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February 17, 2006
Virtual, global and fun
Nancy White, Ted Kahn, Robin Good and Ken Thompson met live online in a Marratech room on Wednesday, the 15th of February 2006 for a panel discussion moderated by myself, Heike Philp, to share their insights on virtual teams. 'From Virtual Teams to Global Work Teams' was the topic of discussion, which was broadcast at the LearnTec 2006. 25 participants from Europe, Australia and the United States attended the meeting and another 30 participants watched the show in the Gartenhalle on a large screen in Karlruhe.
My hopes and wishes were to create a webcast of a different kind and in the end, it was unique for a number of reasons.
Have you experienced webcasts with numerous slides, even more numerous bullets, no pictures and a faceless voice? Instead, we wanted to show our faces and we wanted to use this medium to the full: a whiteboard for brain-writing and thought provoking images. As the panelists were speaking, a mind map was being created with their thoughts and ideas. How beautiful to use this tool creatively and how interesting this was.
And it was take out of a real life situation. A discussion about virtual teams by panelists who are located in different parts of the world. The technical glitches (Nancy's psychedelic face colors) and Ken's audio problems, the echo and the usual question: 'Do you see this now?' were taken out of real life. Because this is what the technology is like. Ken couldn't talk, because he couldn't hear, instead he was working on the mindmap and pasted the survey results in the text chat and added his thoughts there. Excellent! img
Above all, we did this for you: the participants. Whilst I am very sad about those who didn't make it into the room (there were quite a few), those who put in the effort were rewarded indeed. And the half hour, when we all continued online, listening to individuals from all over the world was my personal reward for all this crazy work envolved in hosting this event.
Last but not least, the discussion was very civilized. Instead of verbally passing the microphone (you might know this from TV interviews) simply by mentioning the names such as Ted/Ken/Nancy, I threw the question in the air. You might have experienced that it is often not easy to balance a virtual discussion. So, well done everbody for obeying simple courtesy rules.
In the hectic, I forgot to mention one of the ground rules, that the panelists came up with. Something I learned about: the appreciative enquiry. Very interesting concept of talking positively and paraphrasing even known facts with the thought, that sometimes the question can already be the invention. Check it out here.
You missed it? Then you might be interested in listening to the recordings, read the mind map, study the survey results and/or read the chat transcript which holds numerous links. For all archives, please click here.
Did you enjoy the recording, were you thrilled to be part of this?
Let us know.
Posted on February 17, 2006 at 11:13 AM
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Readers' Comments
It was very interesting to see the technology in use at the conference on Wednesday, I was impressed by the quality of the audio and the video feed, and I think it showed me that the idea of online group classes in an effective medium is very possible already. It seems like all they were really trying to say with all their diagrams and business rhetoric was that teamwork in
the virtual workplace has all the same risks and rewards of teamwork in the traditional workplace - the only reason people think otherwise is that they aren't used to the new format yet.
However, I must admit, I'm not a 'techie', nor even a technophile, and I'm not all that excited (as the panel members no doubt were) by the
prospect of spending even more time in front of the computer than I already do and trying to replace 'face time' with 'screen time'. I
don't see myself ever wanting to be in a situation where I don't do at least two-thirds of my work in the 'real world' - sure, it's
convenient to work from home and you don't have to worry about a bus arriving late, and maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I LIKE not
working in front of the computer. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the classes I teach for let's talk online, but I couldn't imagine doing 4 or 5 classes in a row every day in that format - I like having to get dressed, shaving, and taking a shower :-) But it was an interesting event nonetheless.
One thing that did stick out though was the panel's general agreement on the need for leadership in virtual communities. I think it's something that's causing us a lot of problems at present. The whole idea of an egalitarian union is atractive but it seems to me what they were saying is that someone has to take charge for things to get
done. Accountability is always perceived as less when there is no face-to-face interaction. It's just a fact. I really dislike people praising internet technology and IM with the rationale that "phone
calls are so intrusive". We've been using the phone for 100 years now, and it hasn't ever felt that intrusive to me. Before the phone, people would visit one another if they had something to say. Then the
phone made that unnecessary, and today if someone drops by to see you unexpected you think it's an intrusion. Now we have people who send
text messages, a practice I find to be somewhat juvenile, though I do
it from time to time, instead of picking up the phone (when the cost, at least in the US, is negligible). And we want to get to the point where we can just stick an electronic Post It Note on someone else's screen and wait until they see fit to answer us. I think we're setting a dangerous precedent in our avoidance of direct
communication. One of the paradoxes of the information age is that we are now able to contact one another at any time or place, but we have suddently become hesitant to do so for fear of causing an 'interruption'.
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