It has been a while since I blogged. It feels good to be back!

The usefulness of Twitter continues to be debated. Last week, George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, wrote that he wants to yell Stop every time he hears about Twitter.  With constant updates, Twitter only adds to the overwhelming amount of information we receive every day, according to Mr. Packer. Nick Bilton of New York Times responded yesterday to Mr. Packer’s article by listing the numerous ways in which Twitter has been found to be useful.

Amidst this debate, which has been going on since Twitter became available (see Clive Thompson’s 2007 article in Wired Magazine as an illustration of this debate during its earlier days), the use of Twitter continues to grow. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal covered the increasing use of Twitter in Europe and provided a variety of examples of how European firms are benefiting from Twitter. The article suggested that Twitter can be a useful tool provided you have clear objectives and strategy for using Twitter.

What I found noteworthy in the WSJ article is the increasing adoption of Twitter by business executives. The article stated that while most business executives consider “tweeting” as a waste of their time, some have been quick to use Twitter as part of their busy routines. For instance, Paul Johns, VP of Complinet, a multinational provider of risk and compliance information for financial services, has been able to use Twitter to generate additional revenue for his company. Mr. Johns tweets three or four times daily and he is able to generate cash through Twitter by putting up a link to a trial system with a unique URL, which allows his firm to know which deals come from Twitter.

A recent NY Times interview of Cristóbal Conde, President and C.E.O. of SunGard, also illustrated the use of Twitter by business executives. Mr. Conde and others at SunGard use Yammer, a Twitter-like service, to enable a flatter SunGard. They use Yammer to see what others are doing, share information, collaborate, brag about their successes and, in the process, according to Mr. Conde, flatten the organization. Mr. Conde uses Yammer to share what he learns from clients - their biggest problems, their biggest issues, and their biggest bets. Instead of communicating these via broadcast emails, which he considers to be too formal, Mr. Conde shares them via brief Yammer posts. He credits Yammer with helping him create a more collaborative and merit-based culture at SunGard.

The above examples are not the only examples of use of Twitter by business executives. A BusinessWeek slideshow from May 2009 documented the use of Twitter by 50 CEOs who included Richard Branson and Mark Cuban. These CEOs use Twitter for a variety of purposes, including staying in touch with their far-flung workforce, having a two-way dialog with their business partners and customers, and broadcasting important announcements to customers.

The best way for business leaders to understand Twitter (and other social media) is to begin using it. Once they begin to use Twitter, their skepticism will give way to an appreciation of how Twitter can be used beneficially. They will find that it is a highly malleable tool that easily lends itself to innovative uses (see NY Times article “Twitter is What You Make of It” and Leading Virtually’s past post “Where There’s a Will, There’s Twitter“).

This week I have run across some very interesting articles on social media and how their use is evolving. These two articles struck me as interesting because they discuss requiring people to use Facebook or Second Life in order to perform in classes or on the job. I think these use-cases highlight that we desire to use social tools available to us, and use them in ways that are beneficial to clients, colleagues, and students. But they also highlight that, as with any new system we adopt, there should be measures of their effectiveness, a case made for why they are our top choices, and clear guidelines for requiring people to join and provide personal information to  third party applications. (more…)

I recently deactivated my Facebook account.  Although it had been a handy tool for reconnecting with old friends, keeping up with some colleagues, and socializing with family & other loved ones, in the past few months, I began to experience a downside to the social networking site. This eventually led to the deactivation of my account. Although social networking can be a useful tool, I came to the conclusion that, for me, Facebook took things too far, to the point that it became too much work to maintain my account appropriately, I began to worry about my online reputation, and I began to feel that I lived in a self-created, all-too-public bubble with serious negative consequences on some important relationships.

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At the Academy of Management meeting earlier this month, I had the pleasure of assisting Dr. Ulrike Schultze in a session that she coordinated. The panelists at the session were respected journal editors. What was different about this session from other sessions at the annual meeting was that it was held simultaneously in Second Life and the hotel in Chicago.  It was an experiment of sorts to see how virtual world technology could bring conference events to those who were unable to travel to the actual event.

The session consisted of presentations by 4 panelists. Three of the panelists were at the Academy of Management meeting and presented to a live audience there. They also had avatars in Second Life in the meeting room there. The other panelist joined the meeting via Second Life with his avatar. Power point slides that the panelists used were shown through Second Life, so attendees in SL could see the slides in the meeting room there. The slides, and the SL meeting room/avatars, were broadcast to the live audience through a projector. Audio from SL was broadcast through speakers to the meeting room in Chicago, and audio into SL was broadcast through a microphone. The session lasted about one and a half hours. I was fortunate to be able to assist Dr. Schultze with the technological side of the session; it was a good learning experience in some of the potential benefits and challenges of using virtual world technology to hold meetings, events, or collaborate  in “mixed” settings, where some people are in a virtual world and others are not.

Potential Benefits

One major benefit I saw to using a virtual world such as Second Life in this way was that people who were unable to attend the meeting in Chicago would be able to attend a session from wherever they happened to be. Second Life attendees could get the same information that those at the meeting received. This could be done through live streaming of the session or by recording it and posting videos later, as well. However, the added benefit of the virtual world in this case, is that the presentation becomes interactive even for those who can’t attend in person. By gathering in the virtual world during the actual session, presenters know who else is attending the session and virtual world attendees have a chance to participate instead of just listen and/or watch. For example, using my virtual world account I could type a chat message to a moderator to ask questions or I could make comments about a particular topic through audio capabilities. Additionally, being in the virtual world space allows attendees to “run into” other people attending the session through the virtual world. Much of the value of conferences and meetings is the informal communication and networking that occurs before and after working sessions. Using a virtual world would give those same communication opportunities to others that can’t attend in person. In fact, the use of Second Life allowed one panelist to join the session and present from another country.

Another potential benefit I saw to using virtual worlds in this way was permanence and the potential to aid collaboration. After a session such as this, an interactive billboard with presentation notes could be left in the virtual world where later visitors could still browse through the materials that were discussed. A virtual notebook could even be left where visitors could add their ideas or comments to discussion materials. Having such materials available longer term could help sessions or meetings extend asynchronously over a longer period of time, giving people time to develop new ideas. It would give events a life outside of the few hours and four walls in which it happened.

Challenges

Despite the potential benefits, there were also some challenges to conducting a session in this way. Most of the challenges that I saw could be put under the umbrella term “technology.”

One challenge was the use of power point slides within Second Life. Although Dr. Schultze did a fantastic job of having everyone’s presentation available and visible at the right moments, it was a lot of work for her. Getting all of the panelists logged on, into the right location, and with proper audio features was also a challenge; most of them had never used Second Life before. With two of us to handle some of the technological components it was still challenging to get everything ready and functioning properly on time. Some of these issues, such as the difficulty with running a power point presentation, are specific to the Second Life platform. However, the general lesson was that the learning curve for effectively using a virtual world is very steep. Presenters and attendees may have negative reactions to having to learn the technology on their own in order to present or attend one event or meeting.

The other challenge I saw was that the interactivity provided by the use of Second Life was not complete. In other words, people at the meeting could see the attendees in Second Life, but not vice-versa. So, while the virtual world provided some opportunities for interaction, it did not fully integrate the two audiences.

Despite the technological challenges faced, I think there were glimpses of real benefits to conducting future events or meetings simultaneously. When the technological challenges can be overcome and virtual worlds become more user friendly these benefits will become more pronounced. Sun Microsystems is already working on a solution to the challenge of bridging the gap between co-located and virtual audiences with their porta-person system.

Has anyone else attended a similar event or session? What was the experience like? Was it beneficial?

I just returned from the Academy of Management conference in Chicago where I presented a paper that Surinder and I wrote with Professor Rui Huang. Our paper was an extension of the research we have been doing on leadership in virtual worlds that I wrote about previously. This paper focused on how one’s online identity may affect virtual team member perceptions and how virtual teams work together. Specifically, we looked at how one’s online identity affects perceptions of anonymity within the team and how that sense of anonymity affects group cohesion and satisfaction. We find this topic to be interesting and timely as organizations begin to use more online media for collaboration and communication. Organizations have to decide how much and if they are going to set rules or guidelines for how employees present themselves, especially as options for expression expand to the creation of avatars in virtual worlds.

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I have long admired John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco. In my various readings of Cisco, I have observed how Mr. Chambers has been able to produce a strong culture of customer satisfaction at Cisco.  In my personal interactions with those working at Cisco, I have found Cisco’s employees (including executives) to be extremely helpful and willing to spare their time to hear you out and share their knowledge. I believe a lot of credit for creating this cooperative and customer-oriented culture goes to Mr. Chambers. A New York Times’ interview with Mr. Chambers, published last Sunday, provides us interesting insights into his leadership style.

There are several points about leadership that stood out for me from the interview. First, we need to appreciate the challenges we face; they offer great opportunities for learning. How we face those challenges shapes our lives more than what we accomplish or our successes. He gives the example of Cisco’s near death experience in 2001 during the dot com crash as having an important influence on him.

Second, today’s world requires a different kind of leadership. Those who lead by command-and-control will probably be ineffective. Today’s world requires leaders who are more collaborative and teamwork oriented. To be successful, leaders need to be facile with  Web 2.0 tools. Mr. Chambers looks for these attributes in the people that Cisco hires. Most importantly, Mr. Chambers models these attributes for the rest of the company. After initial discomfort, Mr. Chambers is using Web 2.0 tools himself.

Third, pay attention to whom you hire.  In addition to looking for collaboration and technology skills, Mr. Chambers asks people about the results they have achieved and how. He is accepting of failures but wants to know if people have learned from their failures. Another critical attribute he looks for is whether a potential hire has good listening skills.

Check out the interview. I am sure you will enjoy it.

The reaction that I often get when I introduce Twitter to my students is that it is something silly. I get to hear remarks such as “you can’t do much in 140 characters” and “I’d rather be doing something instead of simply telling others what I’m up to.” The reaction of my students is not atypical. Anyone who is being introduced to Twitter is likely to have such a reaction.

But what I have also noticed is the creativity of some of my students in how they use Twitter. One of my students, a professional “personal trainer,” asked her clients to use Twitter as a way to document in real time their activities (e.g., what time they got up, what they ate, what exercising activity they engaged in, etc.). She found that Twitter was a better way of documenting than the older method of writing a diary of one’s activities at the end of the day.

Recently, I have also come across other creative uses of Twitter. A NY Times article in April described how a women in Northern Ireland has attracted more than 6000 followers by tweeting complete recipes in 140 characters! Book writer Matt Stewart is releasing snippets of his new novel “The French Revolution” via Twitter. He kicked off his tweets on July 14th, the Bastille Day. Someone has even figured out a way to make your plants let you know via Twitter when they need water.

Of course, not all uses of Twitter are creative. Last night my son emailed me a link that shows how often people tweet about something more prosaic — their bowel movements!

Are you aware of creative uses of Twitter? Please share them with us and our readers.

Previously, Surinder wrote a blog post on his observations about different cultural expectations and implicit communication patterns.  He discussed some ways that virtual team leaders could help limit cultural snafus in teams. As more companies are working with partners around the world and multicultural teams occur more and more often, understanding of cultural differences is important for team members and leaders — for both face-to-face and virtual teams. Companies are purchasing seminars to help educate expatriates and those working in varying cultural contexts. (See this NY Times article about cross-cultural training effectiveness). However, companies are also trying to cut down on costs for training and other “extras”, and some intercultural training methods, such as one-time seminars, can be of limited effectiveness. For these reasons, intercultural training may be an excellent candidate for transfer to virtual world environments.

In this post I discuss social learning theory and how it could be applied to cross-cultural training in virtual worlds. The discussion of social learning theory is based on an article from the Academy of Management Review by J. Stewart Black and Mark Mendenhall.

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The June 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review contained a brief note by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman titled “10 Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders“. The authors, who analyzed 360-degree feedback, identified the following 10 most common shortcomings of ineffective leaders. The worst leaders:

1. Lacked energy and enthusiasm;
2. Accepted their own mediocre performance;
3. Lacked clear vision and direction;
4. Had poor judgment;
5. Did not collaborate;
6. Did not walk the talk;
7. Resisted new ideas;
8. Did not learn from mistakes;
9. Lacked interpersonal skills; and
10. Failed to develop others.

The list sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Zenger and Folkman admit that the flaws seem obvious ones that any leader would try to fix. But they found that ineffective leaders were often unaware of their flaws. The authors suggest that leaders need to take a hard look at themselves and should seek candid feedback on their performance. I believe that simple awareness of what constitutes effective leadership behaviors and how one is performing on them may not be adequate for improvement. In this article, I suggest an intervention that might work for you.

Specifically, I focus on the following:

• The knowing-doing gap;
• Closing the knowing-doing gap;
• Goal-setting as a simple intervention;
• The power of goal-setting;
• Preventing relapse with email reminders to yourself; and
• Concluding remarks.

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I do a majority of my collaborating and individual work remotely, which I couldn’t do without the support of various programs. In this post, I thought I would share some of my favorite tools for working remotely. They may be useful to you in your collaboration work as well. I use most of these as a single user for private use. Those of you seeking to use them with commercial licenses might face different pay structures.

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