Social media isn’t what it used to be — there is a lot more content but the interaction is missing. As more and more companies are creating social media accounts and encouraging people to interact with them through these channels, it becomes increasingly more important to follow social media best practices to avoid unintentionally pushing away those who wish to interact with you. After all, it’s only a matter of clicks before your customer becomes interested in a competitor’s offerings on Facebook, Twitter, or other Web 2.0 channels.

(more…)

A recent Harvard Business Review blog post by James Champy argues that leadership does not change in a Web 2.0 World. Mr. Champy’s core points are that (a) leadership requires relationships and personal engagement and (b) technology does nothing to alter this requirement in leaders. Based on his points, Mr. Champy seems to suggest that the most appropriate way forward for a leader to is engage her/his followers face-to-face. While Mr. Champy’s core points are accurate, they rest on a very simple picture of leadership. It is only when one sees the more complex picture of leadership offered by leadership scholars, one can begin to see that the requirements for leadership are expanding in a Web 2.0 world. If all we say to leaders is that they need to keep focusing on building relationships and enabling personal engagement in a Web 2.0 world, we would be giving them advice that would be technically correct but of limited practical value.

(more…)

When air travel to and from several European cities was curtailed due to volcanic ash, people adopted Skype and other video conferencing tools in lieu of travel. Unlike email or telephone, video conferencing is thought to be like face-to-face communication but only somewhat leaner because one is not in the same place as the person one is communicating with. In other words, video conferencing is thought to vary in degree rather than in nature.

Research on video conferencing, however, paints a different picture. It argues that video-conferencing gives rise to a different kind of information processing than what takes place during face-to-face meetings. A case in point is a study by Carlos Ferran and Stephanie Watts, published in September 2008 in Management Science.

According to the researchers, communicators using video conferencing face a higher cognitive load than face-to-face communicators because of a variety of challenges, including those of identifying who is speaking, detecting movement, coordinating eye-contact, turn-taking, and conversation pacing. Video conferencing also consumes greater cognitive attention due to heightened self-awareness. Faced with a higher cognitive load, users of video conferencing may economize when evaluating the information presented the speaker. They may economize by using heuristics, such as how likeable they perceive the speaker to be, rather than the quality of the arguments presented by the speaker when judging whether or not they will adopt or use the information presented by the speaker. On the other hand, in face-to-face meetings, the communication medium does not impose as much cognitive burden, thereby leaving the receiver of any communication with adequate cognitive resources to focus on the quality of information while making judgment about whether or not it will be adopted and used.

Ferran and Watts report results from a field study in which they found support for their model of how video conferencing may differ from face-to-face communication. In a study of medical professionals, they found that participants attending a seminar via video conference were more influenced by the speaker’s likeability than by the quality of the speaker’s arguments, whereas the opposite pattern was true for participants who attended in person. The likeability of a person was based on the extent to what that person was perceived as charismatic, appealing, interesting, and friendly. The researchers also confirmed that differences in cognitive load explained these effects. Based on these findings, the authors argued that video conferencing does not simply approach face-to-face interaction — it changes what we attend to. Essentially, we end up attending more to peripheral cues in the form of a person’s likeability than to systematic or rigorous cues to judge the information we are receiving from that person via video conferencing. A word of caution should be noted about Ferran and Watts’ findngs: they apply to the use of video conferencing in seminar-like settings where participants have not had prior interaction with the presenter.

What do the results from Ferran and Watts mean for a leader? When the leader is having a tough time convincing others about the merits of a proposal but is a likeable person, s/he should use video-conferencing rather than a face-to-face meeting to make her/his case. A leader may also recruit a likeable person to present the proposal. Or, if a virtual team is using video-conferencing and the leader would like participants to be more systematic in their processing, the leader should minimize the cognitive burden of using video conferencing. This can be done by giving the users enough training on the use of video conferencing. Moreover, the users should do a dry run with each other so that they become more familiar with each other’s turn-taking pauses, pacing gestures, and other ways of regulating the communication.

Another thing a virtual team leader who can do to increase the attention to logical aspects of the information being presented is to make it easy for participants to focus on logical aspects. Having another window (in addition to the one showing a video of the presenter) that allows users to see a running slide presentation, with arguments laid out very clearly, might be helpful.

In summary, the evidence presented by Ferran and Watts suggests that video conferencing may not be comparable to face-to-face meetings because it changes the nature of information processing by its users. In that sense, it does not substitute face-to-face meetings. Consequently, simply thinking that video conferencing can be made to approach face-to-face meetings by improving the picture quality may not suffice. One needs to focus on reducing the cognitive burden imposed by video conferencing in order to make it approach face-to-face meetings.

Both AFP and Reuters are reporting a spike in video calling as air travel is halted in Europe due to volcanic eruption. According to Cisco, there has been a huge surge in demand for its telepresence facilities in Europe. Skype, too, is seeing an increase in video-calling during the past few days. Some executives who have been prevented from getting back to Europe are running their companies via Skype, according to reports. A couple about to wed in Great Britain but stuck in Dubai went ahead and got married in Dubai — the couple included guests via Skype video.

I believe the reported spike in video calling is showing both increasing accessibility of video conferencing and how comfortable people are becoming with it. We are going to see a further boost in video conferencing as front-facing cameras become a common feature in smartphones. Even the future iPhone, whose pictures leaked out during the weekend, is expected to have a front-facing camera to facilitate video calls.

Do you have an interesting story about how you or someone else used technology to overcome the problem of not being able to fly into Europe?  We would love to hear that.

The blockbuster film Avatar showed us how easy it is to move from one reality into another environment where the rules are different.  Where a person can be reborn into a 10 foot tall, blue, non-English speaking, dragon-creature-flying, environment-protecting militiaman.  So is it all that hard to fathom that leadership inside the four walls of an organization morphs into something different in the virtual world?  I wondered about that and so experimented by creating a blog titled:  Peg Breen’s Blog:  In Search of Meaningful Work. (http://pegbreen.wordpress.com)

Like millions of other people, and  thousands of other executives, I was without employment and in search of not only a new job, but one that I could be passionate about and that allowed me to use my talents.  Since I was one of a close knit group who exited my organization at the same time,  I decided to use the opportunity to demonstrate my leadership through this blog.  I wrote about the stress of this kind of transition, the reactions that people have when you go through job loss, and what it was like to surface leads, network and stay positive despite the fact that, yes, you are “blue”.  Not because you are on the fictional planet Pandora, but because of the emotions this circumstance creates.  I set out to be a positive, inspiring, humorous motivator to my colleagues, and may have helped my own psyche as much or more than any of my readers.

I discovered that the intimacy and anonymity of blogs helps people let their hair down.  They can release their emotions much easier, there are no titles or power broker relationships, just virtual-equals sharing their perspective.  This is valuable inside organizations. Why?  Because perceiving that you have a voice and that you’ll be heard, not censored is very empowering. Real organizations should do this more often. I also found that when I met my colleagues for dinner or  breakfast, there was an even closer trust relationship.  It seems that the blog enhanced our ability to show compassion, and to trust and collaborate on strategies related to our individual job searches.  Finally, the blog gave me something that is a rare gift.  The time to reflect.  How many of us put in our 60 hour week, respond to 100 emails a day and barely get in our run at the fitness club?  Through this written, intimate venue, I momentarily turned into the psychologist from the sitcom “Frazier” and in doing so was able to be everything a leader should be for myself and for friends I’ll value for a lifetime.

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.

(more…)

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?