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… Read more →
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… Read 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. … Read more →
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… Read more →
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… Read more →
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… Read more →
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… Read more →
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… Read more →
Some months back, Betsy had blogged about a New York Times article by Clive Thompson on how technologies such as Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter lead to ambient awareness. She wrote: “These technologies make it convenient to quickly and easily give or get updates with a number of other people. Although each individual message might have little meaning as a stand-alone,… Read more →
Surinder and I are currently conducting research on the use of online media such as virtual worlds for education and training. In my readings I came across an interesting article about the perceptions of social presence, or the feeling of being with others in an online environment, and perceived learning and satisfaction in an online course. In this study,… Read more →