Category Archives: Technology

Do you use a Second Screen?

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Second screens have become the norm these days with the vast majority of people carrying a smartphone or tablet or both!  We google speakers during conferences and tweet comments about training sessions we are attending – we have become master multi-taskers.

Although most second screens are personal devices they are increasingly being used in the work and learning environments as additional resources. In his Learning Trends blog on March 25, 2011, Elliott Masie listed some of the potential implications for Learning and Corporate HR given the growing prevalence of second screens in our lives.

Learning Implications:google_htc_tablet_110

* People are using their Second Screens to continually enhance, contextualize and expand the CONTEXT side of CONTENT that is being viewed.
* Workers are able to collaborate – internally or externally – with formal or personal clusters of people as part of or in competition with the learning activity.
* Learners will have access to more back-channel and secondary content, context and opinion as they engage in learning.
* Tracking Second Screen activity will be a major challenge, if not impossibility.
* Learners will demand greater connectivity and access to at least some corporate assets on their Second Screens.
* When do we allow or restrict the use of Second Screens at work, in a leadership program or in the field?

HR/IT Implications:

* Selective, layered and location specific access to online assets from Second Screens will be requested from workers at the office, on the road and at home.
* Security issues – including Intellectual Property challenges – will arise as Second Screens are used, especially when the content is cached rather than just viewed.
* Second Screens will rapidly become HD-enabled Video Presence Units, competing with the quality of the $250,000 telepresence suite and placing intense loads on bandwidth.
* Equality and Discrimination issues will rise when employees buy their own Second Screens and are competing for performance with others who cannot afford the luxury.

Given these observations the question now becomes, much as it did with the issue of Facebook in the workplace, how to leverage the Second Screen to enhance learning and productivity.   Any Ideas?

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Designing Collaborations

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There are several key components that when combined in the proper measure can result in successful collaborations.  Creating the framework for the collaboration is one such factor.

Harnessing the creativity of a group requires not only the usual considerations of timing, data requirements, and the resources needed but also careful ‘engineering’ of behaviors and mindset.  This apparent contradiction of soft skills with the recognized hard skill association of engineering allows you to consider the process of organizing behavior in order to maximize creative mindset and minimize those that destroy collaboration.

Soft stuff is the glue that holds the hard stuff together. Knowing who should contribute to the collaboration and their necessary skill sets in addition to being prepared to mitigate negative behavioral tendencies (Divas, Pontificators and the like) are important considerations on an individual level.  For example, when a particular personality needs ‘management’, the ideal approach is 3 pronged:

1. Arrange a pre-meeting one on one with the individual and warn them that they may encounter topics or opinions that could cause an emotional/negative reaction.

2. Recognize their abilities/skills etc. and let them know their inputs are valuable to the group achieving their goal.

3. Find a solution that works for the individual and the needs of the group to prevent potentially destructive situations.

Let us say for example you have a member of your group that given his level of expertise and experience believes he/she should not be limited to the one time 10 minute speaking limit that has been set for meeting participants.  The result of the 3 pronged approach above could potentially be to offer this participant several opportunities to speak but with say a limit of 5 minutes per.  This approach respects the time of the rest of the group and minimally disrupts the flow but satisfies the participants need to comment often.  You can’t change the person but you can change the rules!

When considering the collective; dynamics, politics, pre conceived notions and potential conflicts should all be evaluated and prepared for in advance in order to ensure every participant is contributing at 100% capacity and not hindered by behavioral issues.

That isn’t to say of course that as a ‘collaboration designer’ you can’t have a little fun.  At least one organization I know of employs water guns in their creative sessions.  If a member of the group is perceived by others to be pontificating, squirt!  If a participant is negative about an idea without first asking questions, squirt!  Condescending, squirt!  Hogging the floor, squirt!  You get the idea.

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Prezi: The Successor to PowerPoint

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Presentations haven’t evolved much in the 50 years since the slide projector was invented.  PowerPoint certainly added some interest through animation schemes but is still a linear presentation.  How many subjects or ideas are actually linear?

Prezi lets you bring your ideas into one space and see how they relate, helping you and your audience connect. Zoom out to see the big picture and zoom in to see details — a bit like web-based maps that have changed how we navigate through map books.  Prezi is a medium that inspires creative thinking and allows the user to share ideas in a dynamic and fun format.
Adam Somlai-Fischer is an architect and has been working with zooming presentations since 2001. Back then, he was coding each presentation by hand but it allowed him to show a floor plan (big picture) and individual rooms (details). Adam became an internationally desired speaker and as more people saw his zooming presentations they wanted to create their own. In 2007, Adam met Peter Halacsy who was one of these people. Peter convinced Adam to work on an editor so that anyone could make zooming presentations.

Prezi was launched in April 2009 from Budapest, leading to an investment from TED Conferences and was in fact used by James Geary in his talk at TED Global 2009:

Mixing Mind and Metaphor on Prezi

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The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done – Webinar!

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One of the mainstays of successful collaboration is engineering interactivity and purposeful communication between the members.  Advances in technology have provided the tools to make this easier and accessible but it is still up to the organizer(s) to create the right conditions for collaboration to work.

Take advantage of the opportunity to learn about what makes a successful collaboration (and not so successful) via one of the very technology tools that make it possible by joining the Pegasus Communications Webinar “The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done” with me, John Abele on January 11, 2011.

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The Collaboration Paradox:
Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

with John Abele

A 90-minute live webinar andjohnabele interactive discussion
Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET | Register for this live webinar

Description
The need for more truly powerful collaborations, where the collective intelligence of a diverse set of minds is harnessed toward a common goal, is greater than ever. And yet we find collaboration vexingly difficult to do. In this webinar,John Abele, renowned co-founder of Boston Scientific, will examine the many different types of collaboration along with the barriers to making them effective. He’ll describe new tactics and approaches that may seem counterintuitive, but that will help unleash the wisdom of a crowd far better than more obvious approaches. John will share learnings from his extensive experiences in business, medicine, education, science, and philanthropy.

In this webinar, you will::

  • Learn from extraordinary successes and spectacular failures
  • Take away tips for overcoming the challenges that stand in the way of effective collaboration
  • Discuss how to foster rational discussion by understanding root causes, analyzing issues and options, and weighing trade offs—together
  • Understand how best to collaborate around implementing solutions
  • Receive a copy of the “Kingbridge Meeting Design Guidelines,” from the Kingbridge Centre and Institute

Pricing
This 90-minute interactive session is $129.00 per site (a single phone line). You can use a speakerphone so that a group of people can participate. You will also have unlimited access to the recorded version following the event.

Date and Time
The live webinar is being held on Tuesday, January 11, 2011, from 2 to 3:30 pm ET. When you register, you will receive detailed information about how to call in and participate.

Presenter
John Abele is the retired founding chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation (www.bsci.com) and one of the pioneers of less invasive medicine. He holds numerous patents, and has published and lectured extensively on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare and on strategies for improving collaboration between individuals, businesses, and organizations. John’s major interests are science literacy for children, education, and disruptive technological innovation. He is currently vice chair (former chair) of the FIRST Foundation, which works with high school kids to make science literacy cool and fun, and owner of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conference center that is devoted to perfecting the “Art of Conferencing” and hosting exceptional meetings.

Register for this live webinar!

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Kingbridge Physical/Virtual Dinner Party

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If anyone has ever tried to overcome the barriers of distance and time to coordinate the schedules of a group of VIP’s and the like for a gathering, they can appreciate the need to be creative.  Advancements in video conferencing and virtual meeting software have been amazing in their ability to bring people together across vast distances.  The technology keeps getting better and better.  The pictures are clearer, larger and more realistic than ever.  And at least some of it is less expensive.    Even the dream of pure “telepresence” like the “holodeck” of Star Trek fame is getting closer.  But somehow there is still something missing.  To paraphrase Marshal McLuhan, the medium is getting in the way of the message.  Perhaps, we thought, we should see if we could model the unscripted and casual conversations of the dinner after the meeting.

So the other night we had our first virtual, Skype enabled, dinner party. We invited 6 VIP entrepreneurs and innovators to Kingbridge in King City, Ontario, while Elliott Masie and his guest Alan Davis, President of Empire State College, assembled at The MASIE Center in Saratoga, NY.  With our free Skype connection and 47” LCD screens at each end we were able to break down the barrier of distance and enjoy a carefully coordinated meal together.  From table cloths and seasonal place settings to the menu and wine selections the event was designed to close the gap and provide a much stronger feeling of ‘being there’.  We started by introducing each other at a standing reception and moved to a dinner table where we shared the descriptions of our entrées and wine.  The conversation flowed freely and openly.  Elliott, always the geek, would periodically Google someone’s observation on his iPad and hold it up for the camera.  Even the non-geeks (most of them) at the dinner were comfortable and open.

With simple technology and some virtual coordination we were able to increase the personalization, authenticity and comfort of this physical/virtual dialogue.  Of course being entrepreneurial we are always looking for improvements.  So we plan to hold some more of these gatherings and keep trying out new experiments…both technical and social.   Elliott and I have already put together a list of guidelines or rules of engagement and plan to expand that significantly, perhaps into templates for gatherings for different purposes.  We believe that the strategies for making these multimodality gatherings work well can dramatically improve collaborations at any level.

We would be happy to share information on the technical tools we used to make this work so well, as well as some of the strategies.  Maybe you’d like to add some ideas, too.

Let me know.  John.abele@kingbridgecentre.com

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Are Your Collaborative IT Solutions Working For YOU?

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2010 has been labeled the year of collaboration, with most organizations looking to adopt collaborative knowledge sharing and networking solutions to boost productivity and innovation.

As was briefly mentioned last week, the issue is that out of the box software solutions all to often result in the organization changing the way they work to suit the software’s capabilities rather than tailoring the software to meet the organizations needs.

An impressive example of an organization that did it right is Goodwill Industries.  CIO Steve Bergman recognized that with so many decentralized non-profit operations throughout North America and the World that in order to effectively and economically facilitate a community of best practice he would need to introduce a collaborative technology solution.  He did his due diligence, testing the available corporate software solutions and found that none of them was the right ‘fit’ for what he wanted to use it for.  What her really needed was a system that could easilyadapt and integrate into the ever changing needs of his growing organization without breaking the bank! 

So Bergman changed tack, and found an opensource solution that was nearly what Goodwill needed and worked with the opensource programmers to create the collaboration portal MYGoodwill – a customized system that works for Goodwill Industries to satisfy their requirements and capabilities without causing a major restructure of process or requiring extensive training to operate.

I believe this story illustrates how we need to keep sight of the fact that technology is meant to work for us, satisfy our needs, and that often means customization to get it right.  Just as every person is unique so is every organization and their needs can’t all be satisfied out of the same box.

Watch a video interview with Steve Bergman

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iPad screams "should have crowdsourced!"

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I found this very interesting graphic on another techie blogger’s site and immediately realized that despite Apple’s success with their interactive and multi-functional i-Phones and i-Pods that take advantage of user generated apps the company still hasn’t fully grasped WHY these were sucessful.a-comparative-chart-between-two-tablets-2710-1264671723-11
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The success of their technology is in the user interaction with and contribution to not only the applications but the function of the product.  Single function, designer prescribed useage just isn’t going to cut it in the new world of user defined products!  If we already have a touchscreen smart phone that can hold our schedule, store pictures, take pictures, play movies stored on micro SD cards, stream video, read our e-mail to us, choose view mode, play games and pretty much everything all our other electronics can do all in one convenient package………….what would we want with a basic handheld touchscreen tablet that does none of those things but costs twice as much?
Maybe Apple should have asked us??

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Stumble Upon It!

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ads_promo1Today, as it happens, I stumbled upon “StumbleUpon” which I think is most simply described as TiVo for the Internet.  

StumbleUpon uses  thumbup/ thumbdown ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages that friends and like-minded stumblers have recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn’t find using a search engine.

StumbleUpon offers nearly 500 topics/interests to choose from so each Stumble produces only the most relevant content. StumbleUpon delivers increasingly relevant content as the Toolbar learns (like TiVo learns) what the user has liked in the past and continues to present quality web sites in the future.

Similar to Digg for news stories applied to the entire World Wide Web – could StumbleUpon be the beginning of the end for traditional search engines?

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Crowdsourcing in Action

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Yesterday, Febrary 5, The Kingbridge Centre as a member of IACC (International Association of Conference Centres) hosted a crowdsourcing session to determine what our clients are really looking for in a conference centre with the intention of course correcting accordingly.

Although not an Earth changing topic, the session did reveal areas that perhaps require more attention and others that require less in the mind of the consumer.   And isn’t that what we are here for: to please the consumer?

It amazes me that something so simple as asking your target audience what they expect from a product or service is so infrequently practiced.  A lot of companies spend a lot of time, effort and marketing dollars to tell us what we need or want yet seldom ask.  The success stories of organizations that place their efforts in sourcing what their customers want (Amazon, Starbucks, iStockPhoto and more recently Dell and HP) have seen exponential growth and increased customer loyalty. 

capture_starbucks

So why doesn’t every organization do it?
Habit?  Disbelief?  Arrogance?  Fear?
You tell me.

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Google’s Nexus One – What Happened to Crowdsourcing?

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The Google search engine organizes its webpage information based on user visits to sites resulting from keyword searches.
Google crowd sources their map data using applications that allow users to submit data as well as correct it in both Google maps and Google earth.
They also apply to concept of crowdsourcing to many of their user applications such as Google moderator, Google translate and Google traffic.

google-phone-android-nexus-one-3With Google basing their success on harnessing the wisdom of the collective to produce superior web applications one has to wonder:

Why didn’t Google use crowdsourcing to design their new android phone: Nexus One?

The hype surrounding the release of the Nexus One promised a revolutionary smart phone, a clear step above Apple Inc.’s i-Phone.  What was released however was an underwhelming, slightly improved (in some respects and not others) version of the existing android smart phone.

 How does it compare to the i-Phone?
“Coming up with ways in which the iPhone 3GS maintains a formidable lead over the N1 is a cakewalk. The iPhone OS’s interface is less cluttered. There are not only five times more iPhone apps (100,000+ vs. 20,000) but the best ones, such as Tweetie, may be five times better than their Android equivalents. Google doesn’t even seem to be trying to catch up with the iPhone’s entertainment features: Android lets you copy music from a PC but not sync it, and has no provisions for buying or renting video. Bottom line: The iPhone is (still) a more highly evolved, refined device.”  
                                                                    Harry McCracken, Technologizer

Perhaps, Google should have stuck with what works: 
User designed product!

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