No travel, accommodation, and restaurant costs
* Saves time. No travel or away time required.
* Allows you to participate when you schedule your time to do so.
* Same validity as the face-to-face (F2F) conference (publication, certification, etc.).
* Paper published in CD, book, and Digital Library ( http://www.editlib.org) proceedings.
* Publish and share all supporting media (PPT, video, etc.) in the proceedings.
* Capability to interact with your session

I love meeting face to face. But the reality is those of us who can are priveledged and soon, the ability to travel and gather may be even more restricted. We have to get better at “being together” using technology. That means better tools AND practices. That probably leads me to griping about the web meeting tools I have been using because they are what my clients use.

After criticizing SharePoint last week for it’s silo-creating, I have to ding Microsoft Live Meeting for it’s top down control model. There is no group chat (participants can only chat with the moderator or one other person at a time, thus no horizontal communication nor any easy ability to collectively take notes), there is no visible participant list (thus defeating any community building part of one’s agenda), and there can only be one moderator at a time, reducing the ability to agily collaborate. This is “I deliver content to you” style technology. Yes, it may integrate nicely with Office and Outlook, but what if you are not using or don’t focus on these integration issues?

Not far behind in its clunkiness is WebEx, which makes passing the control baton something of a high wire act. I have enjoyed using Elluninate more. I’ve had the best luck with their integrated VoIP and their breakout rooms, while still a bit tricky, are much easier for me than WebEx.

On the free and lower cost side, Vyew is getting higher marks from me, but I’ve not tested it with a larger group and have not taken a run at the latest version of Dim Dim. Both currently offer 20 person rooms for free!

Skype – audio and chat – is still at the core of my small group meetings, often augmented by a quality phone/Skype bridge when I have larger groups (which costs me $40/month).

However, without clear purpose and useful practices, these tools are useless. We need to make gathering time serve our purposes and to be useful, functional and ENJOYABLE. Not a torture test. Friends and colleagues in my circle have all acknowledged we need to start thinking, working and practicing together to both better understand and manipulate the tools and improve the meeting processes themselves. Clearly, I need to make time for this.

Photo credit (and yes, I’ve used this one twice!) by stephentrepreneur

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

Obliterate or strategically use business travel?

Uploaded on July 24, 2008 law_kevinFast Company has a provocative article out yesterday under their “Big Idea” flag about “obliterating” business travel. Sounds like quite a headline, eh?

July 23, 2008
“Within five years, technology will obliterate the need for business travel.” – Inspired by new videoconferencing technologies and rising fuel costs

… Companies too are making an active effort to limit employees’ air travel for the duel-pronged benefits of cutting costs and being environmentally friendly. AT&T has reportedly reduced employee air miles by 15% through video conferencing and Web meetings, while Accenture plans to have 22 video conferencing rooms installed around the world by the end of this year.

OK, I am in firm agreement that we can cut out a lot of business travel, particularly when we are doing things like information dissemination. I cringe each time go to or hear of international gatherings where the structured interaction is all presentation. Thank goodness for meals and coffee breaks. But I think we should seriously rethink large conferences. See Jim Benson’s post on this… But what about the other things we get on airplanes and fly around the world to do, both explicitly and implicitly, with each other? (No, I’m NOT talking about mile-high clubs!)

We know we can do meaningful work and learning with each other at a distance, even without video conferencing. (In fact, please, I don’t want to have to get out of my yoga clothes for a vid!). Sales can happen via online technologies. But is there a “throw out the baby with the bathwater” element here? Will we obliterate business travel, or use is both more sparingly and strategically? I think it is the latter and here’s why.

Learning is not an instant… it is a path
I was chatting with Tony Karrer (lots of good stuff in his blog and at his new venture with Michele Martin, Work Literacy) earlier today about “training.” Oi, such a word. One of my friends says “training is for dogs, learning is for humans.” I’m not quite that rabid (or am I a dog?) but often feel like training is dumping information on people (see this clever slide show for an articulation of this.) We have expectations that training as an isolated act solves a skill or more general learning need.

In my experience, it ain’t that simple. Yes, there are certainly things we can learn and apply with a quick workshop – online or face to face (F2F). But taking learning and deepening it, applying it to work, innovating upon it – that takes time. And it sometimes takes poking at the issue from more than one direction. Working on it over time. Or perhaps with more than one stick. This is where blending online and F2F can sometimes be the thing that puts us over the current hurdle. I learn something online with you today. I go off and work on it. We help each other online. Then we get to meet, have a great meal and we start out talking about our projects, and then we go from there, discovering new learning from each other we never even imagined. Kismet, made possible by the space we create when we take time to meet F2F.

Why is there something important about this F2F stuff? Because so much of learning is nurtured by the social context and sometimes the online social context is not always sufficient for everyone. I find it very satisfying. My sister does not. Have we had some shared experiences to compare? You bet. So those of us who smugly say we can do it all online have not yet found a way to translate those rich experiences to others with different preferences and styles of learning and interacting. And, hey, we still can’t sit down and make/share a meal fully online.

Going F2F creates a different and time bounded social context. We give each other full attention for a limited amount of time. Online, we may spread that attention out – even if we are using synchronous technologies. One of the most powerful gathering experiences for me is being able to work and stay at the same place with people – a research facility, the same hotel, or in a colleagues home. The mix of work and play, of social and intellectual, creates a different sort of stew that jumpstarts my learning differently than online. Being able to “sleep on” what we said today makes tomorrow’s conversation deeper. This F2F stuff is different, not better or worse.

We benefit from that difference. The translocation to another place jostles new ideas and opens us up. We get out of our cocoon and I think that can be very productive. And in my experience, it bolsters and deepens both the learning and the subsequent online interactions.

So lets reduce business travel – it saves time, money and the environment. But lets not obliterate it because there is value in the social learning context of face to face gatherings, particularly ones that open the space for us to create meaning and ideas together. Skip the panel and the presentation. Break out the good food, wine and tea. Let’s sit elbow to elbow, look over each others’ shoulders and let’s get to work. AND, let’s do great things together online.

Photo Credit (CC)

view photostream Uploaded on July 24, 2008
by law_keven

Making Events Green

Photo by Matthew Fang on FlickrIn one of my communities, KM4Dev, there was a conversational thread on Making Events Green which has been summarized into our community wiki. (That in itself is an interesting practice to talk about. But later!)

There is a tension between our desires to reduce our carbon footprint and our desires to be together in the same place at the same time. The wiki offers us some steps for when we are face to face.

In the mean time, the better we get at productive and meaningful interaction online, the easier it will be to save our precious carbon expenditures for when it is REALLY important to be face to face, and reduce a lot of the “information dissemination” meetings which tend to plague many sectors. Yes, the conversations in the halls and over coffee are important, but why are we spending money on conference facilities. Let’s just go to a dang big coffee shop! Let’s leave behind the high production flyers and brochures, conference bags and gew-gaws. Bring your own coffee mug.

We can make not only events green, but consider how our interaction choices can reduce our carbon footprint. (And yes, sometimes that means turning off the computer as well!)

Photo by Matthew Fang