Leading Virtual Meetings Internet for the Teaming Masses Daniel Mittleman DePaul CTI

Let me start by telling you things you already know…

We generate a lot of paper 15 trillion pieces of paper were processed by US businesses in billion copies were made each day in 2000 and 37 % of those copies (481 million) were considered unnecessary Per capita consumption of paper in the US is currently over 748lbs. [about 217 billion lbs. total]

Managers & Executives spend most of their time communicating Managers spend about 85% of their day communicating Executives spend 75% of their time communicating orally Managers spend almost half their day in meetings The average worker has 36 hours of work stacked up to do

Most meetings are bad Someone dominates Others are afraid to speak Poor [or no!] agenda Hidden agendas Key person missing No ability to close Or close to soon Bad meeting room

And, it’s harder to meet over a distance Technology is a pain to set up and get synchronized You lose non-verbal cues Feedback loops take longer Free riding increases [And, this isn’t the full list]

US Workforce million Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (September 2006) and Gartner (October 2006) The Workforce is going Virtual Mobile Workers 69.2 million Gartner predicts by 2009, 70% of knowledge work will occur in locations where workers will depend on a wireless and remote- access infrastructure that is outside the enterprise's direct control.

Products are being developed to support this Web 1.0 –Static (HTML) –Single surfer –B:C ecommerce –Informational sites Web 2.0 –Dynamic (Ajax) –Collaborative –P:P community –Social network sites Web 1.0Web 2.0Web 3.0 ?

Within the landscape of collaboration technologies…. New Web2.0 collaboration tools are… Falling out of the skies Within the landscape of collaboration technologies…. New Web2.0 collaboration tools are… Falling out of the skies

So, my research looks at what we can do to make sense of this How do we improve the process of meetings as organizations go virtual?

We notice… People who want to collaborate come at it by asking one of three questions…

They ask “My team needs to collaborate virtually, what should I do?” I have to remotely staff a document. How do I do it?

They ask “I need a collaboration capability, what are my choices?” I need a phone bridge, what is out there for me to use?

They ask “What is this new product/ technology and why might I want one?” Skype? RSS?Wiki? Blog?

Execute Solution Select Product Select Product Four Entry Points to get to the Solution Define Technology Define Technology Define the Collaboration Affordance Define the Collaboration Affordance Define the Business Problem Define the Business Problem

How do we make sense of this mass of web 2.0 virtual products? First Problem Figuring out the right point of entry to the solution cycle Second Problem Massive overlap of among classes of products

The Big Breakthrough Distinguishing Products Bundles of instances of technologies – AIM, ICQ Technologies A way of doing something useful –Instant Messaging From are things you can buy provide affordances

Affordance Matrix AIMICQIRCgTalk Text chat Audio chat Video chat Chat room Persistent Chat TechnologiesTechnologies Products      

Caveat Simply adding technology alone never solves a significant problem

Categorization of Technologies What factors best differentiate among collaboration technology in the marketplace today (and tomorrow)

How did we figure this out? We collected up all the groupware products we could find We started categorizing them into buckets as best we saw fit Then we looked at the buckets we had, tried to label them, and got into discussion about what made each bucket unique Then we organized the buckets into a classification Then we tried to break our classification AND WE DID So we went back to figure out why it didn’t work, and kept rearranging until we found a classification scheme we could not break Something to notice here… This was a virtual collaborative effort. We used the tools of which we speak We had a goal We had a process Our process had stages to it We had interim deliverable But it all existed to lead us to our goal Something to notice here… This was a virtual collaborative effort. We used the tools of which we speak We had a goal We had a process Our process had stages to it We had interim deliverable But it all existed to lead us to our goal

Collaboration Technology Classes Streaming Tools Information Access Jointly Authored Pages Aggregated Systems

Streaming Tools –Audio Only –Data Presentation Only –Video plus Data Presentation and/or Video –Application Sharing

Information Access Tools –File Transfer –File Storage / Document Repository –Search Engines –Socialware – Social Tagging –Syndication (RSS) Tools

Jointly Authored Page Tools –Different Time Communication –Same Time Communication –Shared Document Authoring List, Outline Document, Wiki Presentation Spreadsheet Whiteboard Shape-and-line diagrams Calendaring

Bob:Hi there! Bob:Hi there! Danny: Hi back at you! Danny: Hi back at you! Bob:Do you think we’ve said enough? Bob:Do you think we’ve said enough? Danny: Yes. Danny: Yes. Chat Interface

1. Groucho 1. Groucho 3. Chico 3. Chico 2. Harpo 2. Harpo 4. Zeppo 4. Zeppo 5. Gummo 5. Gummo List Interface

Here is a text contribution. Here is a text contribution. And here is another contribution. And here is another contribution. This contribution is the third sentence in this document. This contribution is the third sentence in this document. Editor Interface

Aggregated Systems –Social Environments –Recommender Systems –Enterprise Virtual Workplaces –Work Process Systems Group Support Systems Workflow Management Systems Document Management Systems Project Management Systems Content Management System Customer Relationship Management

Characteristics and Features Affordances: What capabilities does the tools have? Media Channels: How do people communicate when using the tool? Interrupts: How do people signal they wish to take control of conversation or product? Synchronicity & Feedback: How quickly (and how richly) do you receive feedback from teammates? Do you know what work others have done? Access Control: At what level of granularity can you block out portions of the document to work in? Can you manage ACL by person, by section, by role? How does the software handle contention and conflict? Archival: How are version histories maintained? How does undo work?