I just read an interesting article published by eminent consulting firm McKinsey & Company entitled “Using technology to improve workforce collaboration” (authors James Manyika, Kara Sprague and Lareina Yee). Click here to take a look at the article, or read on for what struck me as interesting take-aways. A new class of worker:  the Collaboration Worker The authors recast the workforce sector known as Knowledge Workers (a venerable term coined by Peter Drucker in the mid 20th century) in... Read Full Story

When we say “meeting” these days, we often mean getting on a conference call or clicking onto an online web meeting site. Without the ability to peer across the table to learn what our colleague is really thinking or feeling, we must rely on words and a few other contextual cues to impart the real meaning of our colleague’s spoken or written message. Those of us of a certain age have had a whole lifetime in which to learn how to interpret a heavy sigh, a nervous guffaw or dead silence. Younge... Read Full Story

We were oversubscribed within 24 hours of posting our invitation to sign up for our free one hour webinar that demonstrates eight principles for designing interactive webinars by engagingYOU as participants! Based on this response, we’ve added a second webinar! The additional date is Tuesday, November 10th at 8:00 AM PDT (11:00 AM EDT, GMT 4:00 PM) . Below we’ve repeated the information about the webinar. We hope to see you there! Click here to enroll now. Be. honest: How many of ... Read Full Story

Designing Interactive Webinars – How to Keep People Engaged Please join us Thursday November 5th as we demonstrate eight principles for designing interactive webinars by engaging you as participants! Be honest: How many of the webinars that you attend (or deliver) are boring?  The one-way nature of most webinars and web conferences misses an opportunity to engage an audience and draw on the wisdom of the group. The opportunity presented by a more interactive and collaborative approach t... Read Full Story

As technology advances and the global economy strains to stabilize, what is a leader who is increasingly pressed to produce bottom line results to do? Based on research being conducted at Morehead State University, part of the answer may be to run more effective global meetings using collaborative systems. This research indicates that collaborative systems can save time and travel-related expense while enhancing the quality of meeting outcomes. For the past seven years, I have been conducting... Read Full Story

There is exciting research going on at universities across the globe focused on understanding the basic constructs that affect team productivity and well-being.  I recently wrote about one such study that investigated the effect of positivity vs . negativity on team performance and determined the optimal ratio to help teams flourish. Very cool stuff.  http://facilitate.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/the-magic-number-that-helps-teams-flourish. It’s pretty clear why we should be interested in what ... Read Full Story

Twenty minutes into a one hour web conference I found myself starting to multi-task. I was still listening (sure!) while I checked my email. Five minutes later I was still listening (kind of) while working on a spreadsheet. When the facilitator asked a question of the group I waited for someone else to answer so I could figure out what I had missed. Does this sound familiar? As a virtual meeting facilitator I know better, but this is a common occurence in many virtual meetings, webinars and t... Read Full Story

The days of starting a meeting with “Please turn off and put away your cell phones” are over. Smart phones are common these days in the business world and they can do just about anything.  Take this example: my iPhone allows me to scan optical bar codes and tells me whether there is a better deal online for an item I want to purchase. Today, smart phones are front-line devices for collaborative work. With their growing sophistication we’re starting to see more interest in using them effective... Read Full Story

Many of my clients, like so many other organizations, are looking for ways to help them establish and cultivate a productive remote workforce. In some cases, they realize that greater workplace flexibility will allow them to attract and retain certain kinds of employees. In other cases, companies simply to have to slash costs, forcing employees out of company offices. When starting up telecommuting programs, some of my clients start with a pilot program where a group of new telecommuters will... Read Full Story

 In a recent post, I talked about the importance of helping your cross cultural teams develop cultural literacy, by which I mean an understanding of and sensitivity to values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface differences of language, cuisine and style. Whether members of a cross-cultural team work in the same location or a couple of time zones away, everyone needs to learn how to navigate cultural differences successfully. In the absence of visual cues, these differences become much mo... Read Full Story