together

2008-11-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

I've long had a LinkedIn account that I've been idle with. I would accept requests to the dormant account, but wouldn't invite anyone. Until now.

Recently I've determined that the power of networks would be a useful resource in advancing some personal goals. I've requested that a few contacts join my network, and even requested a referral from some close colleagues and clients. I like the results. I'm confident showing people my LinkedIn profile as an alternative to a bio of any kind. It doesn't only speak to work history or interests, it speaks to an individual's living network.

Scott Allen wrote that "LinkedIn was designed to be more of an extended Rolodex than a virtual cocktail party. LinkedIn's core value proposition enables significant improvements in efficiency for search/discovery within your extended network". I've done the cocktail party thing with facebook and others. Used for its purpose - which I now have a need for - LinkedIn is a good tool. Some other business networking applications it's being used for:

Prospecting/researching possible customers
Prospecting/researching key people in organizations (often potential customer's organizations)
Keeping information accurate, almost like a customer managed CRM
Softening territory to do cold calls. I.e. "you know _________ from my network, we should chat"

With the endless professional and personal networks out there, how can one manage their contacts? I've recently been exposed to, but never used: WeMeUs. It's another thing to have to log in to, but it might help in centralizing what you or I are using now.

Neurotechnology and Communication

2008-11-04T04:25:00.000-08:00

Back in May of '08, I posted this blog about monkeys using their thoughts to control machines. It is based on a New York Times article. There are practical prosthetic applications, and the video is pure hilarity, but the relevance to communication and collaboration was less obvious to me at the time of writing. But in a wonderful coincidence, this article and concept have re-entered my life, and there is great clarity around how it applies to communication.

I was "Session Captain" at a few sessions in Boston recently. See the 8:45 Focus Session on Neurotechnology at this year's CIMIT Innovation Congress. Note that the presenter was none other than John Donaghue, PhD, of Brown University. Donaghue is a leading expert in brain science, and was referenced and quoted in the NYTimes article that the previous post was based upon!

In the session, Donaghue shared stories told through media and personal accounts (masterful presenter, check him out if you have the chance and take note of his style) how minuscule brain implants can interpret signals from brain cells that are indicating to limbs - whether or not they even exist or function - how they should operate. These same implants can take that information and instruct prosthetics or say, a cursor on a computer screen, to move in a certain manner. We watched a video of a man with no control of his limbs control a cursor to draw a circle on a screen, directed only by thought. It was pretty unsuccessful his first try, but he was able to clear his screen and by the third attempt he had produced what you would recognize as a circle. Incredible.

Don't worry, I'm getting to the communication piece...

Also on the panel was epileptologist Dr. Anthony L Ritaccio from Albany Medical College. Instead of using invasive chips, Dr. Ritaccio is monitoring brain waves (see relevant posts here) to try and predict the onset of seizures. This is leading edge research, but another thing he said that stuck with me was how this kind of technology can one day do more than replace motor skills and forecast seizures. It can change the way our race communicates.

Since the early days of the homo sapien, we as a species have communicated syntactically. The way we communicate has not changed much since we were cavemen. We use symbols and noises. That could all change though. Advances in neurotechnology could see us mastering semantic communication in the future, sharing concepts with one another without common language or background. The possibilities for collaboration are limitless if/when this is achieved. I hope I live to see (or see? or think? or feel?) it.

Also of interest, all of the experts in these panels cited the multidisciplinary nature of the collaborations taht will need to take place to advance this field as perhaps the greatest challenge. Great recognition for a sometimes underappreciated problem.

Innovation Congress

2008-10-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Boston at the CIMIT Innovation Congress. What an incredible study in healthcare, innovation, and convening this has been. With years of practice and success in their CIMIT Forum, the CIMIT team has become expert at connecting people - which in turn connect ideas, research, capital, etc, etc - to the benefit of health. Not just locally around Massachusetts General Hospital, but improving patient care around the world by putting the right people in the right environments and nurturing the conditions that stimulate connection and innovation.

I will post about some particular focus sessions and elements of this conference over the coming days. Be sure to check back, because this was an incredible experience with many great speakers bringing action to he purpose and structure provided them.

For now, I just want to comment on the conditions a bit. Like many conferences, the Innovation Congress shoulders focus sessions, idea exchanges and other breakout formats appropriate to different objectives with plenary keynote speakers. Creating a conference following this formula isn't a guarantee for success, although it's the formula that people (especially this clinical and academic audience) expect. CIMIT knows this, and has put great consideration into the meeting design.

For example, they don't give speakers a time limit and topic. They give them these things, as well as some guidance and requests. Much like the TED rules, they have philosophies that hope speakers can consider. Story sharing and interactivity are central. The moderators they enlist are elite in their field of expertise, but they are coached and encouraged to create a dialogue instead of a download. The results are amazing. This thoughtfulness and engaging faculty in advance makes for an entirely different, and in my opinion superior, meeting experience.

I had tried to offer some visual component to provide some frame of reference, but my damn webcam isn't capturing video! I'll see if I can link to CIMIT's blog if they post something.

Multiple Intelligences

2008-10-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

Howard Gardner wrote his famous book "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences" in 1983. The theory is generally well respected and accepted. As a matter of fact, most American universities have first year students study the different styles. A part of the curriculum is typically to have students practice study techniques that are best suited to their intelligence. For example, a Verbal/Linguistic student is advised to create flashcards about what they are learning. Or a Musical student is advised to tap to a beat while studying. An Interpersonal student might share what they are learning with someone else, etc.

Following a brief reading and paper to develop this personal "mastery", it's commonplace for students to consider how different intelligences among their classmates will affect the way they work together. Again, this is usually a bit of reading, perhaps a pocket of a lecture, and a brief paper.

Why is it that this theory is often lost in adult learning initiatives? Not only are professionals not often asked to be mindful of multiple intelligences, but I've seen enough learning and development programs to know that only a few great ones pay any heed to the various styles that make up a group of learners. I think the key piece is the awareness. How could learners benefit from each other if just given a bit of background around how their colleagues learn?

Has this theory become replaced by other interpersonal typing methodologies? Does an assessment that gauges how people receive and provide information, or conduct themselves in a group provide enough personal insight and understanding of others to make Multiple Intelligences obsolete? Here are a few typing methodologies that would be seen in professional development and adult learning more regularly that are designed to help people understand communication styles, preferences, etc:

Myers Briggs
Human Dynamics
Strength Deployment Inventory
i-speak
True Colours
Dennison Culture Survey
Team Management Systems
Personality Dimensions
DISC

And there are several others. Many share the same trade-off that they are too difficult or time consuming for a significant number of people on a team to realistically learn, or they are niche or narrowly focused and only provide limited insight. As with anything, experimenting with a few varieties and starting simple is a low risk way to learn what you like.

The YouTube Phenomenon

2008-10-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

The stats around YouTube are well documented and very relevant to markets, media, etc. Have a gander at this anthropological look at what YouTube has done and is doing, though. It's fascinating subject matter, and a great lesson in using media in presentations.

It's interesting to think about how YouTube or a similar concept could be used in support of collaborations. I'm facilitating a meeting soon where all participants have made a case for why their department should be entitled to certain resources in advance of the meeting. I'd way rather see the videos than read these documents, and I'm sure the rest of the group would too.

More aligned with this lecture would be a way to share profiles and connect people before a meeting. I can't see too many people biting on this idea, but I'm sure there's a group out there that's willing to expose themselves a la YouTube to accelerate a tight group dynamic in a meeting.

Text Polling

2008-10-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

I've discovered and am quickly falling in love with a cool tool called Poll Everywhere. It allows for people to respond to questions using narrative, by using the tools that they almost certainly have on hand anyway.

You just create a poll online by typing in a question, and then project that question on the screen. The audience simply sends an SMS with the text "Cast (and your keyword)" plus their questions, suggestions, responses or input, to a constant number.

There is little one can do to synthesize the information once received, but it does create reports in Excel, and it's free or virtually free for an upgrade. There are more robust polling options, but they usually require specialized devices. This requires an internet connection, and wireless devices that are present in every meeting room, for better or for worse.

The advantage is that people can provide anonymous feedback in the moment. It can also help presenters to steer presentations in the direction that that is required of the audience. There are also multiple choice polling options.

The danger of course, is encouraging people to interact with a device that usually signifies a dying meeting or disengagement.

Some Cool, Useful, and FREE Tools

2008-09-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

There is such a wealth of open source software and applications out there. Finding it can be difficult though. I try and stay abreast of the collaborative tools, but it's nearly impossible. I focus my searches to the simplest of the many options. I like toys where I can just pick up and play; no instruction reading required.

A simple collaborative software that's free to users and gaining more users all the time Google Docs. How it can be used to collaborate is limited, but it's a great place to start. It's a basic word processor, and multiple people can access documents if given permission.

Now there may be a superior set of tools out there under one umbrella, called Zoho. Zoho has a word processor to match Google's, but it also has a presentation (read: PowerPoint) utility, spreadsheets, wikis, planners, chatting tools, etc, all free. There's also some business applications, like webconferencing and databases. If not for free, then at least some free trials.

Check these out and give me some feedback.

Positive Deviance

2008-09-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to meet with Keith McCandless this week. Keith is a master facilitator and practices a wide variety of approaches and methodologies, most of which he would call "liberating structures". One such structure is positive deviance.

Positive deviance is when a person or group of people learns from another person or group of people in the same conditions how to measurably improve their results towards a given challenge. There are some great examples of positive deviance leading to huge improvements in healthcare safety initiatives with lives lost as a measure, or improved nourishment within test villages in malnourished nations with child weight as a measure.

I had to ask Keith what the difference between positive deviance and best practices is. The difference, as I gather, is that best practices don't work. Best practices are commonly shared across organizations, across roles, and across other differences. Ignoring these differences is ignoring reality. Positive deviance focuses on people, communities or organizations with the same circumstances, and the exceptional model does not have resources or circumstances unavailable to the other parties.

I hope to elaborate as we continue to work with Keith in the coming months. In the meantime, are there any great positive deviance stories out there?

Arrow's Theorem and Group Decisions

2008-09-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Way back in 1951, Kenneth Arrow wrote a book called Social Choice and Individual values, in which he introduced Arrow's Paradox (aka Arrow's Possibility theorem, aka Arrow's Impossibility theorem). Slightly less back in 1972, Arrow won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work.

To oversimplify and ignorantly sum up, democratic voting doesn't work when weighing subjects against various criteria. (Blogger's note: No pretenses; I'm not capable of understanding, let alone explaining this equation with any sensibility. Check out the link for that. I'm just running with my blanket statement, and what to do with that conclusion).

If alternative analysis can't be trusted, then how can the input of multiple people help get to a decision? One thought would be to use the results of a vote to surface opinions, and use these as a springboard for more focused discussion. This isn't a silver bullet. But, will there ever be? Will algorithms ever take insights and transform them into optimal decisions? Services like Expert Choice are apparently making strides. There may be solutions on the horizon, but engaging people in discussion surrounding voting inputs also produces new insights and further benefits.

To be fair, there's always a risk in opening up results to discussion, of course.

Rise of the Numerati

2008-09-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

Interesting book with some potentially useful and some terrifying implications. The Numerati by Stephen Baker shows how human behaviour is becoming more and more quantifiable. With so much of our activity recorded as transactions, searches, navigation, etc on this interweb that everyone's talking about, it's easy to be monitored in great depth.

BusinessWeek has a an interview with the author, and their coverage of the book focuses on what could be a dangerously unethical side of this phenomenon. The article begins by saying that a very significant corporation will use mathematical models to "automate management". Automate management!? What kind of intrusiveness will the employees be subject to? And how can a complex organism be managed on the basis of complicated algorithms?

I have my reservations and even objections, but it will be interesting to see what we can learn and what we can predict based on tangible data. Done with moral consciousness, great things will surely come.

Also in this thread is Super Crunchers. It describes how people can and should leverage math. I prefer that to a description of how big brother can leverage math to commodotize tacit human knowledge.

Six... No! THREE Degrees of Separation

2008-09-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

Milgram told us in the '60's that everybody was connected to everybody through 6 degrees of separation. We could count the world among those associate to us by no more than 6 associations. Of course, my generation didn't learn about the principle through Milgram, but through the more fun and infinitely more relevant Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon*.

Now French communications provider O2 tells us differently. With the proliferation of social networking and related technologies, the 6 degrees of separation is now 3. The study shows that we are each a part of 3 major networks:

Family

Friends

Work

We also fit into 5 interest network subsets that connect us, broadly defined as:

Personal interests (hobbies, sports, music)

Where we live

Religion

Sexuality (I hope there's no overlap with the family network here!)

Politics

An interesting find from the study is that although many people have more connections, 97% of respondents said they have stronger connections now than 10-20 years ago. Could it be that the tools that broaden our networks also deepen our connections? That would be a very compelling reason to incorporate more social networking technologies and platforms into work and into meetings.

Somewhat unrelated, but check out this job hunting approach to leveraging the 3 degrees principle. What other ways are there to apply this finding and work the networks?

*Follow this link if you do nothing else productive today!

Working the Tags

2008-09-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

I appreciate all of the comments I get, but have to remark on an interesting trend I've noticed in some over the last month. Click on any of the below to see the relevant posting, for which the comments will be listed below.

Glance - In a posting about webconferencing options, a representative from an organization called Glance offered the comment that their solution is one more alternative, and offered me an extended free trial to one year. I am taking advantage of the trial now. Clearly there's an expectation that I react to the product in this arena. I'll report if I use it for anything groundbreaking. For now, I will neutrally say that it is definitely easy to use. For pure screen sharing, it does the job very well and with no hassle to participants at all.

Dan Pink - Talking about fundamental decisions, I commented on Johnny Bunko. Author of the book, Dan Pink, actually offered a comment. Kind of trivial in that it thanked and acknowledged, but didn't offer much insight to speak of besides a correction of the terminology (I'd used "fundamental maneuvres", he uses "fundamental reasons". Worth noting the difference here)

Wired - After the Crowdsourcing post about the Jeff Howe podcast, WIRED staffer Jim commented that I should check out a link to an interview he had done with how. I will of course check it out, and I will of course blog about it.

It's clear that these people are searching and reacting to relevant tags (see below this posting for an example of those). This can help people identify relevance and seek communication and even marketing opportunities amongst the infinite number of blogs out there. In this we see the real web characteristic of blogging.

How can you or your organization seek an audience or develop influence using tags as a tool?

Crowdsourcing

2008-09-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

Check out this video/podcast from Wired Magazine's Jeff Howe, who also happened to author the book "Crowdsourcing".

http://www.wired.com/wiredsmallbizprogram/video.html?section=1&vid_index=1&autoplay=1

Not surprisingly, the theme is crowdsourcing. Not only is the notion of outsourcing work that was formerly done by a salaried employee to the masses relevant to any business, but it's also relevant to the meeting designer.

How can aspects of meeting design be crowdsourced? And when is it appropriate to dedicate a problem to a meeting, and when instead should the problem become a crowdsourcing opportunity (i.e. using your own crowd, or the faceless virtual "crowd")?

Also note the interesting presentation components that make this more than a talking head. Pics and video in sync with words, dealing with literal examples and metaphor. Good stuff.

"Business" Plan for Life

2008-08-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Johnny Bunko yet, then take the 20 minutes and read it. The first thing you might notice about the book is that it's done in manga format. The medium shouldn't (and for me doesn't) dominate the message, though. What sticks with me from this book is the call to action. The call for individuals to assess their approach to a career and make changes if necessary.

In his story, Dan Pink distinguishes between fundamental and instrumental manoeuvres. Overplanning and overcommitting to very distinct directions (instrumental manoeuvres) can be limiting. Making good decisions that can open up new doors (fundamental manoeuvres) are all up-side.

In an effort to make some quality fundamental decisions, at the suggestion of a mentor I went ahead and created a life plan for myself in the format of a business plan. In an exercise like this of course, the "plan" is worthless by the time you've finished typing. The purpose isn't to create an instrumental plan. The idea is to list some of your areas for growth that you can match your strengths to, and to decide on some actions that will point you in the right direction. Don't be afraid to acknowledge areas that you're not too good at. It's a great introspective and iterative process.

To get very personal, I'll share some of my directions shortly. Stay tuned.

Further Paradox

2008-08-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

I posted the Abele article with some commentary about the Collaboration Paradox some time ago, found here. I read something from Graham Douglas recently that looks at another paradox, or contributor to the same paradox. It is from his new Integrative Thinking Module.

Douglas spoke of the Will to Power and Will to Dependence (note: this link is to dependent personality disorder, which may be an extreme of the universal affinity) as conflicting innate social programming. You can look up his works for more, but my interpretation is below.

Our wills to power, excellence and animalism drives us to be independently successful, leaders of the pack. But because we are social animals, we also have this will to dependence, and the yearning to be a part of a family, team, or tribe.

How can we balance our wills to effectively collaborate with those experiencing the same internal conflict? If one individual with a strong will to power is in a position of power - which logically, they would instinctively gravitate towards - then how is that person challenged without making them with their programming feel that they are not threatened? How can that person or leader ensure that their team is candid and challenges them, when they may tend to see that person as the alpha personality that has a monopoly on excellence or answers?

Webconferencing Options

2008-08-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

The webconference is being touted as the answer to meeting in a carbon-emissions-conscious and gasoline price terrified society. There are a million options out there. Which one is the best?

Impossible question to answer. It depends so heavily on what your requirements are. What are you hoping to achieve? How much functionality do you want, and how important is simplicity or intuitive use to you?

I’d suggest starting with Skype to see what it can do for you at little or no cost, then move on from there. I've just been turned on to Dimdim. It's free for webconferences up to 20, and upgrading from there is also reasonable. My favourite part is that that it's simple and requires no downloads of administrator or participant.

Adobe Connect is a pretty complete option, and enables multiple users to edit documents shared in a “meeting room”. Sexier still would be a ProtoSphere virtual world, where work can be conducted and documents edited, but there’s the novelty of avitars, virtual spaces, and if you like; virtual 3D constructs of physical items you would like to display or manipulate with your conferees. There’s also a lot of support for Learning Management Systems. Of course, there’s also a lot of price tag associated.

A few things to consider that you may or may not be looking for when you check out these and other options:
· Ability for participants to edit documents (not just view them)
· Ability for participants to upload or share documents (not exclusively an administrator function)
· Polling function
· Chat
· Whiteboard
· Ease of connecting – do a participant need to follow a link and enter a code, or do they need to login, register, download applications, etc

In the spirit of being an honest broker, here are a few other options that I've experienced as a user or arbitrarily found in the simplest of Google searches. They range from enterprise solutions to basic user products:

Human Slavery (The Arts and Change)

2008-08-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

Having been introduced to some films, I've begun to realize how terrifically (and pleasantly) ignorant I am. I was not surprised to learn that slavery exists on this planet Earth. I was astonished to learn the magnitude of the tragedy. Please follow these links to see what the film community is working to expose:

http://callandresponse.com/
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/content/holly-film-about-human-trafficking

I'm grateful for these projects that create and enhance awareness around social issues. Done well, a film or other artistic works cannot only develop awareness, but can inspire action and trigger the connection of resources. The challenges they seek to address are also being considered as the focus of many social change meetings and conferences.

My question is, how can the meeting arena better use or nurture artistry to achieve social change? Creating visual models is one thing, but how are meetings evoking emotional responses?

FogScreen

2008-08-11T07:53:00.000-07:00

The future is upon us! Actually, it's not that new, I first heard about FogScreen a few years ago, but now they've got something to look at. Check this out.

FogScreen, as the name implies, is a screen made out of fog. It's like any screen that images and media would be projected upon, but the light from the projector is actually reflected from minuscule droplets of water instead of a solid surface. The effect looks like a hologram. Obviously anything remotely holographesque is by it's very nature cool in that nerdy sci-fi use of the word cool.

They position the technology as a marketing display tool or nifty element for a swanky nightclub. But screens are also big in meetings. We meeting nerds also deserve access to these novelties.

Replacing a regular screen in a meeting with one of these would be sacrificing some image quality for coolness sake. Possibly worthwhile, depending on the objectives of the meeting. Spectacle can be a good icebreaker. But apparently there is greater advantage than spectacle now. Somehow (I have to assume it's magic), the FogScreen can now be used as a touch-screen. Gathering people around something similar to a hologram and having them manipulate images or documents may be a legitimate benefit over existing options because people can view it from all angles.

Fears and Anxieties

2008-08-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

British psychologist Ernesto Spinelli was in Toronto this week, and delivered a presentation about the psychiatric malpractice of instructing patients to overcome fears and anxieties rather than deal with them. Healthzone covers here. The long and short is that patients who rid themselves of the natural anxiety they experience in certain situations are not being true to themselves and their tendencies/motivations.

What do you think? Should a shy person make efforts to become extroverted, or deal with the fact that they are innately introverted?

There is a parallel for meetings and group engagements. Should an organization or team focus more on adapting to overcome their group dynamic/interpersonal shortcomings, or should they acknowledge the shortcomings and work around them? Either way, acknowledging is a critical step. The challenge then becomes; how do you acknowledge sub-standard area without creating a bitch session?

Last question: what's the meetings equivalent of the exhilaration before confessing love (as referenced in article)? I'd submit that challenging people to address shortcomings and tackle them creates an exhilaration, and nurtures a risk-taking culture.

Sourcing the Network

2008-08-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

A few colleagues and I have been looking at creating a social map to see the pre and post conference connections of Designing and Implementing Multidisciplinary Collaborations. The objective is to see if people were able to form new connections at the meeting, and eventually to gauge whether or not those connections resulted in collaborations.

We have gathered some very simple data, just asking people who the met that they didn't know before. But what are we to do with this data? I've downloaded a few evaluation versions of complex mapping solutions like NetMiner, but they do way more than I need them to. They are very foreign to me. So, I decided to ask the Value Networks discussion group if they were aware of any solutions an ignoramus could employ to create a visual map of the dynamic connectivity resulting from this conference.

The results were interesting. A few of the options and the kind folks who generously suggested them are below, and I suggest you check them out to see the range of functionality and usability. I haven't got enough experience to offer valid insight of any kind on these, but I hope to soon.

OpenBeacon and SocioPatterns courtesy of Victoria Axelrod
Pajek courtesy of Don Steiny
ONA Survey Tool courtesy of Cory Banks
Atlas by IBM courtesy of David Coleman
introNetworks courtesy of Kim Patrick Kobza
Optimice Accelerated Networking courtesy of Laurance Lock Lee

For me, the cool options are only part of what makes these responses exciting. The other part is the value of being able to access a network like this, with such a wealth of knowledge in this area. These people and several others that responded are leaders in this field, and each took the time to offer some neutral commentary on their suggestions as well as asking some important questions that perhaps I hadn't asked myself. Simple networking tools like discussion groups are such great enablers for connecting, accessing insight, and sharing.

There is a lot of value in network mapping of meetings that most of us aren't thinking enough about yet. But I think we're not even making proper use of the basics. A discussion group as a supplement to a meeting could be great, given the appropriate critical mass of contributors.

The Twitter Effect

2008-07-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

The recent earthquake in California was made news first not by CNN or any other antiquated network of journalists. It was informal contributors on Twitter that informed big media. This is not really news. Twitter is just one of many social networks that have been hastening the mass distribution of uncensored news over the last few years.

What makes Twitter unique is that it is a "microblogging" service. It removes many of the bells and whistles that form the ecosystem of a facebook-style utility, and provide simple text messaging, either for person to person or broadcast. There is a limit of 140 characters per message, so microbloggers are handcuffed from waxing lyrical or carrying on.

As proved by MaRS and others, Twitter can be a useful addition to a conference. Having participants comment on presentations, share parallel conversations and start new ones over the Twitter network opens up many new possibilities for meaningful stimulus and exchanges.

"The Twitter Effect" that I refer to though, is the question of the social implications of a Twitter, or text messaging in general. What will become of our language if we are constantly pushing ourselves to match the 140 character restraint? Will we evolve to a more concise and superior mode of exchange? Or, will metaphor and rich thought as written word disappear? If this happens, is there a chance that our ability to communicate elaborately will erode?

Bullshit!

2008-07-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Thinking of meeting tools and defibrillators, my mind is occupied by what most would call a distraction, rather than a tool. Of course, I refer to that glorious composition; Bullshit Bingo.

I openly advocate for explatives in meetings, but BBingo runs deeper than the novelty and gratuitous cheap laughs. Monitoring how authentic our language is can be a valuable discipline.

I recently had my wrist slapped for saying "desired state". A staunch co-facilitator stopped me mid-sentence to remind me to call things what people recognize them as. "Desired state? Why don't you just call it what we should be doing?".

For practical application, I suggest customizing the BBingo field to include the jargon that you and your fellow delegates are most guilty of abusing in-meeting. Enjoy.

Intangibles - Means to an End, or an End? Part 2

2008-07-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

Further to the last post, let's explore why achieving a financial target may not be an adequate end objective for an organization.

We'll start with the trend. The sexy triple bottom line; the three P's.

People
Planet
Profit

Without at least feigning concern for all three of these in today's recruiting climate, there's a great risk of missing out on a good deal of the emerging talent out there. And we all know, feigning won't get anyone too far. The 3 P's (or whatever corporate branded interpretation) will have to be a part of the culture just for an organization to move towards a culture of success at all. Beyond that, even investors might begin seeing beyond one P shortly enough. It won't hurt that planet sustaining technologies are starting to support the profit P, either.

Beyond the fad of the 3 P's, there's something more fundamental. Let's distill the context down at this point from organizational to within a meeting. For an organization to reach a goal, there are three critical phases. Convergence, divergence, and re-convergence. Before a group can debate on an issue, create solutions, brainstorm, or anything; they need to agree on something. That something is usually a "unified" vision. If the "unified" vision is a financial target, then it can't be balanced and distributed. Not all parties would usually see the same reward from a given financial target. Some would see no piece of the action at all. But, if meeting participants or contributors within an organization or network see that they are a part of something that they can genuinely believe in... then you have the basis for convergence.

Establishing that common ground, or convergence, is another challenge altogether. I'll leave it here as: that common ground should be higher than money.

Intangibles - Means to an End, or an End? Part 1

2008-07-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

Marcelo Horones posted a slideshow on slideshare called How to be billionaire in the hyperconnected world. It's customized to the web 2.0 business entrepreneur that wants to make billions, but is still worth scrolling through (don't be intimidated by the 75 slides. More than half are less than half a second). It's a great study in, among other things, creating conditions that enable collaboration and economy in a virtual environment.

Of interest is his take on intangibles, and their place within the value network of one of these billionaire producing applications. He positions the intangible "Share Something" and "Community" offering - or value delivered without expectation of currency in exchange, but rather awareness in exchange - as a means to an end. The end seems to invariably be audience, or hits. It all makes sense. Leverage intangibles in return for intangibles, and ultimately currency will result.

My only question is: can't we hope for more in our end result than the currency? Even if it is a business. Are our goals and end results still so limited. If a business has no greater ambition than money, what kind of people do they expect to attract? The types that can effectively produce the "altruistic" component? It is specified that "money will not make happiness" and does encourage sharing, but that end goal is so important.

I'll follow this up soon with the why that end goal is so important, and why I think we need to think bigger than money.

One thing that can't wait that I do take issue with: "The more sophisticated the technology, the better the offerings". I'd argue that simplicity is golden.

Where People Meet Process

2008-07-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, the people/process intersection. Dysfunctional meetings are often the result of dysfunctional teams, or miserable interpersonal dynamics. Then again, even great teams that have a meeting full of great conversation can fall way short of accomplishing their objectives if they don't have an idea of how to approach their challenge.

Looking at meetings I've been a part of that have, shall we say, sub-optimal outcomes; there is a mix of ideas on how to retroactively rationalize through what would have been the best way to avoid or deal with the founding problems. Usually the founding problem is a people thing. The group didn't trust one another, or there was one participant who didn't want to see the session succeed because it may create more work for them if approved (or any number of self-serving issues).

So the 2 suggestions to remedy the situation can be distilled to a working on people approach, or a working on process approach. Here's an oversimplified breakdown:

Take the group through interpersonal exercises, preference/style recognition training, etc.
Create a meeting format that transcends the dynamics problems

The pros of #1 is that you are nipping the problem in the bud; treating the disease and not the symptoms. The cons are that it's hard for groups to find time to do this, and they are often not interested in even considering if they have another meeting purpose that they need to address.

The pros of #2 are that you can engage the group in a very practical assignment, and if done properly, they can begin to collaterally repair or strengthen the dynamic by merit of having shared a powerful experience and building something valuable with their colleagues. The task at hand can actually be accomplished this way as well. The cons are that the group is not necessarily being made conscious of any interpersonal skills they are learning in practice, and the core problems may still exist following the meeting.

It seems obvious that a blend of both would be ideal. I operate in #2 almost exclusively, because of where my expertise lies. I'm all for outsourcing the #1 component, but if a group wants to get things done, they perceive that kind of strengthening a peripheral concern. Creating a meeting format that satisfies all parties enough to have people rise above biases and existing dynamics issues is no simple matter. The approach to design varies greatly from group to group, and the risk that a thoughtful format won't cut it always remains a risk. Establishing one area of consensus and convergence is very important. From there, the meeting can diverge before converging back at a mutually beneficial and acceptable outcome.

Any ideas on how to warm people up to investing in their team dynamics?

Any ideas on how to get different personalities and perspectives to come together and have effective dialogue, and ultimately produce?

Good places to start looking for ideas on either can be found in Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together, by William Isaacs, The Magic of Dialogue, by Daniel Yankelovich, and of course Getting to Yes, by Fisher, Ury, and Patton.

Stifling Innovation

2008-07-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Innovation is one of those words that I can scarcely type in here without shame. It has got to be the most hackneyed, consultant abused term that there is. The fact remains though, that innovation is critical to an organization's success. I could go on about the role and application of innovative thinking and behaviour in effective meeting design, but let's stay a little higher this time.

The role of meetings in innovation.

First, let's define "meetings". And by define, I mean let's acknowledge that a meeting can be anything, and so we won't really define it very narrowly at all. We'll call it any situation where more than one person is contributing to a challenge/opportunity. So an obvious function of meetings in innovation is people meeting to respond to an opportunity to innovate.

Having a discussion today with some leaders of MaRS Discovery District, we were expressing frustration with large and established organization's inability to innovate. Why do they seem to be so much less agile? There are many paradigms and bureaucracies that clearly stand in the way of fresh thinking, but I also believe that declining meeting practices are a massive contributor to stifling innovation.

As processes become standardized and routine, they lose visibility. Even core competencies like innovation get delegated (at some levels), are no longer assumed by groups, and eventually evaporate into procedure. Approaches to innovation also become stagnant as groups fall in love with a particular method, or fear the risk of new approaches.

Complacency in Careers and Learning

2008-07-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

Speaking with a corporate learning executive today, he shared with me how his industry tends to be a platform for launching careers, or even a pit-stop between education and/or careers. This creates a gap in drive and performance among the individuals he supports with learning.

How should an organization deal with these varying levels of commitment in classroom learning situations? Do you:

focus on the strong ones and bring them to the next level, hoping that they will lead and inspire others?
focus on the less interested, and raise the minimum standard if possible?
throw them all together and hope for the best?

I'd take #3, but focus curriculum on #2. Reason being, it's typically more productive to work on strengths (as per Daniel Pink's Johnny Bunko). If they are leaders, they will motivate those around them during the course of the program.

In a meeting, there are generally some more interested and some far more complacent than others. How can engagement be distributed more equally, and at a very high level? Accountability is a good answer, but just as difficult to figure out.

Why Starving Participants is a Great Idea

2008-07-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have to question the science behind this, but LiveScience posted an article recently about hunger resulting in a base chemical motivation to achieve. See here.

The article is based on a test conducted with mice, experimenting ghrelin levels; ghrelin being a hormone that our bodies excretes when we're hungry. Mice that are sensitive to ghrelin are the big heroes in the mazes and various other semi-cruel tests.

This could change everything. Every conference I go to aims to pump attendees full of food as some kind of reward. My goal at every conference I go to is to eat as much free crap as I can as well (don't judge me, I'm not alone and I'm a growing boy). If our aim should be to accomplish things in an efficient manner, is this counterproductive? I think the logic is to keep people content, which may be important to the psychology of an individual and dynamic of a group.

But if we're to approach meetings scientifically, it's time we start experimenting with food deprivation. Other unusual cruelties could follow, just in case.

Digg This

2008-07-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

There is an news/article sharing site called Digg, that's been growing for several years. Evidently, their growth has become a challenge. The site relies on feedback from users to assign ratings to articles, so that the proverbial cream rises to the top. As more and more people contribute articles, the number of articles becomes unmanageable for users to sort through and rate.

The new approach Digg will employ to address this challenge is the introduction of a recommendation system. Recommendation systems take what they know about a user, and customize the output to that user based on what it knows. In the case of Digg, it will only recommend articles contributed or approved by other users that have a history of compatibility with you. So if you like many of the same articles as John Smith, the system will provide you a short list of articles that John Smith likes, rather than the 15,000 new articles received that day.

MIT's Technology review scooped this story, and published under the heading "Digging a Smarter Crowd". Now, I'm all for recognizing patterns of similar interests and customizing accordingly. And farbeit from me to challenge an MIT source. Still I take issue with the reference to the Wisdom of Crowds in this context. Having a rating system like eBay, Sermo, kluster, or other social based platforms is definitely harnessing collective intelligence. But we also know that part of creating a Wise Crowd is having a diverse crowd. If this engine groups like opinions, then where's the diversity?

I'd argue that Digg is a cool service that has a good way to produce customized results, but isn't producing results that are truly the product of a "Smarter Crowd". They are the product of a "Similar Crowd".

Aimless Progress?

2008-07-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

The of the G8 Summit's feebleness in the area of committing to goals has been well publicized internationally. Most scrutinized of this most recent summit was the lack of targets with regards to emission reductions. While there was a lot of back-patting and rejoicing about the suggestions made, there were no real, er, commitments made, to adhere to any particular measure.

In meetings that bring people together to achieve a purpose, it is often observed that without concrete metrics to pursue and format for reporting on accountabilities; plans die easily. Getting these plans together and mobilized doesn't always have to happen - sometimes the conversation that explores new ideas and kindles new relationships is an adequate start. But if there's a conceded expectation that a deliverable plan will be created (seems like something G8 should consider), then it approaches being mandatory.

It can become a difficult juggling act to create a plan in a meeting that has adequate depth to inspire and guide those who will execute on it, while still taking time to assign ownership of items. One way to do this is to remind the group of timelines and clarify the importance of doing both parts effectively and efficiently, thereby setting the stage. What makes this tricky is that it often means limiting discussion that is engaging and important, but demanding of too much time.

Another recently applied experiment with this is to assign ownership of portions of a plan very randomly, and set a meeting shortly following with the owners reporting back with a rationale on the scope of the assignment, and who should champion it thereafter.

Strategic Profanity

2008-07-09T19:18:00.001-07:00

The use of language is a core consideration in learning intitiatives, meetings, and life. We all know that the best language is simple language. Phrase things so everyone can understand what you're phrasing.

I believe in an alternative to this rule. Language can be used to pique interest, and create an appeal for a message. To even further deviate from the accepted approach; very unexpected and perhaps offensive language can also create an interest. The occasional use of an explative, for example, can wake a group up and provide that meeting defribulator. Risky, no doubt.

Thinking of some good fiction wherein the unusual dialect adds to appeal:

Trainspotting
A Clockwork Orange
Anything by James Joyce - although understanding what he's doing with that language is sometimes an infuriating challenge

Without offending, how else can language be effective in altering the meeting atmosphere?

The Collaboration Paradox

2008-07-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

Quintessential article from John Abele concerning collaboration now available, called "The Collaboration Paradox..." It examines the necessity for collaboration - no surprises there - and why it is, if we accept that collaboration is often a necessity, we can be so bad at it or resist it so much. A few reasons are that we are conditioned to excel independently, and that we don't afford collaborations enough foresight or strategy. John does a better job of explaining it than I can, so I'll leave the rest to the article.

The Kingbridge reason for being is founded on this need for improved approaches to collaborations. The Kingbridge philosophy is founded on the methods John has influenced and learned from over the years, which he references in this article.

The article is available through XConomy, an interesting study in collaboration unto itself. It's an exceptional blog with exceptional content, from a whole slew of guest authors. It's not totally opensourced or crowdsourced, as the articles are edited/policed, and the editors do contribute. A successful middle ground.

Resurrected

2008-07-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

Greetings my understanding and forgiving readers. Pardon the unprecedented break in posts. The Canadian wilderness (and isolated little Wallaceburg) are enjoyable places (Wallaceburg maybe less so, but given the right mix of beer and rowdy friends...), but offer less than ideal connectivity. While I'm sure there are hordes of loyal readers out there who have not slept this past week, you need fret no longer.

Time away from work for me usually isn't that... away. I usually stay connected with work and active on projects. This time was different because of circumstance more than inclination, but I found some value in the clean break. I've often laughed at the "work/life balance" proposition, figuring that only people that don't find real meaning in their work would employ this scape goat. After last week though, I believe differently. The escape will make me better at my work, and will better position me to achieve the things that I want to achieve... which are beginning to extend beyond professional accomplishment.

Meetings are a great microcosm for this bigger picture. "Balance" usually means "booze" in this context, though. What other inclusive options are there for balancing workload in a meeting?

An Expression of Humility

2008-06-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

I found myself bowing in appreciation to someone for having me in to their home last night. Shortly thereafter, I found myself the subject of much laughter. It's a hangover from my profession. I am often making gestures with the intent of presenting my position as an unassuming servant of process.

This is a matter of simple gestures, but is also a matter of great psychological importance. I'm not convinced that the bowing low method is the proper way to go about it, but it can be a critical function that one operating in the interests of the meeting purpose make efforts not to infringe on the expertise or be considered as affronting the egos of people in a meeting.

There's no silver bullet. I may require greater lengths than many to balance the portion of my persona that is often interpreted as arrogant. I need also compensate for the appearance of youth, being that I'm often in the presence of those with much more experience and far greater credentials.

Besides little tricks, how can we work towards being authentically humble?

I would endorse a skimming of Egonomics.

Concurrent Sessions and Crowdsourcing Process

2008-06-26T11:20:00.001-07:00

I've been facilitating sessions that comprise 1/3 of an agenda. So the entire population would be in my session at one point, as well as all of the others, but I only ever see 1/3 of the group at a time. We're working towards the same objective in every session, so inevitably we're identifying opportunities to improve on the sessions as we go, based on observation and specific feedback.

Two things here, really.

Design of meeting format
Adjustment of meeting process

1. Dividing a group into 3 sub groups that interchange is a great idea. This way there's higher participation in each session. There are of course additional space requirements, but it's well worth the investment. Instead of one didactic plenary, you get 3 interactive workshops.

2. I'm a big believer in providing the group with options. Having a plan on how to move forward in a meeting is great, but asking the participants how they think they should move forward given the current progress can sometimes yield superior ideas. Crowdsourcing the very process is a great way to bring mindshare to process, and engage people in considering meeting design as a competency. The process today is being refined through each session as well, so that the final one is a product of meeting design conducted pre-meeting, and real-time adjustments with the benefit of the Wisdom of Crowds.

...

I guess the question is, how can the Wisdom of Crowds be better leveraged in the pre-meeting phase?

Movement Tracking Follow Up

2008-06-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Here's the CIMIT blog with the ZCAM video that shows a motion capture camera at work. Very cool.

Thanks Mike!

Movement Tracking

2008-06-21T09:41:00.001-07:00

Cool toy from Samsung et al that tracks motion to operate the systems (games systems, for example) within a TV screen. It's like the next generation of Wii remote, which is no remote at all - you just move around and control the software with your gestures.

Gaming is the obvious application. For some reason, it's an advertising agency that's developing and releasing the system in tandem with Samsung. I don't get it. Interactive advertising through gaming, I suppose.

What I see as being the opportunity with this technology is the possibility of groups manipulating images, documents and models on a screen using motion. The combination of visual and kinesthetic aspects of a such an approach to collaborating around a program or virtual space is promising. Much like previous surface computing and visualization technologies I've posted on, but without the nuisance of having to touch stuff, which may or may not have cooties.

Technology and Trust

2008-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

This isn't going to engender any trust for technology; a new survey indicates that a full third of IT pros are snooping inappropriately through confidential information.

Is there a paradox at work here? If I'm an IT professional responding to a survey, why would I incriminate myself by answering honestly that I am violating policy and/or law. Would I not assume that the people on the other end are equally as untrustworthy as I am?

Either way, it's unfortunate. Many people don't trust technology enough to engage with it meaningfully. This evidence is a step backwards, but virtual identity theft and fraud are still small peanuts relative to the old fashioned methods of people taking your credit card off of a restaurant bill, and the other classic ploys.

As many meetings will continue to migrate to a virtual forum, it will be critical that people trust the support medium. If we're not confident making ourselves vulnerable in a meeting, then we're only ever scratching the surface. Used well, technology should help to peel back more layers. Hopefully security and other measures are always being looked into so that rogue IT folks won't spoil the possibility of trust and openness facilitated by technology.

Breaking Down Silos with Simple Questions

2008-06-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

It seems every organization faces challenges with working in silos. I'd be suspicious of the ones that don't, in fact. Some very enlightened and forward thinking groups have difficulty thinking beyond their operating unit, division, department, expertise, or other ivory tower they have been placed in or tunnel they have dug out for themselves.

There are a number of approaches to have a group adopt a global perspective within a meeting. Presencing and Six Hats are a couple. One very basic tool to employ is the Socrates favourite, the question. Not just typical probing about the situation at hand - be it governance, communication patterns, or strategic planning - but broad, end-user questions.

So this approach requires that a moderator resist asking "where are opportunities to improve the way we communicate across teams?", and instead ask "who are our stakeholders?", and "how do we want to be viewed by our stakeholders?". From there, the way divisions interact should align with that purpose. Rejigging the current is probably necessary, but starting with it is

A narrow perspective, silo'd within operating instead of global to purpose (wouldn't be fitting to have a silo'd question in a meeting attempting to scatter silos, now would it?)
Not future focused
More typical and so less engaging

Flat World Knowledge

2008-06-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

There has been a coup in the assault against one of the longest standing scams going. Flat World Knowledge is a social network driven sight that is offering customizable university/college textbooks on line for free. Typically an outrageous expense for the already burdened, Flat World Knowledge is trying to make an open source movement.

It may work, too. They've got an original and complete concept. Students don't only get the books as published, they can alter and edit as well. Medium is also customizable. There are some audio, online and print options.

How will academia react? With demand from oversea students and a retiring faculty body, great changes are coming for the establishment. MIT, Yale, and other prevalent schools have already been offering classes free online for some time now. What are the next big shifts?

3-D vidconferencing?

2008-06-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

The video conference debate is a boring one for me. Without getting into the differences between fidelity and physiological response to human presence, it's important to look at when it's appropriate to use. Let's leave it at: it's the best option sometime.

That best option may get a whole lot better pretty soon. At least the novelty will be improved with a new 3-D television screen that's come out of Philips. If/when this starts being used for vidconferencing, will it just make the experience cooler, or will it have an impact on the effectiveness?

Many people feel that physical expression is the greatest benefit of video over phone or email. Could this technology enhance our ability to perceive expression?

DIMC #2

2008-06-10T19:08:00.001-07:00

Speaking to the nature of impediments to collaboration - things that have prevented successful outcomes. My vast incompetence and spirit of experimentation documented here on the CIMIT blog by some cheeky journalist. About another minute.

DIMC Vidblog#1

2008-06-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, this is a pretty shabby video. It's a first try though, and an introduction to the day. Much more housekeeping than purpose or content, but that will follow. About 1 minute.

After a day of trying, apparently it's too big to upload here. Find it here on youtube instead.

Designing and Implementing Multidisciplinary Collaboration

2008-06-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

I'm in Boston for the CIMIT hosted Designing and Implementing Multidisciplinary Collaboration meeting. Check out the website here. You'll see links to the agenda and participant bios to get an idea of who is there and what we're doing.

Tonight was the faculty dinner, and one can only hope that the conversation tomorrow is half as interesting. There were a lot of questions about collaboration. What question are we trying to answer tomorrow? A lot of great metaphors emerged in response.

A favourite as depicted by Laura Chasin of the Public Conversations Project was the notion of different people all owning pieces of knowledge that are like one of many pieces of a shattered pane of glass that is a complex problem - whose solution is mandatory to the continued existence of our species. Only when these pieces of glass are brought and fused together through the mechanism of effective collaboration can the greater item/problem be completely addressed.

I will try and do some video postings from the meeting tomorrow. Promises to be exciting. I'm loving Boston. Can't wait to come back when I've got some time on my hands.

Aiming High

2008-06-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been with a group doing some strategic planning over the last few days. This is something I enjoy doing quite a bit, and that's a good thing considering how often I do it lately. This group was a particularly enjoyable and rewarding one to work with. After some grueling analysis work, we got into the strategies, and these people were were really thinking beyond their typical functions and standard course of operation.

By the end, teams were creating strategies that they were genuinely excited about, and even elicited some applause. While keeping things within the scope of realism and focus, there was a real bias for positive and ambitious change.

I wish I could share exactly what the conditions were that led to this engagement and result. There are many contributing complexities though, of course. Leadership undoubtedly had a lot to do with it. To have a leader that omits their ego from the process not only opens up the floor, it also inspires confidence. Another part I believe was the opportunity for engagement. Everyone in the room encouraged everyone to contribute. For an entire team to collaborate successfully, everybody has to hold everybody accountable.

I think we achieved that fleeting and elusive "collaborative state".

Place Matters

2008-06-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

A recent study out of the University of Leipzig indicates that the chief criteria by which people select friends is geographical proximity. The experiment found a mitful of freshmen being seated in rows at an introduction session. In the study, the most intense relationships among subjects one year after mashing the lot together corresponded most directly with where their random seats were assigned. More than similar interests or values, where people landed dictated who they would befriend.

What are the imperatives here for the meeting designer? Rich McLaughlin recently shared with me a basic outline of considerations for designing meetings. You start with establishing the purpose, which will let you know what people need to be invited. Then you build the plan to achieve the purpose, and account for the people. Lastly, you decide on the place. The plan and place are both flexible, and likely change throughout the process. (Pardon me Rich if there are any descrepancies or copyright infringements on the sketch you did for me and my version above!)

How people are acting should influence where a facilitator places them. If people are nodding off, then it's time to consider getting them out of their seats. If they are too chaotic and not paying attention to the purpose, parking them may be the right move. Of course, initial placement of people is always a consideration as well. Usually trusting the group to self organize is the preference. A heavy-handed urge or seating plan is sometimes necessary to get people to surround themselves with those that they might not interact with, though.

The Leipzig study isn't shocking by any stretch, but it's an important reminder of just how critical place and proximity can be in any situation with a social component - which all meetings have. Should a meeting designer be interested in match-making or prescribing relationships/alliances by intentionally seating people near each other?

I think it would be too "command and control" and inappropriate often, but that kind of orchestration might be useful if there was a huge opportunity to catalyze a meaningful synthesis of ideas, organizations, or other, that might not happen without the extra push.

Mapping of the Mind

2008-06-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of mind mapping software for brainstorming, project management/planning, and other functions. It's one of those technologies that's easy to fall in love with, so one has to take care not to get carried away with overusing it, and letting the medium dominate the message. An example is trying too hard to squeeze it into a meeting. I think mind maps are great for documenting and synopsis of meetings, but running presentations from them is awkward at best.

I've been using Mindjet Mindmapper to graphically capture and plot out thoughts for several years now. I'm becoming nervous now that my trusted standby is going to be outdated quickly with the emergence of open source web-based mappers. I'd tested out bubbl.us and was unimpressed by and large, but the price is just right. It's fine for basic brainstorming.

The real threat comes from mindmeister. This allows you to create and collaborate on maps of this "interweb", but also gives you the ability to import maps from other sources, such as... Mindjet! I strongly suggest checking this out and registering.

My hope is that free and open mindmapping solutions will make the world more proficient with use of the software, and creative and logical with its application.

VIVA Las Vegas

2008-06-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to see what is going on out there in cutting edge (read: heavily funded) conferences. Those serving highly specialized healthcare verticals are consistently impressive, if not by format standards than at least by measure of magnitude and frills. Participants are typically proven PhD+'s, and very expert in the field. This means that everyone present has a lot to contribute, and the best meetings give them the opportunity to do just that.

A vascular intervention not-for-profit called VIVA has an annual educational shindig in Vegas that spans disciplines and sounds as well designed as any conference that has playing cards on the splash page... see here.

Just by looking at the website, one can't help but notice a few very compelling meeting components that would figure to improve on the desired outcomes of "fostering collaboration across specialities", and "advancing the field of vascular medicine through multidisciplinary educational efforts". Here are a few:

Laptop Learning - Participants will all have pc's and will be networked together. They will be able to participate in polls, register questions for speakers, provide feedback and follow content through this system. I'm not sure what the platform is, but there are systems such as CoVision that do similar impressive things. Great for interaction and wisdom of the crowds conditions.
Live Cases - As made popular in the '70's by Boston Scientific and others, live demonstration courses enable participants to view a surgical procedure. I'm told that the really powerful courses of this kind also find participants providing real-time feedback, questions, and instructions to the operating physicians. That's a daring and interactive way to draw on the collective intelligence of the audience!
International Faculty - This will help to gather diverse perspectives from very different practices and cultures.

As with many of the most prominent conferences, this one is in Las Vegas. The tagline "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" seems like a counter concept to a program where the intent is for people to retain information. I've never been to Vegas for a meeting, but I have to assume they've got the science of meetings down somewhat. I can't help but speculate that the many distractions of sin city have some negative effect on outcomes though. I suppose that this is a necessary trade-off to have a location that can accommodate so many and will actually be a part of the draw.

SWIFT Update

2008-06-02T05:45:00.001-07:00

Posted last week about SWIFT. Here's an updated link that details what the tool incorporates much better than the previous link I shared, check it out:

http://www.ottergroup.com/swift-brochure/

Beyond YouTube

2008-05-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Specialized video sharing sites are emerging all the time. The most intriguing are the ones that, like YouTube, are populated and somewhat maintained by users. This form of crowdsourcing is a collaborative effort that relies on the collective intelligence of the forum to produce the richest product.

YouTube is an incredible phenomenon not only worthy of praise for how it has distributed content creation and sharing, but also because of how influential it has been in spinning off specialized incarnations. The more narrow focus ones are very useful for communities and networks to publish and share. This pervasive media platform has or will realize improved ways for communities to share information resulting from efforts to meet and leverage the medium.

One such community is the scientific community. For centuries scientific documentation has been invaluable... but kinda boring. Even scientists are being challenged to present beyond the lecture and the printed word via SciVee. There are so many fascinating things to learn here. Not just about the subject matter, but also about ways to present technical information in a sensible, digestible, and engaging way.

The power of presentation seen at work on SciVee is valuable for any knowledge sharing or future building group engagement.

Greatest News Story Heading Ever?

2008-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

A mathematician I am not. I am however, the proud author of one vital formula that I know to hold true without exception:

Monkey = Funny

It's no secret that ads with dancing monkeys in the commercial make any product appealing. While conspicuously absent from the Oscar ballot annually, it's also common sense that movies with monkeys on snowboards and playing for basketball franchises are destined to be a hilarious and moving cinematic experience.

With that in mind, brace yourself for what may be the perfect news heading from today's NY Times... "Monkeys Control A Robot Arm With Their Thoughts". Pure gold. And not surprisingly, the subject matter and article are actually fascinating. There's even a video complete with monkey feeding itself through will and mechanical appendage! Long time readers of this blog (I think I'm the only one) will know of my fascination with robots also. A greater combination of entities there could not be.

The macaque monkeys have little transmitter grids placed on their motor cortex, and they learn pretty quickly how to feed themselves using the corresponding robot. This is an extraordinary breakthrough for the development of prosthetics.

On this blog though, we talk about collaboration, and most often in a meeting setting. So, if I were to let my mind wander, I could contrive of a few uses in meetings for a robotic arm that's controlled by people's brains:

In an Open Space Technology format, people are using flipcharts to record ideas. If this could be done anonymously by transmitting your signal to an unidentified robot arm to record, then what would be written could be more candid.
Creating gestures - possibly even elaborate gestures outside of the scope of what is possible for any human's range of motion - could be made by presenters to better visually describe concepts.
Building three dimensional tactile models and prototypes can be very useful in forming a discernible shared vision of a concept or mental construct. People could do this remotely or could do it on a much larger scale with enhanced versions of this technology.
You could get a monkey to feed itself in front of the participants with a robotic arm... you know, for laughs.

TheStory on OurStory

2008-05-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

I'm warming up to the idea of focused and purpose-specific collaborative sites. Especially the open source ones. One such space is OurStory. OurStory exists to allow a person or multitudes of people to shape timelines for organizations, people, families and whatever else people can think of... and they will; ad nauseum.

My beef with these very specific applications is that you have to learn a new interface for such a limited scope of objectives. For more bitching about the same, see here. OurStory is simple enough to more or less eliminate that concern, but the possibility could still ward off potential collaborators. The final or evolving product can be media rich, dynamic, and truly collaborative.

Where you could go to Ning and create a free social network that includes time lines, or one of the infinite free wiki hosts like Wikispaces, there's also a million other things you can do with them. It's easy to get lost. If these are already in use, then fine. But it may be overwhelming if the the outcome you need is as specific as a timeline.

I like the idea of getting a group that will be coming together on another project using something like this to create a shared understanding of the current state of affairs, and what events and behaviours led to this situation. The benefits could be many. Chewing up time for review when groups could be building the future ranges from boring to absolutely treacherous. OurStory or other solutions could eliminate the need, and give a group practice and frame of reference for interaction.

SWIFT

2008-05-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

The web 2.0 gurus at The Otter Group have been working on what promises to be an interesting application for integrating media, blogs, and social networking into conferencing experiences called SWIFT. There are countless platforms and methods people are using to take care of these functions now, and there's a lot of reinventing of the wheel. Nothing seems to do everything, and for every conference users and presenters are expected to learn a new wiki platform, social networking platform, etc, etc.

One appealing aspect of SWIFT is that it integrates with and piggy-back's on existing and established platforms. For example, you can simply link your facebook account to the conference page, and you can do your social networking using an existing account and a tool that everyone's already familiar with.

If you check out the site, SWIFT is publicized mostly as a podcasting management system. However, they're building more into it all the time, and it seems that podcasting features are only one part of the greater offering. Otter Group CEO Kathleen Gilroy has kindly been providing me with updates leading up to the release.

Even the best web 2.0 applications I've seen integrated in conferences are consistently underused because of the learning curve involved in mastering a new toy. Hopefully SWIFT has found their way around this challenge by marrying with familiar applications.

What are the other ways are there to deal with the problem of underused shared spaces at conferences? I'm always the sap that spends hours contributing to a wiki that only 5% of attendees ever look at.

Threat to My People Working With PEOPLE blog

2008-05-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

There are cool things other than people working with (and on) people. Thanks to Kim for pointing this out to me - a few days ago the first ever heart surgery conducted by a robot took place in Italy. The surgery was initiated and monitored by a human surgeon, of course, but he was in Boston! Learn more here.

People working with and relying on robots won't remove the necessity for people to work effectively together. Rather, as the mediums we use to collaborate and the tools we leverage change at an unfathomable, exponential pace, how humans interact to adapt to these changes will have to improve drastically.

Shift Happens is a cool video that looks at how things are changing, and shows a clear need to change the way we teach, learn, and collaborate.

Conspiracy

2008-05-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's tough subject matter, and a difficult watch at times, but anyone interested in a better understanding of impediments to collaboration (particularly in a boardroom environment) should watch the movie Conspiracy.

It tells the unspeakable story of the Wannassee conference of 1942, where the SS would establish the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". The secret meeting has participants that represent a number of boards, organizations, and branches within the Nazi Party. For the most part, these participants are under the impression that they will be forming a plan to deal with the large number of people to deal with (displace or other).

As it turns out, they learn that a definite solution has already been decided upon, and enacted in trials. The "solution" of course is genocide.

The movie explores some of the psychology in the room, and is an excellent study into the dangers of group-think. Despite having intelligent people in the room that must naturally question the unconscionable proposal; a meeting leader skilled at justify and leading decisions and a culture of intimidation find consensus and support for the plan to mass-murder.

It's an extreme case, but group-think is not uncommon in meetings. How can we manage it?

Cultural Diversity/Challenges

2008-05-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Diversity in group collaborations is essential to reaching an optimal outcome. Diversity of expertise, age, opinion, and background. Different cultural tendencies trigger different reactions to information, different insights and different perspectives. Often different cultures also approach the collaboration process much differently.

These different approaches, and even minor intricacies such as etiquette must be considered when designing a multicultural collaboration. Having people outside of their comfort zone is fine, and even beneficial, but of course you wouldn't want for anyone to be offended. A more design focus concern is to be mindful of positive cultural tendencies that could be capitalized on, and possible anti-collaborative tendencies that may emerge.

I will be working with an organization of Asian origins over the next few days, and their top brass are ex-pats of the parenting organization's home nation. The result is a culture that may seem imperial to westerners. I won't make a case for either culture, but will state that a leader that does not regularly open his ideas up to challenge or feedback is anti-collaborative. While it may bring many efficiencies, it also creates a condition where others are hesitant to offer insights on any matter that may be within that leader's scope of interest/responsibilities.

Having established that this culture exists within the organization, there will be a balancing act as moderator to never overstep my bounds and challenge this position, while still creating room for other voices to be heard.

Any stories of tip-toeing around cultural challenges among my dormant commentors?

Censorship to Rear its Ugly Head?

2008-05-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

Currently "new media" is exempt from the rules that govern radio and television broadcasts in Canada. Now web audio and video content may come under scrutiny from broadcasting authorities. See in depth article here.

This would be too unfortunate for the living internet. If laws were imposed in Canada to restrict certain content, where would it stop? Scarier still, is that they are revisiting this subject to possibly mandate Canadian content on on-line broadcasting services! Canada has a lot to offer, and the good stuff will be discovered. "Can-Con" is a travesty that breeds mediocrity in Canadian arts, and has even helped to create a general comfort with mediocrity throughout a great country. Par example; Stephen Harper.

The internet is a free market currently, where the cream rises to the top by the selection of the masses, and exposure is totally distributed. Why mess with this system? This can only damage Canadian sites, not improve Canadian culture.

On Labeling Generations

2008-05-15T16:54:00.001-07:00

I'm part of an international network that has found some members looking for and exchanging research and information about Generation Y's. Some of the research is fascinating (send me an email at andrew.webster@kingbridgecentre.com if you'd like to see it), so I thought I'd share it with some colleagues. Among them is my friend and CIMIT counterpart Mike Young. I found his reaction to the initial request for research/resources interesting. My responses to him in caps:

"Andrew,
I have thoughts on this person's request.

I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO REGISTER FOR THIS GOOGLE GROUP IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO THE MODERATOR IF YOU LIKE. THEY WOULD VALUE YOUR THOUGHTS BELOW, AND THERE'S ALWAYS EXCHANGES LIKE THIS WE CAN LEARN FROM.

I believe the first step for this person is to seriously reexamine her use of the term, "Generation Y." It is... Uncreative and has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on now or the impact of this generation. It serves to separate her and anything she wishes to understand about impact will be filtered through this viewpoint if it is how she chooses to approach people. Generation Y simply refers to a generation following X. Generation X having originally been given with a negative connotation - Post Vietnam with no purpose, which people adapted to a feeling of... False honor.

I THINK THERE IS SOME SENSE IN USING WHAT IS THE ACCEPTED TERM HERE, SIMPLY TO MAXIMIZE THE NUMBER OF RESPONSES SHE GETS. MAYBE THERE'S MORE CREATIVITY AND POSITIVE CONNOTATION THAN WE REALIZE THOUGH. WHAT IF THE "Y" IS TO KEEP WITH THE THEME, BUT REALLY MEANS "WHY?" AS THEY ARE THE GOOGLE GENERATION OR AN INQUISITIVE GENERATION. NOT SURE.

I've heard Generation D (Digital) I've heard all sorts of these generational things. Is it not too early for this branding? I just have so many problems with this type of classification in terms of being able to study something. How does she expect to understand the ideas behind social networking with such an outsiders point of view. There is objective observation and there is this, which seems to be buzz words and classifications, which doesn't promote understanding in my eyes. It goes against the generational bridges that have been developing from social networking.

NOBODY WANTS TO BE LABELED, I SUPPOSE. NO MATTER IF YOU JUST SPECIFY AN AGE RANGE OR CALL THEM SOMETHING CLEARLY DEROGATORY, PEOPLE WILL RESENT BEING ANALYZED AS DIFFERENT… BUT IT'S NECESSARY WORK. OUTSIDERS PERSPECTIVES CAN BE VALUABLE AS WELL I THINK. ESPECIALLY THE QUANTATIVE STUFF, LIKE WHICH AGE GROUPS USE WHICH NETWORK PLATFORMS FOR HOW MANY HOURS A DAY.

There are obviously generations, true - But to call this one Generation Y lacks the heart of what is going on here.I would expect more from this person at NASA. But I write this to you because I wish to get your opinion on this? And if you have a link to your blog on this?

I HAVEN'T BLOGGED ON THIS YET, BUT NOW I'M MORE LIKELY TO BLOG ON YOUR REACTION THAN ON THE REPORTS, IF YOU WOULDN'T MIND ME QUOTING YOU. THE GOOGLE GROUP IS FULL OF STUFF LIKE THIS, AND SOME GOOD DIALOGUE SOMETIMES FROM INTERNATIONAL THOUGHT LEADERS. THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS."

I did get his permission before posting! I've also introduced him to John Maloney of Colabria, a recognized thought leader in Knowlege Management and Network Analysis, who moderates the group. Their organizations both span so many industries and disciplines that there could be interesting outcomes down the road...

Looking forward to John and the Value Networks Cluster returning here in September.

World Wide Telescope

2008-05-14T05:04:00.000-07:00

Google Earth is all well and good, but why limit yourself to just one small planet? Check this out.

Microsoft created this site which is a virtual representation of data taken from the most powerful telescopes in the world. It allows users to navigate remote corners of the universe and get a visual experience of systems, stars, and planets.

The other day I posted something or other about social implications of technology. Will this one change the world, and if so, how?

Appreciating Social Implications

2008-05-12T14:42:00.001-07:00

Reading about "the bleeding edge of the leading edge" in artificial intelligence here, I was a little bit surprised to read that Daphne Koller's work with game theory, probability, and other to help better understand the migration of breast tumors to bone, had gleaned no more attention than the promise of improved web searches as a result of her theoretical work. How can one compare the vitality of web searches to advances in our understanding of the scourge of breast cancer?

But hey... maybe that's a little near sighted of me.

"Fingertip knowledge" has changed the world. It's enabling information dissemination and rapid research that has surely improved medicine and countless other things that also impact medicine. I don't need to go into it, I'm sure. Point is, social advances and things that may appear to be business driven and without roots in moral intentions are enabling superior collaborations and putting information into the hands of the world. And the world can do something with it.

This is a point well taken for most, but do we always consider the social possibilities and implications when considering opportunities?

Rabbits Gettin' Busy

2008-05-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

I'm probably overstepping boundaries and violating etiquette here, but I've posted below an excerpt from an email that an old buddy with no permission or warning at all. This was one of my closest friends for many years, and he knows me well. I was very interested to read how he feels about meetings and why.

"I checked out the blog. I read through many entries and I have to be honest, I never would have know then that someone would have drawn so much interest and insight from the subject of meetings. I guess I am too over exposed to meetings that have no purpose, and accomplish nothing, because the key players continually contradict themselves over and over and never want to make a decision, unless it is the worst one possible. Like I said I think I'm jaded. But still it was very interesting to be able to read your thoughts. It seems you have come along way since giving presentations on the mating rituals of rabbits, or is it true that the human legacy goal is still an instinctual desire for preservation of self. Either way it sounds like you've improved the technology of the puppets."

I don't think he's alone in hating meetings. I also don't think he's the only one who hates them for these reasons. Only wanting to make decisions when "it is the worst one possible". That's gold. Why else do people hate meetings?

To bring some clarity to the message above, some background is in order...

We had to do book reports for some highschool English class. Everyone spoke about their book. I read a few books, so for my presentation decided to present on a common theme throughout them. I recall that 2 of the books were Watership Down, and Less Than Zero. The common theme was of course: sex. So in front of this innocent class of adolescents, I put up slides of the reproductive organs of humans and rabbits, and compared them. The "technology of the puppets" comment refers to portion of the presentation in which I took 2 rabbit puppets and showed the class how they engage in intercourse. I then compared to human practice and variations with a Ken and Barbie. Got 100% on that presentation.

Novelty, unique format, and shock value made it worth remembering for this guy 10+ years after. What else makes a presentation memorable? I'm part of a team that's building a workshop on presentations, and would value any feedback here. Expect many posts on presentations.

Un-Collaborative Tendencies... And a New Toy!!!

2008-05-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

Just threw a new camera on the ol' laptop, and couldn't resist creating my first video weblog. It raises the important question of using technology when technology is not really necessary. You'll see that the medium isn't leveraged to add any specific value. The same is true for all collaborative technologies. Some are pretty sexy, so a decision is made to include them before desired outcomes are defined. We nerds sometimes can't help ourselves.

Anyhow, the video was recorded immediately after a team meeting with respected colleagues who have become trusted friends. Like any closely knit team, some of our collaborative practices were slipping or non existent. We met to readdress the way we interact.

Tendencies. A big thing I got out of this was tendencies. We all have them, positive and negative. How do we provide feedback that isn't attacking people or shaming them for tendencies? How do we receive feedback so that we progress towards all positive tendencies?

Theory U

2008-05-07T05:07:00.000-07:00

The Shambhala Institute is running their first Ontario Regional Intensive (they are based in Halifax) at Trent University right now. Executive Director Susan Szpakowski invited myself and a colleague to participate in a plenary led by C. Otto Scharmer, as well as a reception for faculty and friends. My head is swimming here. I want to post about Shambhala, the subject matter of Otto's plenary, the approach and format of Otto's plenary (unique, a lot of good lessons to draw on), and the entire incredible experience. I'll get to all of them, but let's look at the plenary content first.

Scharmer is of course the guru out of MIT famed for his work with Peter Senge around "Presencing", and for conceiving of Theory U. There's a good, if somewhat abstract summary of the theory here. The 1.5 hours of plenary (which he extended a while with the audience's permission) was about half background, theory, and storytelling. The final half was dedicated to the group practicing the application of the theory.

It's hard to concisely cover the theory portion - but here goes. Scharmer covered 4 modes or phases of listening. My interpretation and some of Scharmer's words as follows:

Within oneself, centred on our perspective and position. This finds people knowing all the answers, uninterested in hearing other perspectives. "Listening to confirm what we already know."

Within oneself, considering the perspectives of others. This opens the door to debate. "Listening outside of our own projections. Attending to what's happening outside".

In the shoes of others. Truly empathizing, experiencing situations from the perspective of others. "Operating outside of where we exist".

In the realm of future possibilities. Connecting with others and attending to the emerging future.

Otto and his vast, vast following submit that we should aim to operate in the fourth phase. To collaborate with others by existing in the field of emerging futures with them. It's difficult to challenge someone so clearly brilliant who I'm so humbled to have met and experienced, but here goes anyway...

Last night was my first real experience, but I think participating in presencing exercises with others can be extremely valuable. Trying to occupy the field of possibilities is something we should consider. However, diversity is a critical component of effective collaboration and of accessing and harnessing collective intelligence. Cultural diversity, diversity of expertise, generational, etc, etc. If there isn't even diversity in the way that we are thinking, then aren't we limiting perspectives? I don't see a lot of value in the stagnant first phase, but the person listening in the second mode that is open to new ideas but also challenges and debates items seems like a pretty critical component of an effective dynamic for innovation or collaboration of any kind.

Meeting Otto afterwards and seeing his genuine interest in the work we are doing was a something I won't forget. What an experience. Thank you Susan!

Legacy

2008-05-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

Before I get too poetic up here on my pedestal; a note in the interests of full disclosure: my inspiration for this posting was none other than the new comic book flick Iron Man. With that out of the way and me totally exposed as the most immature meeting design professional in existence, let's have a look at this looming complexity and how it influences us all, and our meetings.

Me? I want a legacy. I want to live a life of significance and conscience. I want the world to know all about this great life I'm leading, and I want future generations to realize that the world they live in is a better place because of this one great individual. That's an ambitious (you could say over-ambitious, zealous, vain, maybe even delirious) and extreme perspective on the matter. But I don't think I'm the only one.

My interaction with legacy as a meeting designer or facilitator is typically a leader wishing to leave their mark on an organization before retiring. For many, the instinct is to dictate a direction that clearly bears their fingerprint. This is of course at the expense of collaboration, because the urge to have clear ownership is so strong.

I would try to frame a collaborative approach to an individual such as this as a part of the legacy. The true visionary worth remembering has vision enough to see the benefits of inclusiveness and collective intelligence. This is exceedingly difficult if you aren't aware of these motivations in advance of the meeting. Another reason why a thoughtful approach to meeting design that surfaces underlying motivations and interests is so important. Easier said than done though, obviously.

If you're interested: Iron Man did have a legacy with his "Tony Stark" identity. An epiphany of sorts gave him cause to shift what his war mongering legacy would be. The only epiphany I've had is that if I want to make my mark, I'd better get my ass in gear! Decades of waiting for my legacy to form itself hasn't been cutting it. I need a direction though. Maybe I'll start with a suit made of gold-titanium alloy and begin fighting crime. See where that takes me. I have it on good authority that I could pass as Iron Man, and have indeed been called him.

Any reactions to the broad theme of legacy? How does the innate urge that some people have to be remembered play out in your collaborative efforts? Better still, why does the urge exist?

First Impressions Panel

2008-05-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was a part of a faculty advisory panel for the faculty of George Brown College's Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts. I wouldn't call myself a hospitality professional, and by no stretch a culinary artist, but I came with the perspective of the future of meetings.

George Brown is generally regarded as Canada's best for these programs, but this was a very critical and candid evaluation of their performance and integration with industry. There was a chef on the panel, the Executive Chef Nigel Didcock from The Granite Club. I was very impressed with his staunch position and consistent response to all questions. He challenged the faculty over and over to get with the times, but mostly he insisted that they behave as mentors and coaches to the students. He was adamant that they needed better direction.

While I might replace "direction" with "nurturing guidance" or other less domineering jargon, he made a very compelling case. He shared a lot of personal accounts of mentoring practices he's engaged in, and was open about having a multitude of mentors in his life that he leaned on.

Regardless of where we are in our own careers or lives, the good chef made me realize that we should all be considering mentorship and developing those around us to the best of our abilities.

The Genius of the Groups

2008-04-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Washington University's Keith Sawyer has written a book called Group Genius about innovation. It's different from many (of the 100 zillion) innovation publications in that it's founded in research. As it would turn out, the research shows that collaboration is a successful path to innovation.

Check out a podcast from the author here.

He sights two key (and hopefully very obvious) benefits to collaborating for innovation.

Creative Combination - bringing together multiple ideas from multiple perspectives gets unexpected and valuable mash-ups of concepts.

Power of Collaboration - people are more creative with other people around.

What fundamentals of meeting do we need to consider to nurture these components of successful innovative collaboration? I would think that encouraging the surfacing of many ideas and a thoughtful approach to reviewing how they could be creatively combined is part of it for #1. For #2; get the people interacting!

As you can see from the podcast, Sawyer doesn't seem the most charismatic or compelling guy. If collaboration and/or collective intelligence is an interest of yours, you likely won't learn anything new either. Still, it's nice to have some reaffirming data and research.

If collaboration is a good way to innovate, and every organization thinks that innovation needs to be a core competency, then surely working to make sure that effective collaboration is a core competency is also at the forefront of leader's minds. Right?

Dominating Strategic Planning

2008-04-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

There is just so much that can go wrong in a strategic planning meeting.

I posted earlier about mechanism design (read here), and how an imbalance in levels of understanding can impact outcomes. In a meeting, we'd usually consider this to be gaps in mastery of the content and subject matter at hand. But in a strategic planning meeting, outcomes can also be warped to the detriment of an organization by different levels of understanding of process and format as well. Those less familiar with strategic planning often don't contribute as much as they should. Those more familiar can abuse their familiarity.

A few other of the innumerable people centric challenges in strategic planning meetings:

Motivations - Everyone has their interests besides the greater good.
Imposing personalities - Moderators can help, but if that one person that really wants to be heard and really doesn't want others to be heard wants it bad enough, they can ruin any meeting.
Excessively passive personalities - Those who think their discomfort speaking in a group is a card that trumps any obligation to contribute.
Over facilitation - A facilitator or moderator that is too driven by or attached to their process can blindly suffocate conversation; which is the lifeblood of any good meeting.
Politickers - The answers and directions are clear in their mind. The objective is making everyone else see it so clearly... by nearly any means necessary.

I could go on, and really want to. But I won't right now. I'm trying to limit my word count.

What are some big ones I'm missing here?

Surface Computing

2008-04-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this clip about a table or wall surface that is a computer monitor... and touch-screen interface. Very cool.

It allows for the typical touch-screen functionality, but with the ability to merge files more readily, and it even interacts with other devices. For example, you could rest a camera right on the flat surface, and extract files from it and add files to it by dragging and dropping.

This kind of visibility and tactility is very important for some people. Naturally, I'm thinking of applications in a collaborative meeting setting. Imagine people working with the information on a screen rather than just reading it on a PowerPoint slide as someone dictates. People could really be operating with the literal big picture, and manipulating it and co-creating a visual model with the depth of files and links. Sounds great to me.

Similar things are happening at Autodesk. Autodesk fellow, innovation authority, Viz Biz author (coming soon, hopefully), visualization master, and one of the more interesting guys I've met; Tom Wujec, displays the Touch Wall here.

Collaborative technologies won't be complete until they enable powerful visual and tactile interface options. Any examples of this happening effectively, augmented by cool technology or not?

Visualization

2008-04-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

People have been buying into Dan Pink's whole brain philosophy, but I'm not sure that I see too many people living it (and can't make too many claims myself). Hopefully in time the traction will turn into observable results.

Tufte is a household name, and I can think of few people that wouldn't agree that we could use new ways of observing and consuming data.

Still, presentations are dominated by PowerPoint. PowerPoints are dominated by text. When is the massive shift going to take place? How much longer must we endure? I don't have any answers, but I do have the coolest resource to provide some ideas on how to visualize datasets and other. I love this site.

Expect to see many more postings about visualizing and analyzing social networks, value networks, and other interrelated complex action.

Super Crunching

2008-04-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just cracked the new Ian Ayres book Super Crunchers. Interesting, if a bit oversimplified in the early chapters. In the tradition of a Freakonomics, Ayres is an economist looking at the mathematical/statistical explanations of things. In the early chapters, there seems to be a case made for the logic of numbers over (or as opposed to) the value of insights or intuition.

For example, it's implied that wine tasters are obsolete in the first 10 years of bottling, whereas a rain scarcity and high temperature formula is a great indicator. And seemingly, it is. But does that make the wine tasters obsolete in this phase? I think that's what the book is missing so far. The need to mesh insights with statistical evidence. Hopefully that's where the book is going.

We've all seen Six Sigma (aka "Six Stigma") and other systems of metrics gamed, abused, or simply overused. Is there a good system for integrating metrics with insights? Is there an organization out there that's doing anything remarkable with storytelling and econometrics?

Damn Thing

2008-04-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I just posted a blog, and for some reason it's been relegated to April the 16th. Check it out here.

Farbeit from me to complain about a blog host that I pay nothing for, and contributed nothing to the design of, but there are things that get under my skin. Where's the balance between expectations and gratitude with open source applications like this? Some complaining is necessary to make the applications get to where they need to be, but there should be some protocol around appreciation.

Everyone bitches about Wikipedia all the time, but it's a great resource. Without the squeaky wheels, it wouldn't be so great. Where's the happy medium?

The Impending Knife!

2008-04-17T16:26:00.001-07:00

Actually, it's not a knife at all, as I understand... but tomorrow I go in for some very minor surgery. A bit of the old knee arthroscopy. It's no big deal. I'm not too worried about the procedure or anesthesia, but the aftermath troubles me.

I like to be active, and even bop around quite a bit in an average conversation. I feel like this is going to limit what is my personality. It's going to limit how I operate right now. There are aspects of the way I operate right now that I really like.

I'm hoping this won't affect the blog too much. Excuse any quasi-coherent postings over the next few days.

The Dominant Sims

2008-04-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Interesting article here from today's NY Times. Apparently "The Sims" video game franchise has sold 100 million copies, making the $4B franchise one of the biggest pop cult phenomenons going.

This article attributes much of the success of the game to the Second Life aspect; the exploration of different expressions of oneself, or what is sometimes referred to as the "what-if" recesses of ones personality.

It seems funny that so many people are so interested in behaving in a way that is different or perhaps contrary to what they wish to portray regularly, or than what others have come to expect. How can a meeting setting appeal to this urge and satisfy this desire? Is there a benefit? I would think that offering some kind of networking tool composed of avatars or anonymous decision support function would harness the collective wisdom of individuals... and all of their personas. Perhaps offering a richer and more candid range of inputs.

The Categorization Paradox

2008-04-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

Working with groups to generate ideas, feedback, or objectives can be very stimulating, and prolific. I like to use an anonymous Decision Support tool in this phase, so everybody can contribute on a level playing field and without inhibition. The amount of ideas you can gather in a short period of time is tremendous. But then cold hand of complexity grabs hold...

Often times at this point there are a good many duplicate ideas, contradictory ideas, and ideas that are not very good or relevant. How can a group weed through these? There is such a wide range of opinions here. Here are a few that are hap-hazardly arranged in order of what I think to be least useful to most useful down at the bottom, commentary in italics:

An expert - either an external consultant or internal authority - makes sense of the inputs and decides what the bigger picture is from their vantage point. The danger of bias skewing results is enormous, and this doesn't capitalize on collective intelligence, obviously.
The group just takes the entire list of ideas and begins forming action plans with these in a self organizing manner. Inefficient, and just because an idea has been generated, does not a worthwhile idea constitute.
The group tries to synthesize the information by looking for emergent themes, and sorting the ideas into the categories that they fit under. This can be done with the regular flip chart and post-it approach. Takes a lot of time. Once ideas are categorized, they are still physically dispersed, so there is often the need for some re-recording.
The group tries to synthesize the information by looking for emergent themes, and sorting the ideas into the categories that they fit under within a decision support tool. Still takes considerable time, and can be a little painful. One way around this is to use a tool where people can list ideas and categorize in advance of the meeting. The categories are determined then by an algorithm being applied to the suggestions of the participants. One tool that does that is Open Source Decision.

Full disclosure: I'll be working with Open Source Decision and its proprietor Dan McLinden for a June meeting, and friend, mentor, and facilitator Rich McLaughlin on its implementation.

I think categorization is a necessary evil, but would love to prove myself wrong. Any good ideas to circumvent the step without compromising the sensible flow of information?

Podcasting: Collaborative Media?

2008-04-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

I will be doing some podcasts with Interactive Communications Specialist Mike Young from the CIMIT Convening Program next week. CIMIT is doing some cool research in the field of convening and meeting design, and is definitely pushing the envelope with collaborative technology in healthcare. They're getting surgeons and other people that have such limited time to experiment with blogs, podcasts, and most recently Adobe Connect. It's an impressive feat to change cultures of this stature and get this caliber of group to adapt.

Myself and others in my organization work closely and share many thoughts with the CIMIT people; Mike and Lynn Osborn, most regularly. Mike will be in Canada next week and I'm very excited to take advantage of his expertise in film and media. We'll work on a few podcasts, and I'll be sure to post them here. In addition to his mastery of film, Mike can offer a lot of ideas and feedback on the content and subject matter, being that he's fully engaged in the world of convening.

Where does the podcast fit in to the collaborative picture? As with blogs, they're often considered a one-to-many monolithic medium. Fair enough. They usually are. But whether or not they are collaborative in their design, they can definitely support the collaborative process. It's almost an expectation these days that a great conference will have a forum rich in podcasts for attendees to check in on in advance, and a place to revisit presentations afterwards. And they can have a collaborative structure or ecosystem. Like a YouTube, some meeting pages or wikis allow any member post videos of their own.

Is the podcast collaborative? Is it a benefit to the meeting process, or is it one person gaming the audience?

Know Your Audience

2008-04-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

A recent Harris interactive poll indicates that most people don't like that the ads on the websites they see are customized to their browsing/networking/purchasing and other habits.

What the hell?

Do these responders realize that the alternative is random advertisement? I love the idea that the browsing experience is customized/personalized to the user. Imagine a Google where the returns you get aren't just the regular algorithmic results that represent the oft gamed priority selection of, well, everybody? I know that Wikipedia mastermind Jimbo Wales is thinking of this exactly, which you can read all about in a great if somewhat dated article from Fast Company here.

It's not just for search. Personalization and customization are coming, and it's a good thing. A team of us have been working on building a presentation strategies workshop (not presentation skills; you can learn posture and projection somewhere else), and among the core considerations is to know your audience. How can you communicate effectively to a person or group that you don't know?

Who wants generic? Having no boundaries on what info you're exposed to sounds appealing, but the current delivery and consumption on most of these things is a masses-created intelligent design. As long as they're not over-policed, these systems work.

The supposed reasoning here for people not liking the customized browsing is that there's a "creepy factor" (that's right: creepy factor) surrounding the notion that Big Brother is out there minding your patterns and actions and distributing and reacting to that information. Read more in the Globe's article here. This kind of irrational fear is what will get things over-policed.

Emergent Media and Emerging Minds

2008-04-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Emergent Media Center at Burlington Vermont's Champlain College is one of the more innovative programs at one of the most entrepreneurial schools I have ever seen.

Champlain is a relatively small school in a relatively small town. I had the great pleasure of visiting there last December with some colleagues and experts in education to have a meeting devoted to expanding the appeal and effectiveness of the National History Club using emergent media. Before joining President Dave Finney and some faculty for dinner, I was given a tour of the campus.

The classrooms were designed to meet the specifications of professors. The school seeks out entrepreneurial students, and they even have a BYOB (bring your own business) program that only accepts proven entrepreneurs. There is a real community feeling throughout, as well. That's what amazes me most about the place. Of all the gadgetry and forward thinkery; the people there are focused on people, and explore gaming and other technologies as a part of a much bigger purpose...

At John Abele's Game Change Summit at The Kingbridge Centre last year, several of the faculty and students from Champlain joined us, and ran demos and offered presentations. I had the chance to speak with one of the students (Tony!) who was demonstrating World of Warcraft. It was incredible to learn how this game that so many stigmatize as antisocial actually empowered this bright guy to become a better communicator and collaborator. In this safe environment, he developed his skills as a leader by rallying others to accomplish missions. More on MMORPG's later - the point is that Champlain knows what emergent media can do, and they're advancing the field and advancing the people who will advance it further than we can imagine.

I strongly endorse the EMC blog authored by friend, colleague, altogether great person and leading researcher in the field; Ann DeMarle.

Restructuring

2008-04-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

I have been speaking with and working with several organizations lately that are looking at restructuring their organizations or departments. A sensitive issue at best, and an impossible task at worst.

Following the mantra (or is it a cliche?) of "if you want me on board for the landing, you'd better have me on board for the takeoff", we've been experimenting with visually co-creating the future structure of a group with all of the stakeholders. Almost like a Value Networks NetMap exercise. Here's a few of the lessons we've learned:

Prepare the group for some difficult discussion. Lay out the rules of engagement and encourage people to resist defending their position.
Avoid using names and identities. Refer to roles.
Using a tool or method that enables anonymous and candid collection of suggestions for altering current structure can be a good way of breaching the tough issues. Accepting inputs as questions is a good way to avoid threatening. Decision support technology can be a good option.
Having a visual to follow is critical for some people to process and contribute effectively. The tactility of populating or organizing the visual is also a necessity for some. I hope I don't have to include that this visual is not an org-chart. How people deliver value and interact with other roles is not a matter of who they report to.

There are those that would say that attempts like this at restructuring and reorganizing are futile. People self organize and they way they arrange themselves in roles cannot be engineered, as it is an organic process.

I don't absolutely dispute this, but maintain that this is a collaborative and "facilitated organic" catalytic process.

Here Comes Everybody's Failures

2008-04-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

In his new book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky explores a lot of the same kinds of web 2.0 phenomena that we've seen in Wikinomics and countless other books and sources. Wikinomics is a classic, but Shirky's works has a bit of a different spin that may be of interest.

Shirky looks at the social implications of groups of people coming together with the support of technology. An interesting notion (one of many) that he explores is the impact of user generated inititiatives on the perception of failure.

As web 2.0 applications hit the web and user-base running, much of the filtering and fine-tuning happens after they are in the public eye. Incomplete, sometimes bare products are introduced into the marketplace, and willing nerds (I make no apologies for the term, as I myself am a nerd and therefor have free license to label thusly) join the beta cause and experiment. Given their feedback and even their charitable coding and other efforts to refine their own experience, the product evolves to match the user's desirable outcome.

This has become the standard process, so the many failed intermediate applications that lead to a successful 2.0 application are accepted by the masses as necessary steps. We need those failures to achieve something we want.

Hopefully this mentality is a pervasive one and expands beyond the 2.0 space. Although that is a great place for it, it would be ideal if in meetings, work, and learning environments we were able to tolerate and even appreciate failures as a necessary function of progress.

It's been argued by cognitive science experts that humans are better able to learn from failures than from successes, which is where a lot of business authors focus their attention. What is the greatest learning you've mobilized from a personal success, and what's the greatest you've taken from a personal failure?

The Origin of The Origin of Species

2008-04-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

The Royal Ontario Museum is currently featuring an exhibit on the great Charles Darwin called "Darwin: The Evolution Revolution". There was a lot of interesting information there, but all in the form of words (essentially you are there to read a novel that has been blown up and placed on walls instead of the regularly consumed book form). The artifacts were mostly things like facsimiles of letters that had been written to or from Darwin.

I'm not sure that museums really do it for me. There's nothing that could be more interesting than Darwin's contributions, but as I'd remarked following the experience... I don't feel any closer to Darwin than I did before the exhibit. Most of what I read I had read before, but that's fine. I expected to experience the evolution revolution. Likely an expectations problem rather than a delivery problem, but a reality of meetings and all experiences, regardless.

To draw a parallel between the theory of evolution and meetings, I would start with the selection process that finds individuals invited to meetings or not. It's a flawed process that can't isn't worth finch dung compared to natures example. It's usually the usual suspects that garner invitation (those that are closest to the issue) and the squeakiest wheels (those that bitch the most if their not invited). Nature shows that an ecosystem relies on diversity for success. We need to always consider diversity when strategically selecting meeting participants.

To draw what I consider to be an interesting parallel between the world's reaction to the theory and meetings, I would start with the defense. Darwin did little to refute the challenges from religous, scientific, and other factions. It was strong supporting voices from others in the scientific community that rallied to defend the Origin of Species. Likewise, the most successful and accepted notions presented in meetings are often the ones that are advocated by people besides the proposing party. Unfortunately, the real master politickers have mastered this phenomenon, and plant seeds for other people to carry out their bidding before the meeting begins.

A monkey riding on a donkey. That was worth the admission.

Elderly Spanish Fellow

2008-04-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

Paleontologists in Spain have unearthed evidence of human ancestory in Spain from 1.3 million years ago. The remains indicate that humans occupied Europe about 500,000 years earlier than what has been accepted until now. As discoveries like this mount, we will get a clearer picture of how our species evolved, and sustained.

Part of what sustained the sapient hominid was their (is our?) tribal orientation. Whether it be eradicating competing homo-erectus subsets, slaughtering a wooly mammoth, or more generatively; developing methods to grow food instead of gathering it, hominids functioned in tribes to accomplish feats necessary to their survival.

Communication advances like the advent of language would have seen a punctuated spike in the gradual evolution of our ability to collaborate effectively. I wonder how the internet and would compare on that timeline? It's important that we look at what biological and physiological traits have helped us to get where we are in terms of collaboration, as well as looking at creating and leveraging technologies to supplement collaboration. This Spanish guy might show us the path to some answers.

More on evolution real soon...

Commuter's Collaboration

2008-04-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

There's a new GPS device out there called "Dash". CNN had a spot on it, that you can watch here. The idea is that the GPS communicates with other GPS's from other cars in the network. The Dash tracks traffic by tracking all of the Dash's that are out and about. Moreover, it can alert drivers to their relative proximity to things you may be looking for, like products. You get a little notice if you are in the region where something you've keyed in is available.

Of course, this network depends on many subscribers to the network to be successful. If only 1% of cars have the Dash, then there's probably too few signals to get an accurate picture of the traffic situation. This gets me thinking a lot about critical mass issues with social networks, wikis, and other collaborative places, but that's for another post. For today, we'll look at a more literal parallel in a conferencing environment.

There are all kinds of gizmos like nTAG that house participant profiles, and beep or do other obnoxious things to let their possessor's know when there's somebody approaching that shares an interest or offers expertise in an area of need. This is all well and good, but it seems that this function could be done by cell phones in the near enough future, and probably is already although I'm unaware of it. It would be nice if phones could be more easily used as polling devices as a replacement for Audience Response keypads.

Any cool devices you'd like to share? Better still, what's the best collaborative use you've seen for a mundane technology, like a cell phone?

FIRST, the second

2008-03-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

The first day of actual tournament play at the GTA FIRST Regional is done, and it was just incredible. I could go on about the kids and their gracious professionalism, which is under documented, but I'll instead focus on a very small portion of the behind the scenes adult collaboration.

My role there is as a judge. There are nearly 20 of us. Each of the rest is my senior and infinitely more wise and accredited. They are all keen to mentor and very welcoming though, so it was a very positive learning experience for me. We have to interview teams and assign awards for such things as gracious professionalism, entrepreneurial activity, and efforts/successes in advancing the FIRST values and the profile of the engineering profession with youth. Not only is this all somewhat subjective, but there are many more complexities.

Among the complexities is the fact that every judge cohort interviews only a fraction of the teams before presenting their suggestions for winners to the rest. It's easy to fall in love with the teams and feel a bias for the team that you brought forth, as their fate is in your hands. Despite this and other confidential matters, the selection process for the day 1 awards went very well. This is in large part due to moderation and good intentions.

The judge advisor is University of Waterloo's Rob Gorbet. One would expect that he's an engaging presenter, but he is also a masterful facilitator. He exceeds every judge in terms of knowledge of the teams, but manages to reserve his input and not lead the group. He is great at asking questions to clarify and ensure that we are following the purpose and criteria appropriately. A good moderator is a marvelous addition to a meeting.

The "good intentions" come from the judges and everyone at FIRST. While we can feel an inclination to act in the interests of the teams we nominated, we ultimately all want what's best for the kids, and the deserving winner is what's best. Coming to consensus in this group was never a compromise, but rather was a truly collaborative process. Some good debate and our complete commitment to making the right decision, but nothing uncomfortable for anyone.

Why can decision making be so difficult in other situations? These were not simple decisions we were making. Could it be that less pure intentions and objectives influence the quality of the process by their impact on motives?

FIRST, the first

2008-03-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

Today at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, the 66 teams of the FIRST Robotics Greater Toronto Regional Competition arrived and began fine-tuning their robots, and running practice rounds. The collaborative culture and environment that FIRST has been working for years to nurture and grow is an incredible thing to experience.

All of the teams are getting their robots ready in "the pits". There's a lot of activity -tightening of bolts, re-engineering of widgets, and robotics jargon that is well over my head ("bolts" and "widgets" were the most technical sounding things I could think to write). Despite each team feeling the crunch, gracious professionalism was still a top priority for teams. The only announcements made over the PA system in the pits was when teams were shy on components or needed help with something. It would be announced, and other teams would come running at the expense of their own limited time to donate their materials and expertise.

At the Judge's Dinner this evening, I was honored to be among some very accomplished engineers from industry, government and academia. Of all the technicalities of the program and intricacies of the scoring, we actually spent most of the night reviewing the culture of FIRST, and discussing how we would behave to maintain and grow the culture. An incredible experience.

Watch a live broadcast of the competition through the Discovery Channel webcast here on Friday the 28th and Saturday the 29th. Although, I feel Discovery's plug to watch "robots at war" is grossly inaccurate. Robots are at game, the important component - the kids - are at something much greater than game or war.

Life on MaRS

2008-03-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

The nature of clusters and their impact on innovation is well documented. Proximity of minds and resources breeding collaboration and all that good stuff. A living microcosm of the concept is providing convincing testament everyday at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. Under one very architecturally impressive roof, MaRS houses a business incubator with fledgling companies (mostly biomed and tech), venture capital firms, and other organizations and resources to nurture the growth of its organizations. (How's that "its" reverend?)

A key part of MaRS is the Collaboration Centre. It's got all of the A/V bells and whistles, but it's the whole notion of the Centre that's most noteworthy. The fact that the minds that got together to create this meca of entrepreneurialism deemed that a well outfitted place for people to meet at the expense of extremely valuable real estate was a necessity is an encouraging thought.

In addition to running a traditional venue/hospitality business, as a part of their mandate, the folks at the Collaboration Centre host events driven by the purpose to create opportunities for their tenants. Networking, education, and other such opportunities. So not only do they use this space as a revenue generator, but they orchestrate gatherings to leverage the power of collaboration to the benefit of MaRS' greater purpose.

How seriously do you consider collaboration opportunities as a part of your business or personal development plans?

The Death of the Lecture

2008-03-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

With innumerable different approaches to learning and instruction like gaming, virtual worlds, informal learning, podcasts, and more collaborative user-generated on-demand content sources, what will become of the traditional lecture?

Erik Mazur is a leading edge professor from Harvard. He strikes me as anti-lecture, and is doing some fascinating research into alternatives for use in university classrooms. Check out some of the options he's researching here.

I've got to be somewhat sensitive, as I call a good many lecture-heavy professors clients, but I'll at least submit that the lecture is not well suited to every learner type. Where does the urge to have an expert dictate come from, and will it live on in the coming decades?

Check back soon for "The Death of the Case Study", as my affront on "higher" education system continues.

UnSure of the UnConference

2008-03-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

BarCamps, UnConferences and the like are all the rage these days. There is an undeniable appeal to the authenticity and freedom of the format. I would challenge some of the fundamental claims people make about them though.

UnConferences are allegedly unbiased in their invitations. So you get a blogger or otherwise networked person posting a public invitation to join a group at some pub or another, and discuss a given topic. The bias here is obvious. The people that will be exposed to and respond to such an invitation are the people that are already followers of the blog, or already within the network of the unofficial host. If diversity is one of the core principles of achieving a wise crowd, then wouldn't this limited inclusiveness create the equivalent of a shallow conferencing gene pool? Not that a person becomes a zealot or disciple by merit of reading another's blog, but there is some influence inherent, and an indication of shared interests at least.

Depending on the purpose of the meeting, I think an unconference can be totally appropriate. Especially if it's as a catalyst for relationships. If a definite plan needs to be created, then perhaps not. What are the most appropriate purposes for an UnConference in your opinion or experience? When is it not a suitable format?

The Moderator's Dilemma

2008-03-21T02:34:00.000-07:00

If you're hired on to moderate a discussion, then you are hired on to moderate a discussion. I'd imagine it's the same for most facilitators and consultants. The authority that decides to hold the meeting arranges for me to be there, and ultimately signs my paycheck.

There is potential for a very difficult situation here. A good moderator is seeking the input of everyone in the room. A good moderator is mitigating the damaging behaviours in the room. What if that damaging behaviour is coming from that authority; CEO, Manager, or whatever? The task of moderating in this circumstance becomes considerably more delicate and challenging.

Part of my mandate (and philosophy) is to pursue the collective intelligence of a group. If a manager has a predetermined solution or outcome that she/he wishes the group to get to in a scripted meeting, then I would explicitly say that they should find somebody else to facilitate the process. But whether or not this leader is fixated on bringing everyone on board with a farce of a meeting, and no matter how enlightened and altruistic they are, they do have an opinion. As a moderator; limiting pontificators, grenade-throwers, and other counterproductive personas, trying not to show preference to the authority is a difficult predicament.

They are usually expert at what they do, but that's not the problem. The problem is that if you question or moderate this person, you're jeapordizing the relationship that is ultimately paying you for your efforts. I try and inform these people that they are equally as subject to moderation before the meeting, but I can't help but feel some bias.

For the love of god, somebody please comment. I believe that the moderator/facilitator role is to act in the interest of outcomes, but what is the best way to do this without upsetting the authority in the room? Not every leader is the ideal change agent.

Mechanism Design

2008-03-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

This year's Nobel Prize went to a few guys that developed the economic theory of mechanism design. The principle deals with the challenge of "asymmetric information", which is what happens when the different parties in a situation have different information and levels of understanding. For instance, if I am selling you diamonds, you would be willing to pay more than the reasonable profit margins I as the dealer am willing to selling them for because you think diamonds are rare. I know they are not. Information asymmetry. Outcome that is not optimal for both parties. The Economist has a good story about the theory here.

I don't want to get into the mathematics, which coincidentally, I don't understand anyway. My interest lies in the translation to the economy that is the meeting room. It is very common that there are experts in a meeting that make for asymmetric information in a meeting. Many people feel that they are therefore entitled to the majority of the speaking time, and the greatest influence over decisions. Mechanism design, with it's intent to create the most effective outcome for all parties, may be a better alternative.

Trying to distribute information as much as possible is one approach to alleviating the asymmetry. Most important in this approach is absolute honesty. If an individual with a monopoly on knowledge in a certain area wishes to lead a meeting in a certain direction, then they may be less inclined to be totally transparent and disseminate all of their knowledge. Escpecially if their unique knowledge is something they are ashamed of.

How might a meeting designer or moderator incentivize people to park their own interests for the benefit of an optimal "mechanism designed" outcome?

Flocks and Schools of Robots? Meeting Attendees?

2008-03-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Despite some techy subject matter in recent posts that may contradict this: this is not a blog about robots. But they are helping us learn more about collaborative efforts, so here's just a bit more...

Great reading today in the Science pages of The New York Times, see here. Most of us have seen, and all of us have seen footage of, a flock of birds moving in an unfathomably coordinated pattern. Or schools of fish flashing their scales in a coordinated sequence more impressive than the best LED light shows there are going.

There has been a longstanding assumption that there is some mystical coordination instinct or phenomenon that enables this. However, new evidence suggests that it is actually the reactions to predators or other forces of individuals within the groups that subtly trigger a similar and coordinated response from the rest. The evidence comes from simulating these organisms with robots. If animals seem to move as one, but they more accurately move because of one, are any other assumptions challenged?

There are a few interesting metaphors here. In a meeting, one person can change the course of meeting very visibly. On the positive side, they may make an inspiring presentation, or surface an important but difficult question that everyone wanted surfaced. The negative equivalent might be someone dominating the conversation and shooting down other's ideas. But there are definitely instances of meetings shifting focus, direction, or even principle due to the hidden actions and influences of one individual.

This ability to so impact a group's behaviour and meeting's outcomes is a great power to wield. There is potential for great destruction, or great yet humble advancing of the purpose. While the damaging persona may be the person politicking, the silent leader may just be asking provocative questions and empowering people with confidence.

Have you witnessed either? What practical tactics might one apply to be the humble, behind the scenes leader of the flock, school, or meeting?

The Singularity is Really Near Now

2008-03-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Big, somewhat terrifying news today from clairvoyant author of The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil. Read the post here. I guess there's a quorum of supra-geniuses out there that are developing these nifty little robots (symbiotic evolutionary robot organisms to the layperson) that can interact with each other to behave as swarms. Kinda like a bunch of cells working together to form a single organism.

The bite size robots communicate (by magic, I think) and share resources amongst themselves to represent the best interests of the whole, which is essentially one entity.

What are we going to take from this? There's the Kurzweil inevitability that our selves (souls? minds?) will enter this unified machine and be a part of the one shared life... and immortal to boot. In the meantime, we can hopefully get our hands on some of this technology/magic to improve the way we communicate in flesh form. Maybe a feed to the robots to express to them our candid needs, and they could feed this to the most appropriate interlocutor on the grid. For example, if I dictate to my robot that I would like a beer, then the symbiot robot web would inform a neighbouring bartender that the handsome blonde guy at the end of the bar needs a beer.

Where are all of my commentors? Where would you see this technology taking us in the near future in terms of communications and collaboration?

Brain Waves

2008-03-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting article in today's Globe and Mail about advertising juggernaut (they would probably say "media research firm") Nielsen investing in NeuroFocus; a company that specializes in monitoring neurophysiological patterns and phenomena. This is an alternative to focus groups, surveys, and other antiquated methods and metrics that can help organizations gauge emotional response and engagement.

The space organizations like NeuroFocus (and there are others) occupy is primarily for advertising and product development purposes. While this makes indisputable sense, I think it's a narrow view of what we can do with people's brainwaves.

What about meetings? I wax prophetic about the value of audience response nearly every day. But my expertise in that arena would become obsolete as quickly as your brain can transmit signal to your mouth to make you say "unemployable" if the cool little keypads were replaced with non-invasive brain imaging devices, or cool helmets that monitor engagement, emotional response, and other physiologically immaculate indications.

There are obviously challenges to what is a step towards reading minds in a meeting. I would definitely be skeptical of what's being monitored and who would know what about my thoughts and perceptions. Skepticism could be tremendously damaging to the sense of (damn, this soft word again) trust in a meeting. And perhaps there is such a thing as too much truth. I firmly believe that if there are issues that exist in the minds of meeting attendees, then they need to be surfaced, addressed, and discussed. But even as this happens I can mask my irrational disdain for others, that if surfaced, wouldn't help anyone.

I would love to one day be a part of the strategic alignment meeting where the CEO presents the plan, and turns to the screen to see a perfectly clear picture of whether people buy into the plan, and if they think it's feasible. It might not be soon, but we've got to start thinking about neurophysiological science's implications in collaborative efforts. After all, a big reason why physical meetings still exist is that our brains react differently when there is a human being in front of us that our various senses can perceive. We actually stimulate and fire different synapses in our brain than is possible without that sensory engagement.

For now I'm kind of glad. The information - from the smell sense in particular - that would engage those synapses and the resulting opinion if you were experiencing me say this in person today instead of reading it would sabotage the message. That's correct, I was at a St. Patrick's Day party at Steamwhistle brewery last night. The availability of beer would have registered a powerful emotional response with the NeuroFocus technology.

All Work and No Play

2008-03-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

The week is over. This doesn't often mean much to me. I don't treat weeknights much different from Friday and Saturday. I like to go in to work on the weekends.

But this week is different. I get enthused often at work. Little breakthroughs do wonders for my esteem and motivation. I've found myself less easy to motivate this week. The implications are enormous. What will I do to get my motivation back? I'm working on a lot of important things right now... or should be.

How "manageable" or available to influence is motivation? My secret weapon is usually unrivaled discipline. When that fails, I'm in trouble. In meetings, we rely on external forces - like an engaging meeting - to precipitate motivation. I'd like some ideas on how we can work on it internally.

This is for a friend who said that my initial posts had too much of my work persona, and not enough genuine passion and personality. It's a bit of a cop-out, but this is me being personal, only to share that the passion doesn't express in written word because it's temporarily absent.

Complexity in Meetings

2008-03-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

For a few years now I've been on a list-serve (value networks) with Knowledge Management guru Dave Snowden. I consider him something of a virtual mentor. He recently blogged about one of his better takes on complexity theory on what is one of my favourite blogs.

The video is available here, and please note the following conditions:

The video was created by Candice Mulkey, Melissa Lieurance, and Kenneth Paulino to support teaching activities at the US Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security. We request the video be used within the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license framework.

It takes a few seconds to download, a few minutes to watch, and the pacing is treacherously slow for someone of my limited patience and attention. Still, I strongly endorse taking the time to watch and appreciate this.

So, without getting too much into a definition of complexity theory that I may well screw up, it's basically the notion that organic systems, including groups of people, can't be mechanically engineered. This means that a rigid expectation of how people will behave is unreasonable and damaging. Rather than try and dictate how people will behave, it makes sense to create conditions that will nurture positive activity.

In the video, the subject matter is a children's party. The way children act and react to plans is unpredictable. The metaphor is an organizational one. Creating rigid expectations and parameters for the way people will interact and work by creating and trying to enforce a "desired state" is no less absurd than marching kids through a set of prescribed agenda items, complete with process checks and metrics.

I'm also intrigued by this complexity acknowledging approach on a meetings specific level. I think people appreciate agendas and structure, but are we over-structuring and forcing a living system into an engineered frameworks? Can we better capitalize on a collective and provide a better experience for them by providing options and tools, instead of structure and format? Where is the breaking point? Do you need a critical mass of leadership mentalities for this approach?

I'll commit here to doing some experimentation along these lines, and will of course report back. In the meantime, one good model I can think of for the latter kind of party (in the video) is Elliot Masie's annual Learning conferences.

The Full Spectrum... dammit

2008-03-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

In their book Collaboration 2.0, Stewart Levine and David Coleman say something to the effect of there being 3 parts to the collaboration spectrum on this "inter-web" business. They are as follows:

Technology
People
Process

I maintain that it's the same in any given meeting or group driven project. Sometimes the technology is very simple (pens and paper vs. "inter-web"), but the right tool for the right job is an important part of collaboration. My mindshare is often dominated by the technology and process side of things. I think both can be applied to have beneficial effects on the psychology of a group, and clearly all overlap, but the "People" part is the area I need to be conscious of paying closer attention to.

So, as with most things, I'd like to take an experimental approach to improving how I interact with others. When I think of people, I think of the most important one first... me. How am I going to prepare myself or create the necessary conditions that will allow me to be most effective in a group setting?

It's kind of cause-and-effect, and a bit like putting out fires; but psychologists have a tool that I'd like to introduce in a work setting that could help to mitigate damaging behaviour by creating self awareness. Self awareness around "triggers" specifically. A trigger could be anything that sets in motion a pattern reaction. We see people reacting to their triggers constantly. A trigger for me might be to get angry or make fun of someone I perceive to be behaving unreasonably. To find out why people respond to triggers as they do is important to form an awareness around, but you'll have to turn to a more specialized source for that.

For my purposes, I want to know what my pattern unproductive behaviours are, and how they express in a group setting. So a team of colleagues and I are going to try and park our egos, make ourselves temporarily vulnerable (ugh), and flesh out a list of our independent triggers. This is quite the experiment. I will have to approach the engagement with humility, and share my known flaws. I'll also have to be prepared to listen to what my colleagues consider as my negative behaviour (I always thought my shouting profanities was endearing!). I will of course be offering them observations as well.

The outcome will be a list of our triggers and pattern behaviours, along with notes on how we should alternatively behave (which may even be disengaging) to avoid causing damage. Lastly, we will also list how we would prefer to be notified and receive feedback for each instance in real-time. Our team will be accountable for making progress in these areas and helping each other make progress. I'm excited to see if the acknowledgement and awareness will have an impact.

Of course, the proper environment for this meeting is critical. "Trust" is a word that I don't use often, and is about as soft as it gets in my eyes. But without trust, this excercise would be redundant. A closely knit team has all made one another confident in our intentions and desire to improve our interactions, so I'm comforted that proceedings will be civil. But as mentioned, this People component of the collaboration spectrum is a tricky one.

I look forward to reporting back on this experiment's progress.

Survey Says...

2008-03-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

Using an Audience Response System (ARS) in a meeting can augment and shape discussion, and be a powerful tool. It can also be easy trivialized, and a waste of time. Many of the individuals I design meetings with are familiar with and have used ARS, but only a small portion of those have seen value in it.

The most notable reasons I see for integrating ARS into a group engagement are to leverage the anonymity and surface what a group is really thinking, so the meeting focus shifts from the bullshit that leadership wants to shove down everyone's throat to the real issues that the group has illuminated as what needs to be addressed. In terms of learning and development, it's also handy to gauge understanding from time to time. Again, you're illuminating areas where the group is confident and need dwell no longer, or where they need to spend a little more time and need more depth than what was planned in the agenda. Both of these purposes require a fluid meeting format, that not many are comfortable with.

Used well, ARS's don't just get feedback on how the meeting was. They shape the very course of the meeting. This is an uneasy notion for the rigid manager that wants to script proceeding, outcomes, and know exactly what to expect from a meeting. There's also a lot of resistance from anyone who fears embarrassment or, god forbid, disalignment from polling. This is difficult to understand. Why would candor be a threat? The group has an opinion. You can choose to ignore that as you try to establish a new universal outlook, or you can acknowledge it and explore what may need to be altered to improve or build upon that state.

Comments on how you feel about ARS are strongly encouraged. This is one of those topics you can expect me to post a lot about in the coming weeks. I'll drill down on why a negative view of ARS may exist, and share some strategies for effective ARS implementation.

In the Presence of Greatness

2008-03-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

There's something profoundly humbling about standing in a room full of several hundered or several thousand teenagers that are all smarter than you are. It's amplified when they're WAY smarter than you, as is my situation when I find myself at FIRST Robotics events (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The accompanying picture is of the 2007 Chairman's Award Winners, pictured with - among others - FIRST Creator Dean Kamen, Chairman John Abele, and a politician that should feel very humbled indeed.

What's the relevance to this blog? Well, clearly we have teams of kids working together, but it's bigger than that. There are no limits to what I could learn from these kids about science, technology, math, etc, etc, etc. But it's the superior approach to collaboration that the game's rules and kids' nature that astonishes me the most. The most successful teams don't only build robots that would put Number 5 to shame, but they also are the most effective collaborators. And not in the typical, overhyped and overdefined corporate way of effective teamwork, or strategic alliance with complimentors. The successful FIRST teams have come to realize that collaborating with competitors is equally as important.

As with the marketplace, and the world, FIRST is not a zero-sum game. Scoring and rules as with ubiquitous incentives in many aspects of life favour "coopetition" over competition. The greatest honour in FIRST, the Chairman's Award, is not given to the winner of the competition necessarily either. Rather, the grand prize is reserved for the team that has displayed the FIRST values most thoroughly and effectively. The core value has got to be "Gracious Professionalism", which has a few interpretations. The best description I've heard of Gracious Professionalism is:

"Behave like your grandmother is always watching you, and you are competing with her other grandchildren."

I'll be judging at the largest regional FIRST competition in the world at The Hershey Center in Mississauga from March 27-29. If you can make it, do make it, and prepare to be inspired.

The Monolithic Beginning

2008-03-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

It seems counterintuitive to have a one-to-many vehicle like a blog for something like the art/science of people working together. Not that it hasn't been done before. So, if ever I get any readers, I'll rely on you to enrich this experiment with comments. Regardless, I'll just be posting a few lessons I've learned. More accurately, I'll be posting some things I've observed, and thoughts about the implications.

Getting started then; I'm a big believer in using decision support (DS) technology for the purposes of idea generation. There are innumerable solutions out there. I'm most familiar with the GroupSystems platforms, which are good for bringing efficiency to a meeting, as well as setting the psychological stage. By offering anonymity to the delegates through DS, delegates are given the sense that their opinion is valued, as in this arena it carries the same weight as everyone else's, and idea generation can't be dominated by the greatest authority or most aggressive person in the room.

Lot's more on the why's and how's of DS to come. For now though, check out what shows some promise as an effective open-source DS solution. Kluster is still beta at this point, but it's easy to gather how it works. Not unlike the process prescribed by other platforms, but it can be public, and they've created a sexy ecosystem complete with cool names for functions, and in-world currency. This currency (called watts) makes kluster a little bit more of a prediction market than a standard rating system for ideas. We'll watch this with great interest. They're set to debut at the upcoming TED meeting.