The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Transcripts Help Listening … When different teams are supposed to work together but are experiencing conflict, schedule an in-person meeting (or more specifically, an anecdote circle; see details for the major difference), record everything that is said, and get the meeting transcribed. Distribute the transcript, ask everyone to read it, and then meet again. It worked great in one recent case: “A week later they all met again and many of the participants said the same thing about reading the transcript: “I can’t believe how much I missed at our first meeting. I guess I was too busy thinking about the next thing I was going to say and failed to listen properly.” This second meeting was the watershed for the relationship between the two groups. And while Ross never provided me with the details I got the sense that there now existed a foundation to rebuild the rapport between the two groups. ” Anecdote
• Telecommuting = Higher Productivity … “A recent survey of 10,000 employees in the US by Kenexa Research Institute has found that employees allowed to telecommute one day per week were 9% more satisfied with their employers that those made to come to the office everyday. This also directly reflected in the employees perceptions and reactions to their boss as telecommuters found their boss did a better job of people management and that senior managers valued them more.” CareerHub

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• IBM Acquired WebDialogs … IBM announced the acquisition of WebDialogs, a privately-held provider of Web conferencing and communication services. “WebDialogs offers online meeting and collaboration services that combine web and audio conferencing into one, easy-to-use experience. Since it is deployed as a service, WebDialogs technology does not require support from an organization’s IT department, making it easy to deploy anytime, anywhere. The WebDialogs service is used by leading audio conferencing providers to extend online meeting capabilities to their users.” IBM will use WebDialogs as a hosted Web conferencing service within the Sametime product line. IBM
• Polycom and IBM … Polycom announced the Polycom Unified Collaboration, for launching voice, video and voice/video calls directly from Lotus Sametime or Lotus Notes. “Polycom Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes provides flexible options for adding voice, video or unified collaboration from within Lotus software applications. Lotus Notes users who also license Lotus Sametime can launch a voice or video conference call from their contact list or escalate an instant message (IM) chat session to a voice or video call using the familiar Click-to-Call or Click-to-Conference features. Lotus Notes users can launch a voice or video call using Click-to-Call or Click-to-Conference wherever contacts appear within Lotus Notes (contact list, email, address book) or schedule a voice or video conference as part of a future meeting. Within Lotus Sametime Web conferencing, users can launch Instant Meetings with voice and video conferences, or include a voice or video conference as part of scheduled web conference.” Available immediately. Polycom
• SharePoint Needs Tagging … Todd asks whether SharePoint and social software can exist in the same environment. He argues that, in the case of some social software instances, SharePoint can do a whole lot better. “Let’s start with social tagging which is not built into the application. Since everything in Sharepoint is a list, you can add a field for tags on just about any component. However, the product doesn’t deliver recommendation, spelling, or tag cloud functionality. You have to buy, develop, or download web parts to deliver that type of functionality. The weblog inside of Sharepoint isn’t bad but there isn’t anyway (again, without development) to aggregate content across weblogs, gain access to the most popular weblogs, or customize the look and feel. The master page technique for a weblog is 10x more difficult than doing one for an Intranet or updating the basic theme. The wiki is not quite as good for many of the same reasons but add to that list the lack of templates, rollup, ranking, tagging, etc. Microsoft knows these are gaps since they started on the community kit almost immediately after WSS 3.0 was released.” Collaborage
• Interwoven WorkSite Update … Interwoven announced an update to WorkSite, its matter management solution for professional services firms. New features: advanced email filing, Microsoft Office 2007, Vista and Lotus Notes support, enhanced mobile access (additional BlackBerry device support), optimized performance, and more. “Interwoven WorkSite 8.2 addresses these issues with new send and file functionality that provides an easy way for users to tag email with metadata, eliminating the time consuming, and often avoided, drag-and-drop filing method. Once an email is tagged, the email, as well as any responses to it, can either be automatically filed or sent via a single click to the proper client-matter file folder. Additionally, Interwoven WorkSite allows staff to access and manage email from mobile devices, an important capability as professionals are increasingly operating from remote locations.” Available immediately. Interwoven
• Routing Around IT … End users have become savvy at routing around the IT department when deploying and using new applications at work. “In fact, end users are so confident in their ability (and authority) to bring whatever Web-based applications and consumer devices they want into the workplace, 31% of them claim to circumvent IT altogether, according to a recent survey from Boston-based Yankee Group Research Inc. Only 13% said IT had complete control over their PCs.” SearchCIO
• biz-e … biz-e is a new free meeting scheduling service that is highly integrated with Outlook. It competes with a variety of other tools, including TimeBridge, Tungle and more. “Naturally, Biz-e thinks they have a better solution than all of the other guys. They say they’re more focused on the “social engineering” aspects of coordinating a meeting rather than the technical issues. They also think the fact that it’s totally “open” (meaning that you don’t have to install biz-e to participate in the transaction) is a benefit, as well as the fact that it lives within your scheduling application rather than just on the web, which eliminates all sorts of redundant and time wasting operations.” ColoradoStartups.com
• OU Switches to Exchange … The University of Oklahoma switched to Microsoft Exchange 2007 from a home grown system for email. Apparently the transition has gone well, and the project is deemed a success. “The new e-mail program is still Web-based, and users saw little interruption in service, Key said. To access it, users still log in at mail.ou.edu. Those who have their OU e-mail address forwarded to another account were not affected. Transitioning to a new e-mail client was a huge feat — about 60,000 total users will be switched to the new program by the end of the semester, Key said. About 11,000 faculty and staff users already used Exchange, but had to be upgraded to a newer version, he said.” The Norman Transcript

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Gift Time … There will always be too much to do. Prioritize. And gift time to the special people in your life. Internet Time Blog
• Give Up on Perfectionism … Some ideas on giving up the need to be a perfectionist: (a) recognize the fear of failure, (b) take time to gain a higher perspective, and (c) embrace a new set of standards by which you will live and work. Make them more realistic. BrainWare 1.5
• Sleep Better … Eleven ideas to help your sleep better, including (2) avoiding caffeine, alcohol and tobacco, (3) exercise regularly, and (6) drink warm milk or herbal tea before turning in. Losing Weight 2008

Other Noteworthy Insights

• Following Best Practices in Government … The US Federal Government wants to increase its adoption of best practices frameworks, and is using external vendors to help push it along. “The federal government is becoming more aware of the need to use IT best practices. Adopting optimal standards across government promises savings, increased interoperability, more robust security and improved customer service. But that’s easier said than done.” Some current initiatives: (1) document and study project successes (as well as failures), (2) use a variety of ways to share best practices … the repository, the in-person forum, and directed implementation, (3) identify the factors that impede adoption of best practices, and plan mitigations, and (4) prioritize the areas of biggest opportunity. FCW
• Is it a Record? Does it have Value? … When deciding what to do with documents at work, two questions need to be asked and answered: (1) is it a business record? If yes, it needs to be captured and indexed in a records management system. If not, ask (2) does it have business value? If yes, it should be captured within a knowledge management system. KM Space
• Plantronics Virtual Phone Booth … Thumbs-up from Marc for the Plantronics Virtual Phone Booth headset. “The Virtual Phone Booth is a pair of noise-isolating earbuds with an integrated microphone boom on that connects either directly through the microphone and headphone jacks on your PC or using an included USB adapter. The sound quality is excellent and the comfort is all-day, forget-you-have it-on. Folks I’ve been talking to via Skype and other services have repeatedly remarked on the excellent sound quality and in local tests with Audacity, the recording quality is more than sufficient for podcasing and screencasting duty. Volume and muting controls are built into a slim tub on the cord which also features a small clip to attach to your shirt.” ZDNet