Digest Archives - Leading Virtually

Recent News on Social Media

Rebecca Jestice — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:05:10 +0000

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.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that Penn State’s online campus is now requiring student advisers to offer meeting hours in Second Life for students. Advisers are required to offer at least 2 hours a week of availability in Second Life for meeting with students in addition to the other regular methods of communication. This will be an interesting case to watch, as it is requiring advisers to join a third party application to do their jobs. It is also curious because it is bringing something personal–student advising–into an open forum where privacy could potentially be an issue. Quotes from the social-networks adviser at Penn State indicate that, once trained in the basics of Second Life, the advisers are enjoying their time there. So far, I have seen no mention of success such as the students finding it beneficial, or finding it beneficial in ways beyond what other communication channels offer them. Perhaps the program is too new for analysis of its success at this stage.

A blog post, also from The Chronicle, discussed a teacher who has his students friend him on Facebook as a requirement for his business course. The Illinois State University professor uses Facebook as his course management system and requires students to friend him on the first day of class. The professor will work with students to adjust privacy settings on Facebook if they have some reservations about the set up. Assignments are submitted through students’ profile pages and questions can be asked by posting to the professor’s wall. At the end of the semester the professor de-friends all of his students and claims that he does not peruse their profiles. Again, currently I don’t see any discussion of whether or not the students find this as or more beneficial than a school supplied course management system, which operates behind a firewall, out of the public space.

In this case, the professor states that part of his point in using Facebook is teaching students that their online presence becomes part of their digital resume and that the World Wide Web doesn’t forget what you’ve posted or put into the public forum online. In this case students are required to belong to a third party application (one that has been criticized for its privacy measures in the past) in order to successfully complete their course.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, April 5, 2009

Rebecca Jestice — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:29:25 +0000

What: NY Times article about cable companies providing (or not providing) faster broadband service in the US
Posts it is related to: So You Think You’d Like to Telecommute?
Bottom line: For those who desire to, or already do work from home, and need high speed Internet to get optimum performance from various applications for file sharing, video conferencing or web conferencing, it appears that faster broadband is a real and relatively inexpensive prospect for cable companies to offer. Cable companies in the US could increase their offered speeds by 5 to 10 times quickly and without much capital investment. However, companies that are upgrading available cable services are also giving a hefty upgrade in price to cable customers and other companies are not upgrading at all for fear that better Internet service will cause customers to downgrade or get rid of their cable TV services. It seems that lack of competition and fear of falling profit margins is affecting customers’ ability to get better, faster Internet service. Knowing that cable companies can upgrade available service relatively inexpensively makes me even more skeptical about Time Warner’s proposed (and currently being tested) tier billing for bandwidth usage. Cable companies may raise the cost and lower the ability of virtual workers to work effectively.

What: NY Times article on Google Voice
Posts it is Related To: None
Bottom line: Soon Google will be launching Google Voice to new users. If it lives up to its promises, this could be a major time saver for people with multiple phone numbers (home, cell, office, work cell, etc.) and who have to manage phone calls and voice mails from various people and contexts. Google Voice will also likely be a major disruptor for existing companies that provide services like voice mail transcription and perhaps even Skype’s cheap international call services. Here are some of the features that Google Voice will offer–all for free! Users will get one phone number to hand out that will then ring all cell phones, landlines, and SMS services. When the phone rings wherever you are, you can choose to answer, block the call, listen in to a voicemail to decide if you want to pick up after all, or send the call to another phone such as your cell phone so you can pick up as you are running out the door. Voicemails can be sent via SMS or email through free voice to text transcription services. Users can listen to voicemail either through their phones or online and can even personalize outgoing messages for different callers. Voice features include free conference calling on any phone and options for international calls that are possibly cheaper than Skype’s already cheap calls. Google Voice might add a whole new level of “mobile” to mobile telephony.

What: Article on the rebound of spam
Posts it is related to: Do you plan for technology breakdown?
Bottom line: Bad news for organizations in their efforts to increase IT security and keep costs low–spam is on the rise again. Although the closing down of an ISP responsible for a majority of spam last November cut the amount of junk email, the percentage of spam has been steadily rising since then. Spam levels are almost back to where they were last October, or about 94% of all email. The problem isn’t just with an increase in spam, but in the new technologies spammers are using. Having learned from the shut down of their last ISP, spammers now seem to be building decentralized networks that will be harder to crack. The bad news for IT security is that spammers seem to have developed new location based spam which directs those who click on a link in the email to a local headline based on the user’s IP address. The fake news page purports to have a video relating to the local news or crisis. If the user clicks on the video link, their computer is infected with a virus.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, March 28, 2009

Surinder Kahai — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:29:55 +0000

What: LA Times article about President Obama conducting a virtual town hall meeting to reach out and connect to Americans
Posts it is related to: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually
Bottom line: President Obama continues to be innovative in embracing technology to engage his constituency, the people of America. Last week, he hosted a virtual town hall meeting that drew more than 104,000 questions and 3.6 million votes to narrow down the questions the President would answer. For me, this is a wonderful example of how leaders could begin to engage their remote constituents or workers. In addition, the President now has valuable data (based on the questions and the votes) about what is on the minds of a certain section of America. He can use this to sharpen his focus during the upcoming speeches and radio addresses and, thus, connect even better with the people. The article’s author raised the question of whether the virtual event was truly engaging the public, or it was only creating an illusion of doing so. I believe this is a critical question because it brings into focus a leader’s authenticity. An authentic leader who wants to connect with his constituents will not simply engage in a single participatory event. Moreover, that leader will use technology and other means to connect to the people and follow-up. This all-rounded effort will make it apparent to the constituents whether the leader is trying to create an illusion or whether the leader is genuinely interested in engaging the public.

There was one new Google product I learned about from the article. The White House used Google Moderator to enable people to pose questions and vote on them. I tried it out at http://moderator.appspot.com/ and it seems like a neat product. Read about it here.

What: NY Times article about stars using ghostwriters to Twitter for them
Posts it is related to: Fostering Ambient Awareness in Virtual Teams
Bottom line: Fans of celebrities, politicians, and even famous speakers/writers may not be aware that the constant updates that they are following on Twitter may actually be written by one or more ghostwriters. It looks like some Twitterers seem to be missing the point that technology such as Twitter is meant to be a vehicle for bypassing traditional media and speaking directly to their followers. The basketball star Shaquille O’Neal does not seem to be liking the practice of employing ghostwriters to tweet for you. The article quotes him as saying: “If I am going to speak, it will come from me…It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.” But some stars see (e.g., Britney Spears) themselves as a brand and argue that if businesses can employ writers to promote their brand on Twitter, then why can’t they? I believe that employing ghostwriters raises questions about a leader’s or a star’s authenticity. If leaders or stars want writers to keep their fans updated about what they are up to or what they have spoken, I think it is absolutely fine as long as the writers don’t pretend to be the voice of the leader or the star. When leaders or stars take advantage of the anonymity offered by technology to have someone else speak with their voice, they are deceiving followers who may be thinking that they are hearing directly from their leader or star.

What: Network World article on a Society for Information Management (SIM) study that found that virtual team skills are emerging as critical for successful information technology (IT) careers
Posts it is related to: Are “Casual” Virtual Team Participants Endangering Virtual Teams
Bottom line: A recent SIM study on skills needed by IT professionals suggests that project management and business skills are critical for successful IT careers. The study also found customer facing skills, systems analysis and design, and testing as additional critical skills. According to the study, emerging skills for successful IT careers include working with virtual teams, working globally, business process re-engineering, managing third-party vendors, change management, and project risk management.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, March 20, 2009

Betsy Carroll — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:44:47 +0000

What: NYTimes article about Cisco’s showcasing its TelePresence system.
Posts to which it is related: Supportive and Critical Communication in Virtual Teams, Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology
Bottom line: This article reviews the use of Cisco’s TelePresence system during a press conference at which the company announced new servers. According to the author (Ashlee Vance), the press conference was too long, felt unnatural and scripted, and failed to deliver on its promise of a feeling of presence via this teleconferencing system. So should we give up on this kind of system, or on achieving a natural feeling of presence during teleconferencing? No. The system is only technology, and human beings still need to make good decisions to use that technology effectively. This is precisely why a new kind of leadership – virtual leadership – is necessary for teams and companies who want to adopt collaborative technologies. Systems like TelePresence don’t do away with the need for a savvy team leader any more than fax machines substituted for leadership.

What: NYTimes article about the uses of Twitter.
Posts to which it is related: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually, Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology, Freeing Yourself from Email
Bottom line: This is a great little article whose main point is that there are a lot of ways Twitter can be used, and you should use it for whatever works for you. I think that when new forms of collaborative technology are presented to the public, and many of them are complex, lots of us have a tendency to shy away thinking we can’t master or understand it. So this reminder is very valuable – remember that collaborative technology is only a tool. Individuals must assess the features, figure out some of the possibilities, and ultimately determine how those possibilities solve your problems or fill a need you have. Try something new today, whether it’s joining Twitter or blogging or creating an avatar in a virtual world. See what you can harvest from these technologies that helps you achieve a social goal!

What: NYTimes article about a Google project to bring Internet access to areas that previously had none.
Posts to which it is related: None
Bottom line: There’s something about the concept of bringing technology to remote areas in Africa that makes me cringe a little because the presentation can get condescending pretty quickly. Still, this project represents a really interesting social experiment. We have talked before in our blog about the fact that virtual and collaborative technologies have incredible potential for rethinking collaboration, but that it will take time before people can come up with truly innovative ways of using those technologies. The primary stumbling block is that we have so many assumptions about the technologies, it’s hard to conceptualize new uses. For example, we seem to have trouble using virtual worlds for anything other than meetings or classes that reflect those events in the “real” world. So when Google brings Internet access to people who have had hardly any modern technology (no phones, no computers, etc), they are moving the Internet into a group of people without any of the “baggage” of assumptions that more experienced technology users have. The Africans in the village in this article are just as clever and adaptive as we are, but without all that we take for granted about technology. I imagine once they find their way around the computer and the Internet, they could have some really ground-breaking ideas for how to use them. In the work-obsessed parts of the world, meetings are ritual; we have duplicated those “rituals” without much innovation in virtual worlds. What parts of human ritual will transfer to virtual worlds from people in a place where they don’t spend most of their time at work in an office?

The other important part of this social experiment is that we might have as much to learn from a remote African village as they do from the “western world”. These technologies were meant to help us save time and be more efficient, yet many of us find ourselves weighed down by them (think of the crush of daily emails many people complain about). Perhaps there is a lot about a non-technological life that we can learn from, just as much as African villagers can learn when they gain Internet access.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, March 7, 2009

Rebecca Jestice — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:34:21 +0000

What: New York Times article on how to manage e-mail overload
Posts it is related to: Freeing Yourself From Email , Emergent Collaboration: Why Email Should Not Be Used for Collaboration
Bottom line: In this Personal Tech article, the author gives some good ideas for getting our overwhelming amounts of email under control. His suggestion–an in-box that is always empty or very close to it. Tips for achieving such a tidy and less burdensome in-box include immediately archiving all those emails that won’t be or don’t need to be responded to (such as your Twitter or Facebook notifications), forwarding emails that are better answered by someone else, and responding right away to those emails that can be taken care of in just a few minutes. Another key feature of the system is to not spend time filing and organizing your email into some folder classification scheme. Instead, rely on your email program’s search capability to find that email that you really need that is no longer in your in-box. These are some good, no-nonsense tips for helping get email overload under control and contributing to a sense of calm and efficiency when we next check our in-boxes.

What: New technology trend? Article about the potential use of cell-phones in the classroom
Posts it is related to: None
Bottom line: It may sound like an educator’s worst nightmare–encouraging cell phone use in the classroom–but that is exactly what cell phone companies are trying to persuade schools to do. Research, paid for by a cell phone chip manufacturer, is suggesting that the use of cell phones can “make students smarter.” Rightfully so, there is a lot of debate about the nature of the research and the appropriateness of cell phones in class rooms. One bit that struck me from the article, though, was the description of how some students were using the smart phones they were given. Students used the phones to record themselves solving math problems and then posted the videos to private video sites for other students to see. This reminded me again of the address I heard at the conference a couple of weeks ago (see the February 21 post)–as educators, trainers, coaches or mentors we have to accept that learning is moving away from a traditional “deliver and absorb” model and becoming more about collaboration and shared knowledge. I’m not convinced that cell phones are the best tool for students, but I do think there is something to empowering students to learn from each other using a medium with which they feel comfortable. I’ll be keeping an eye on this potential new trend.

What: Article on the disappearing business meeting
Posts it is related to: None
Bottom line: The worsening economy has affected yet another business mainstay–professional meetings and conferences. Meetings for 2009 are being canceled and those that are still on the schedule are expecting lower than normal participation. Attendance is going down because employees have either lost their jobs or companies have cut traveling budgets for employees to attend such meetings. Even companies that do send a representative to a conference or meeting are sending only one person when in the past they might have sent two or three people. One online jewelry sales company executive attributed her decision to go alone to an upcoming conference to the lack of need for an extra person to do the important networking that takes place at such meetings. With attendance down, she feels confident that she can network with those she needs to alone. I suspect that this trend will lead to an increase in use of social networking sites and applications that allow for remote meetings. Although the technology is still not advanced enough to allow 400 potential conference attendees to meet together in a virtual world, we may see an increase in use of virtual worlds or other technologies for smaller meetings, as well as increased use of tools like Twitter for networking without traveling.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, February 27, 2009

Surinder Kahai — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:16:02 +0000

What: Research article on communication in virtual product development teams
Posts it is related to: Freeing Yourself from Email, The Evolution of Harmful Email Habits, How do I begin to Improve the Functioning of my Virtual Team?
Bottom line: The authors of the article studied members of virtual teams engaged in new product development. Responses from 184 team members spread over 15 teams from three organizations were analyzed to investigate the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Based on their findings, the authors offer the following guidelines that leaders of virtual teams should find useful. First, don’t just simply make ICTs available to team members. Training is critical but the training should go beyond teaching how to use any given ICT. Instead, team members should be provided knowledge about why an ICT is useful and when it is most appropriate to use it (see Betsy’s post in which she discusses different ICTs and their appropriateness). Second, members of virtual teams should establish standards for availability and acknowledgment of communications. Third, virtual teams should try to use synchronous communication for convergence and social/relational tasks. Lastly, virtual team members should be encouraged to agree on a plan of ICT use and take responsibility for prioritizing communication to enable effective use and to avoid information overload. In the past, we have strongly recommended the use of a team compact. A good team compact would help a virtual team address the last three guidelines made by the article’s authors.

What: NY Times article on some of the lesser-known projects from Google Labs
Posts it is related to: None
Bottom line: While most Internet users know of Google’s search product, many may not be aware of interesting products that have rolled out of Google Labs. Google Labs is a web site where Google employees post their half-baked creations and invite the public to try them out. Some of the Google Lab products have gone on to become real Google services (e.g., Google Eearth, Gmail, Google Docs, etc.). In this article, David Pogue presents some of the projects that he thinks are lesser known. Here are a couple that I found to be new or somewhat new: Quick Search Box (this is for Mac users) and Google Sets (I had forgotten this one). There is another one: 800-GOOG-411 (for finding phone numbers – it is indespensible when you are traveling). My son uses it and he helped us locate important numbers the last time he traveled with us. Works like a charm.

What: NY Times article about experts believing that we need a new Internet
Posts it is related to: None
Bottom line: A new Internet may be on its way. Security and privacy on the Internet have become so compromised that many experts believe it is time to start over and build a new Internet. It is not clear at this time what this new Internet would look like. The article indicates that ‘one alternative would, in effect create a “gated community” where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety,’ with the current Internet ending up as the ‘bad neighborhood of cyberspace.’ Despite tremendous amount money being spent on computer security (the computer security industry reached $79 billion in revenues last year), most networks remain vulnerable. Funded by federal research dollars, scientists are collaborating with the industry to figure out the best way to start over. Stanford researchers are creating a network that will quietly slide underneath today’s Internet. In a few months time, this network will run on eight campus networks around the US. According to the article, the Stanford project will ‘equip software and hardware designers with a toolkit to make security a more integral part of the network and ultimately give law enforcement officials more effective ways of tracking criminals through cyberspace.’

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The Leading Virtually Digest, February 14, 2009

Betsy Carroll — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:00:25 +0000

What: Story on NPR about the use of video conferencing in immigration courts.
Posts to which it is related: Supportive and Critical Communication in Virtual Teams, Lessons from Victorian Technology
Bottom line: This piece demonstrates some of the issues that arise when a form of virtual collaboration is used strictly for efficiency with no adjustments made for interacting virtually instead of face-to-face. Immigration courts are struggling, like many other organizations, to control costs. They have recently increased their use of conference calling for court proceedings – people on trial are conferenced in. Their lawyers often choose to be in the court with the judge, though they may choose to be with their client instead. Because it’s immigration court, translators are often needed as well. The NPR piece reports that translators are commonly teleconferenced into a phone on the judge’s desk. Imagine the logistics of communicating with that set up! And imagine an “efficient” trial with those logistics when a person is trying to plead their case for asylum. We know that it takes extra effort to make the human connection when conferencing. Immigration lawyers are concerned that the increased use of video- and tele-conferencing is creating an obstacle to proper legal proceedings.

What: A VentureBeat piece about the TimeBridge conference call system with improved features.
Posts to which it is related: Wonderland: A Tool for Online Collaboration
Bottom line: Maybe what the immigration courts need is a system that works better logistically. Certainly that would be a step in the right direction. TimeBridge has the right idea – their product includes not only conferencing capabilities, but two other features to simplify virtual collaboration. Each person’s availability is now available to others. This is intended to make the scheduling process simpler. This VentureBeat piece seems to be singing its praises. And it seems likely that as the logistics of virtual collaboration are made simpler, there is more room for that extra effort to go to creating social connections in this communication medium.

What: Science Daily article about the difference between conferencing and face-to-face discussion.
Posts to which it is related: Spread YourVirtual Smile, Really
Bottom line: In this post, that references a Management Science article, we learn that videoconferencing appears to have an effect on communication. According to the study, people are more likely to base decisions on how much they like the other person in videoconferencing; this is in contrast to face-to-face interactions, where decisions tend to be based more on facts or information. The study was conducted in a medical setting, but it seems likely that this effect would hold in similar decision making situations. For example, this has implications for the use of videoconferencing in immigration courts, as described above.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, February 8, 2009

Surinder Kahai — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:02:50 +0000

What: Financial Times special report about the current downturn offering opportunities for distributing leadership and the use of flexible virtual teams
Posts to which it is related: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually, So Far And Yet So Near, Leading Virtual Communities: Do We Have the Answers, Are Casual Virtual Team Participants Endangering Virtual Teams
Bottom line: According to the article’s author, Professor Lynda Gratton of the London Business School, downturns often lead to fresh ideas. Two new fresh ideas are likely to emerge from the current downturn: wider distribution of leadership and creation of flexible virtual teams. Today, many question the wisdom of placing so much power in the hands of few people at the top of an organization. Research has shown us that often the best decisions are made by an “intelligent crowd” rather than an omnipotent individual. With the availability of technology that enables democratic and distributed decision-making, the time may be ripe for a shift towards wider distribution of leadership. Prof. Gratton states that people tend to assume that face-to-face working trumps virtual working. Borrowing from her own research, she argues that this assumption is wrong. As long as virtual teams are inspired by a meaningful task, a fascinating question, or a compelling vision, they can be more productive and innovative than face-to-face teams. Prof. Gratton suggests to executives that they respond to the opportunities provided by the current downturn by experimenting with new practices.

What: NY Times blog article about Cisco making permanent cuts in travel
Posts to which it is related: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually, So Far And Yet So Near, Wonderland: A Tool For Online Collaboration, Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology
Bottom line: John Chambers, Cisco’s CEO, recently told analysts during an earnings conference call that Cisco has saved approximately $4,500 per employee by cutting down on travel. The CEO also indicated that these cuts are going to be made permanent. In addition to showing investors that Cisco is careful about it expenses during these difficult times, the CEO was also trying to advertise Cisco’s technology, such as telepresence videoconferencing, web meeting applications, and collaboration software, that enables businesses to cut down on travel. According to the article, Cisco now holds 4,000 video conferences weekly and its use of the WebEx meeting software has surged 3,100 percent. Additionally, activity on discussion forums has jumped 1,600 percent.

What: NY Times article about significantly improved video calling with Skype’s new program
Posts to which it is related: Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology
Bottom line: Skype released version 4.0 of its program a few days ago. Among the most notable change in the latest version is the ability to have a high quality video chat with no delay. The improvement is most significant when users at both ends have the latest program and are connected by high-speed Internet. Even if one of the users has the latest software, there is an improvement in quality. The article’s author found that alternatives to Skype (iChat, Oovoo, and Sightspeed) did not match Skype’s immediacy or audio and video performance. However, video-chat on Skype is still one-to-one, whereas the alternatives enable video meetings with participants from different parts of the world. The Leading Virtually team is a big time user of Skype and it looks forward to using Skype’s new program.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, January 31, 2009

Rebecca Jestice — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:23:50 +0000

What: Statistics about who’s online and what they’re doing
Posts to which it is related: Culture Matters In Virtual Teams
Bottom line: A recent report by Pew Online and American Life gives a breakdown by age of Internet users and their activities. Although some may view online activities as strictly for the younger generation, the report shows that Boomers are just as likely as younger Gen X and Gen Y generations to perform certain activities online. Interestingly, email is used by a larger percentage of the older generation and email use is dropping in the younger generation. Younger users are more likely to use the Internet for things like social networking or hanging out in virtual worlds. This could have implications for virtual teams with members or leaders from differing generations, including altering preferences for how to communicate and accomplish work.

What: New York Times article about selectively sharing information on social networking sites.
Posts to which it is related: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually (keeping boundaries)
Bottom line: This article touches on an important issue for users of social networking sites–how not to share everything with everyone, or selectively share information with only those who should see it. As a heavy user of Facebook, I am often surprised at people who post their cell phone numbers on wall posts or their street address so that is visible to strangers. I even know of one hiring decision that was made because an inappropriate picture and sexual innuendo was left out in the open on a Facebook profile page–which the candidate directed the potential employer to on his resume. In an effort to keep traffic high, applications like Facebook and MySpace are now making it easier to manipulate the privacy settings on users’ accounts so professional contacts get professional content and friends get the party photos. While you may have to search out the privacy settings on Facebook and MySpace or spend a little time creating special lists to categorize content, it’s worth the time. You never know who might see that tagged photo of you from Halloween 10 years ago or who might be scanning your contact list for potential clients.

What: Article on a new application for managing team workflows
Posts to which it is related: Emergent Collaboration: The Reason Why Email Should Not Be Used for Collaboration, Freeing Yourself from Email
Bottom line: Smartsheet has introduced an application for managing collaborative team work which it hopes will be the Google of outsourced team management. The new application allows teams to manage projects and things like work flow, project progress, file storage, and discussion threads. Smartsheet has built its collaboration software based on user tests and work done in real groups. A complete relaunch of the product included a scaling down of features, but with attention to how teams actually do work and interact with each other. Special attention was given to allowing teams to use the product even with those who have not yet adopted it. Although Smartsheet is being marketed toward outsourced team projects, it could be promising for helping virtual teams of all sizes and types.

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The Leading Virtually Digest, January 24, 2009

Betsy Carroll — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:54:01 +0000

What: CNN.com numbers about how people connected to the inauguration of President Obama.
Posts to which it is related: What President Obama Teaches Us for Leading Virtually
Bottom line: The numbers are staggering, and that’s a good sign by my reckoning. There are two things that I took away from this article. First, not only are massive number of people all over the world taking an interest (and an optimistic outlook) in Obama’s presidency, but they are also using newer technologies to stay connected. Considering these numbers, it probably is crucial that President Obama is showing signs of being a connected President. He changed the way campaigns are being run by effectively using technologies that connect people, and I’m hopeful he will do the same to conduct his Presidential work. If his mantra is that we are all responsible for the work that the United States needs to do, it’s important that we can connect and collaborate. This represents an important change from a hierarchical and need-to-know approach to government, moving towards a system that is flatter and more like a grassroots movement (like community organizing??). All the lessons of a virtual team apply to this new form of governance. The second thing I took away from this article is our ability to quickly learn about what people are up to or what is happening to them by looking up Internet statistics (see Google Flu Trends as a related example). This can be an extremely important source of information for a leader who wants to keep her/his finger on the pulse of those being led from a distance.

What: LA Times opinion piece by John Podesta about WHY President Obama wants to keep his Blackberry.
Post to which it is related: Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology
Bottom line: Podesta was a co-chair of Obama’s transition team, and he points out how important it is for Obama to keep in touch not only with his inner circle, but also with old friends and colleagues, or even the average American. In organizational behavior, there is a theory that says leaders have an in-group and an out-group, and that relationships between leader and team member are much richer for the in-group than for the out-group. In theory, outcomes for the in-group are better too, probably because they are given more resources (attention, time, guidance) from the leader. It seems like an important message from one of Obama’s top transition team members to say that the new President is keeping his Blackberry – he is using technology to expand his in-group and keep it as inclusive as possible. That should be good not only for the well-being of Americans, but also for the tasks that the President and his staff work on.

What: NYTimes short piece on President Obama getting to keep his Blackberry.
Post to which it is related: Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology
Bottom line: This piece focuses a bit more on what created an issue around this Blackberry, and this raises a good point. The new President wanted to keep this technology because he is accustomed to it and finds it an effective way to stay in touch with important advisors or contacts, but also to get information as quickly as possible. Those who opposed his use of a Blackberry apparently did so because of security reasons. Of interest to virtual team leaders is the issue of a paper trail. This short article mentions that the US President’s correspondences become part of an official record, which can be reviewed in case of problems. Perhaps this is also an issue for virtual teams – the flexible technologies that connect people and enable collaboration make it difficult to keep a record. I believe this is why many companies block the use of IM or chatting windows at their companies – if there is anything at stake, it may be necessary to keep a record of decisions and conversations. Keep this in mind when planning your team’s use of technology – leaders must consider not only the way technology connects people, but also what kind of paper trail or record might be necessary.

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