Wikis Archives - Leading Virtually

What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually

Rebecca Jestice — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:02:02 +0000

I watched in awe from early this morning as the world got ready for the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. I felt joy and hope as I read my dad’s email this morning saying that he was so excited to see the moment that he had dreamed of, but thought might never come in his country. And I was inspired by Obama’s speech–a mixture of the stark reality of our time and determination for a bright future. This was truly an historical moment and it was amazing to see the first African-American president take office in the US.

Obama is an historical president in other aspects, too. Obama ran the first campaign in history that fully embraced technology in order to reach constituents and his transition is being touted as one of the most transparent (see this NY Times article for an interesting look at campaigning with Web 2.0). That’s in part because many of the technologies that gave Obama’s campaign momentum and transition visibility, such as YouTube or Facebook, were not available or well-known in previous elections. Obama seems to not only have surrounded himself with people who know how to leverage current technology to reach supporters and constituents, but he also has a good understanding of the potential benefits and drawbacks of that technology. Obama’s use of technology offers some insights and lessons to leading virtually, both in teams and organizations. Although most virtual leaders are not undertaking a task as huge as running for President or running the country, some of Obama’s use of technology can be adapted to the needs of other leaders.

1. Reach Out
Obama’s campaign was masterful in reaching out to millions of Americans to garner support and funding. He was able to raise record amounts of funding through millions of small donations through reaching out over web sites and email and encouraging people to leverage their personal networks to support his campaign. After the election, Obama continued to use the Internet to reach out to Americans on the change.gov website to gather opinions and concerns of citizens. The new whitehouse.gov site, launched almost at the instant Obama was sworn in, has already posted a blog relating the administrations intentions to use the site to stay connected to Americans. The insight here is that people outside of the team or organization can be reached, and in many cases are willing to help. Tools such as blogs, wikis, or Web sites can help teams and organizations reach out to others and gather ideas for creative solutions or problem solving. Blogs can be a place to start conversations with people interested in the same topic which can stimulate team member thinking.

2. Mix it Up
Obama’s campaign used a mix of media and technologies effectively to reach as many people as possible. He raised a majority of his money online and used it to buy airtime on network television for his final infomercial. The insight for virtual leaders is that the appropriate technology to reach and work with people may differ depending on the individuals involved and the context. Betsy’s post, Freeing Yourself from E-mail and Surinder’s post on emergent collaboration offer some good advice on when certain technologies might be useful and in what context.

3. Personalize the Message
During his campaign, Obama sent out a text message to supporters when he decided who his running mate would be. Many receivers of the message, who learned the news before most of the rest of the country, took the text as a personalized message, strengthening a sense of connection with the candidate. The Obama team plans to use the email addresses it collected during the days of the campaign to stay in touch with citizens and rally them to support Obama’s initiatives. Virtual leaders could take a cue from this and the importance of personalizing messages, even when addressing a group of people. Adding personal touches or proactively contacting team members to clarify information or send encouragement can help strengthen interpersonal relationships necessary for working effectively together.

4. Keep Boundaries
Obama is refusing to give up his Blackberry despite security and legal concerns. He is determined to find a way to keep it during his tenure at the White House. He sees the Blackberry as a way to escape from the Presidential bubble and to maintain some contact with the ‘outside world’, helping him keep perspective and get information from people other than those directly related to the White House. Keeping boundaries and separate spaces for work and personal communication may be harder to do in the days of instant access to everyone, but Obama’s point is well-taken. It’s not a bad idea to have separate business and personal email accounts and pay attention to those privacy settings on social networking sites.

5. Expect the Unexpected
Obama is aware that with the freedom of new media, comes some unexpected results. Rather than shy away from the technology, he seems to understand the results and takes them into consideration. For instance he has mentioned that he is aware that anything that he writes in a text message could end up on the Internet so he is careful to check before he presses send. This is a key point for anyone working and communicating with technology. With almost equal access to technology and adding information on outlets like the Web, virtual leaders and team members should remember that, along with the benefit of a record of events and project progress, comes the possibility of that record becoming public. On the other hand, the unexpected can lead to delightful results as the trend of re-mixing, re-using, mashups and viral video grows. For example, the spontaneous community that sprang up around an Obama campaign sign or the Super Obama World online video game are things that could not have happened without the connectivity and reach of the Internet.

Conclusion
Obama’s use of technology, however, would not have been as successful had his message and vision not resonated with people. After all, John McCain had a web site and a video game, too, but the impact was little compared to Obama’s. Effective use of technology is not enough. A leader’s desire and ability to connect to people and welcome new possibilities is important. When these qualities are present, along with integrity and sincerity, then technology will be useful.

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Emergent Collaboration: The Reason Why Email Should Not Be Used for Collaboration

Surinder Kahai — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:55:27 +0000

In one of her recent posts, Betsy Carroll blogged about alternatives to email. Email tends to be misused because of its accessibility and convenience. People end up using it in situations where alternatives would be more suitable. While stressing that email is great for communication but not for collaboration, Betsy discussed alternatives to email and the situations where they would be more suitable. I want to extend her blog post by focusing on emergent collaboration, which I believe is going to be a significant way in which organizations will collaborate (or will need to collaborate) going forward. The idea of emergent collaboration is relevant to our blog because emergent collaboration relies on virtual groups or teams getting formed and accomplishing a task on the fly.

I will discuss the following in this post:

What is emergent collaboration?
Why is emergent collaboration relevant to businesses today?
What facilitates emergent collaboration?
Tools for emergent collaboration; specifically, why blogs and wikis are more suitable than email for emergent collaboration.

What is emergent collaboration?

The best way to learn about emergent collaboration is through an example. Visit the initial part of a Harvard Business Review article titled “Collaboration Rules” to get an idea of emergent collaboration. The example under the heading “Tuesday, December 2, 2003” illustrates the emergence of collaboration among individuals after a systems administrator at a university discovered a hacker attack on his university’s server and traced it to rsync, a synchronization tool for Unix/Linux machines. As you read through the example, you will notice a few things. While the goal of collaboration was known from the beginning, there was no prior determination of who the collaborators will be or the collaboration process itself. Nor was there a leader who guided the whole process. The collaboration evolved from a single person’s problem and relevant individuals were engaged when their expertise was needed. The next steps were determined just prior to their execution, taking into account whatever that had happened till then. In a nutshell, emergent collaboration is organic; while the goal of collaboration may be known, there is no prior determination of who the collaborators will be or of the collaboration process. Also, in emergent collaboration, the involvement of individuals and the collaboration processes are adaptive in that they evolve in response to the situation at any point of time. There is no one in particular who directs the whole process as it evolves.

Why is emergent collaboration relevant?

Today, businesses are facing greater uncertainty and complexity. Competition is emerging from industries and regions of the world that were not competing before (e.g., cable companies are now competing with telephone companies). Due to the Internet, business stakeholders (e.g., customers) have a louder and a far-reaching voice. Consequently, issues that any businesses need to address are emerging from unexpected quarters and with greater uncertainty. How can businesses respond to such pressures? When faced with a highly complex issue, a business needs to make sure that it enables collaboration among individuals who can cover the many different aspects of the issue. However, due to the uncertainty with which the business issues arise, it is not possible for a business to plan beforehand who should collaborate and how. Nor is it possible for a business to develop a clear idea of how the collaboration should evolve once an issue is right in front of it. Relevant collaboration will have to emerge on its own and at the right time to enable an effective response. The key thing that a business will have to do is to make sure that it puts into place a system that enables emergent collaboration.

What facilitates emergent collaboration?

An important requirement for emergent collaboration is a shared workspace that is accessible to all collaborators. Ideally, this workspace should include all the important transactions that have taken place among business workers. In addition to helping a group of collaborators learn from past transactions and take the best step forward, such a workspace facilitates stigmergy, i.e., it enables a worker’s contribution to stimulate others to build on that contribution without any direct communication between the workers. Stigmergy facilitates emergent collaboration by not requiring a single person or a leader with a top level view to coordinate the actions of others. According to Francis Heylighen, an example of stigmergy is seen in the Open Source community when a contributor uploads a piece of code to a community site. This posting invites examination from others interested in using that code. If they discover any problems with the software, they either fix the problem themselves or alert the community about the problem, thereby encouraging others to work on the problem. There is no direct communication from one worker to another – the openness or accessibility of all the critical actions by community members enables work to be coordinated among “undesignated” community members who, at a particular moment, happen to have the resources (time and capability) needed to advance the community’s work.

In addition to a shared and open workspace, emergent collaboration requires meta-level information that highlights the significance of the transactions that are occurring or have occurred within a group of collaborators. Since many workers may be making their contributions at any point in time, which of these many contributions should other members be focusing on and building on at that time? How should they prioritize their effort? Meta-level information that indicates the significance of transactions within a group can help a group determine which issues it should tackle first and which contributions should be given more weight than others.

Tools for emergent collaboration

The above discussion provides reasons for why businesses should move away from email as a platform for collaboration. To respond to increasing uncertainty and complexity, businesses will have to put into place systems that facilitate emergent collaboration. Email is not likely to facilitate emergent collaboration. It does not provide a shared and open workspace, nor does it provide the meta-level information I refer to above – at least not without loading it up with additional tools.

On the other hand, blogs and wikis, two prominent Web 2.0 tools, provide the shared and open workspace needed for emergent collaboration. They can also be set up to provide the meta-level information needed to facilitate emergent collaboration. Specifically, blogs and wikis have the linking and tagging features which make them suitable for generating the meta-level information that indicates the significance of transactions among a group of workers. You can see examples of this meta-level information by visiting Wikipedia and clicking on Special pages under toolbox on the left. Under Special pages, you will see a variety of links, many of which provide meta-level information about the Wikipedia community. For instance, New Pages and Recent Changes tell you what the community members are most interested in now; “Pages with the most revisions” indicate what is popular and/or controversial; “Most linked-to pages” show you the ideas or topics that have had the most impact on the community. In a blogging system, a tag cloud indicates the relative popularity of different topics among bloggers. Linking among bloggers indicates who carries weight for a particular topic. With the help of such meta-level information, blogs and wikis can facilitate emergent collaboration among a group of workers by helping them determine if there are topics or events that need their attention and if there is anybody in particular who should be engaged for addressing those topics or events.

A brief example of the usefulness of blogs and wikis for emergent collaboration can be seen in a New York Times article titled Open Source Spying. In this article, which discusses the use of blogs and wikis by US Intelligence Agencies to counter the threat posed by terrorists, the author gives the following example of how Intellipedia, a wiki used by US Intelligence agencies, enabled emergent collaboration in the Fall of 2006:

…the usefulness of Intellipedia proved itself just a couple of months ago, when a small two-seater plane crashed into a Manhattan building. An analyst created a page within 20 minutes, and over the next two hours it was edited 80 times by employees of nine different spy agencies, as news trickled out. Together, they rapidly concluded the crash was not a terrorist act.

In this post, I have briefly touched upon some of the things that are required for emergent collaboration. Besides the right technology, one needs the right mix of leadership, culture, rewards, and policies for emergent collaboration to occur. It is certainly a challenge for a business to figure of what this right mix is and we hope to cover more on this topic in our future posts. What makes it even more challenging for a business to create conditions that facilitate emergent collaboration is that it also needs to enable structured or planned collaboration along with emergent collaboration. How a business can put into place a system that enables both structured and emergent collaboration is still a wide open question with no simple answer.

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Freeing Yourself from Email

Betsy Carroll — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:46:59 +0000

A common problem that office workers face today is email overload. For some, email has taken over their work life and it is damaging, rather than improving, their productivity. In our Leading Virtually Digest of June 20th, we point to an article that reports how the onslaught of email or webmail is hurting productivity. A major reason for email’s negative effect on productivity is its injudicious use. Because of its accessibility and convenience, email tends to get used for purposes it was not designed or best suited for. In this post, I cover the following:

The story of someone who freed himself from email’s grip;
Responses to the story;
Alternatives to email; and
What is needed for those alternatives to succeed.

Last week, I saw an article in New York Times about an IBM employee, Luis Suarez, who has freed himself from email’s grip. Suarez was tired of spending hours catching up on email every morning. In order to take control of his productivity, he started using other communication methods, both computer-based (e.g., instant messaging, blogs, wikis, RSS, and social networking) and traditional (phone and face-to-face meetings). Suarez prefers to use instant messaging (IM) because it enables real-time interaction. But anytime an instant-message exchange goes beyond three minutes, he moves the discussion to the telephone. He posts answers to common questions on a blog. Suarez says that he still helps people, but in a more open and collaborative way so that others can join in the discussions and, perhaps, offer a better idea than his. He shares and updates big files with a file sharing system rather than engaging in a back-and-forth exchange via email. To receive notifications of relevant content, Suarez subscribes to RSS/Atom feeds. He was able to cut down the incoming emails by 80% in a single week. Suarez still uses email but he uses it judiciously, such as when he has to discuss private and confidential matters.

Suarez’s article has attracted a fair amount of responses from readers. But it seems to me that a significant number of those who commented missed Suarez’s main point. Suarez suggests that people have an array of technologies available for communication and collaboration, and that those options should be chosen depending on how well they are suited to the task at hand. Suarez uses wikis, instant messaging, emails, phone calls, blogs, and social networking each for different purposes. Here we outline the situations or purposes for which the technologies that Suarez is using are likely to be suitable.

Email

Suarez points out that email is good for communication (one-to-one interaction) but not very effective for collaboration (many-to-many interaction). If you simply need to send something, such as a report, document, or simple message, email is well-suited. Also, if you have something sensitive or private to distribute, email is more appropriate than many other forms of communication.

Email is not ideal for collaboration (such as brainstorming, resolving complex issues, or making multi-person decisions) because the time in between messages makes it difficult to stay focused on the task. Email is just too cumbersome for collaboration that has any complexity to it. It’s not that people couldn’t possibly do this kind of work via email, but Suarez is making the point that there are more effective alternatives.

Instant messaging

Instant messaging is, of course, only useful if your organization supports it – in some organizations IM is forbidden. This form of communication is very useful for collaboration that isn’t too long in duration. Two (or sometimes more) people can have a coherent, uninterrupted back and forth of ideas quickly and easily with this medium. There is the option to save the transcript of the conversation for later with a simple copy and paste function.

IM can seem a little impersonal to those who are not accustomed to using it, but many people are comfortable with this very convenient medium.

Wikis

Wikis are extremely useful for disseminating information that is needed by a lot of people; for example, this is a great tool to use for answering questions that are asked by a lot of your colleagues. This can even be an effective tool for collaboration, since wiki owners can allow others to contribute to the posted material. Also, since people can access a wiki at any time, they are useful for providing information for people in different parts of the world on different schedules than your own. Wikis also have the benefit of tracking changes so a previous draft or revision can be looked at or reverted to if necessary.

Depending on comfort level of users, wikis can even be effective for synchronous work where several people are contributing simultaneously. But it’s probably not the most effective tool for collaboration such as brainstorming or group decision making, and is only appropriate for sensitive information if you have a reliable password protection system.

Phone calls

The effectiveness of using the telephone seems to be largely a question of personal preference. Judging from the responses to Suarez’s article, some readers find phone calls personal and useful, while others find themselves getting caught in longer exchanges than if they email. Suarez suggests using telephone calls for complex multi-person tasks (brainstorming, decision making) that can’t be finished quickly. He switches from IM to phone if a conversation is taking more than 3 minutes. It seems that the personal nature can be a strong benefit of making a phone call, particularly in this age of impersonal emails, but again, this is personal preference.

Remember that phone calls leave no record of the conversation, unlike IM or wikis. Long distance calls can quickly grow expensive for longer collaborative processes, so telephone may not be a cost effective method if you collaborate with people around the globe. Also, if you collaborate with people in different time zones, it might be hard to plan a time to meet, making asynchronous document sharing more effective.

Blogs

People tend to think of blogs either as a news source or a nightmare of personal gushing, but they can be used in the workplace as well. Within an intranet, workers can post information about what they are currently working on for others to see, saving a phone call or email. This is particularly useful when one employee’s output is another’s input. Since they are inexpensive and easy to use, any time saved by implementing a blog represents a benefit.

One downside is that blogs are largely one-sided (even if comments can be posted, it’s not truly collaborative). Also, it may require some discretion to make sure the posted material is relevant and appropriate to those who would view it.

Social networking

Social networking has proved to be a great way to stay connected with people, and the sites available to anyone seem to be very flexible. Suarez talks about using a social networking application within IBM that was developed to help people connect with others who have needed skills or expertise. This requires investment on the organizational level (providing a platform), but seems very useful when employees require the input of others. Especially if workers might have to search the company to find specific knowledge, social networking is a great way to connect individuals.

The main downside seems to be that the company itself has to decide to invest in this networking. Also, social networking may be less relevant in organizations where this collaboration of far-flung experts rarely happens.

This is not an exhaustive list of options, but gives you an idea what Suarez meant by suggesting that workers use communication tools to do what they are best at. But a few caveats apply as well.

First, the effectiveness of using these tools may depend somewhat on the openness of your colleagues. This seems to be a generational difference, based on level of comfort and experience using some of these tools. The workers joining today’s workforce are not as reliant on email as the older generation of workers, but are adept at using social networking tools to communicate and carry out their activities. Surinder was recently telling me how much his son relied on social networking tools. His son, who recently graduated from high school, sent out the invitation to his graduation party via Facebook. When he got a new cell phone number, he did not send an email to those he thought should know his new number – he simply put the new number on Facebook. When Surinder asked him a while back to conduct some of his duties as Class President via email, he said that the other students (e.g., secretary, treasurer) he was working with did not use email! Moving to email alternatives may make sense if you are trying to engage younger workers in the workplace.
Support of management is another crucial factor in escaping email for other collaboration tools. Suarez seems to have strong support in IBM for shifting away from email; in other organizations this may not be a welcome change. If the organization is not supportive and others are not interested in using other tools, email will probably remain the primary medium of communication no matter how much you try to utilize other tools.
Lastly, don’t forget to consider your own work habits. Try to use not only the strengths of each communication tool, but also the ones you will keep up with. For example, it’s not useful to have a blog that you only remember to update once every few weeks. Be a little bit strict with yourself – if making a phone call is most effective but you don’t like getting caught in idle conversation for 60 seconds, you might need to make that call anyway. In other words, don’t use alternative forms of communication as a crutch for avoidance. Try to focus on what helps get your tasks accomplished in an effective way. There are so many inexpensive options these days, it should be possible to make a few of them work for you and your collaborators.

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