The Bamboo Project Blog

On Improving Conferences: The Reflection Session

Harold Jarche, like me, is reflecting on his recent attendance at conferences:

I’ve been thinking about knowledge sharing, after attending a couple of conferences in a row and heading off to another. One thing missing in these discrete time-based events is that there is litle time for reflection. Most presenters hold back their knowledge in order to “deliver” it just before the big official presentation. This presentation is followed by some immediate questions & discussions and a coffee break. Then it’s off to see the next presentation. Reflection, if it occurs, comes much later, and usually after the participants have gone home.

I've encountered this issue, too, so I'm thinking that one way we could improve conferences would be to provide a "Reflection Session." It would be near the end of the conference and scheduled like any other breakout session. Instead of stuffing new information into people's brains, though, it would be a workshop for consolidating what they've already experienced.

I'm picturing:

• A quiet room with more of a coffee shop set-up--some tables with chairs, but also a few lounge chairs.

• Possibly some music, although that's such an individual thing it might be better for people to be invited to listen to their ipods. 

• Some guidelines on reflective practice. Note, we would NOT discuss these. They would simply be available for those who were interested.

• Some tools for reflection--some small blank journals, some prompts for thinking. These Debriefing Questions could be good. Also the One-Sentence Journal--could be applied to each session the individual attended. 

• Art supplies--some people are visual thinkers and it could be very cool to encourage them to use art to express what they've learned.

Of course, this is something of an introvert's dream of a reflective session, so I'm thinking it could be followed by an extrovert's debrief where we had people share one or two ideas they got or questions they have as a result of their participation in the conference. If we wanted to get really creative, it could be a sort of Ignite format--3-5 minute presentations on the most compelling question or idea you experienced.

What do you think? Would you attend a "Reflection Session" at a conference? How would you structure it and what would you include?

Flickr photo via Laurel Center for Social Entrepreneurship

More on Conferencing Mash-ups

Friday I wrote a post on conference homophily--conferences that bring together people who share the same worldview and conceptual frameworks--and proposed conference mash-ups as a solution. I got a lot of great comments that I think warranted another post.

Conference Mashup Models and Options

Tim Davies suggested framing a conference around some shared challenges or problems:

I wonder how this would work framed around particular 'problems' and challenges: the literature on open innovation and wide-search innovation - taking problems from one field into completely different fields to find solutions - suggests there is great benefit to be found here.

Two or more fields grappling with similar challenges might benefit from co-hosting a conference around that area.

This seems to me to be one of the more fruitful areas for getting buy-in and participation, especially if you can make the case for how two different fields could benefit from collaborative problem-solving.

You could also frame it in terms of collaborative opportunities, as Dianne Rees suggested in her comment:

My perfect mashup right now would bring mhealth professionals together with mlearning professionals and health care social media mavens to innovate patient/physician-centered mobile apps.

This is a great example of how three different groups could find opportunity in working together. Dianne's idea also lends itself to a 48 hours approach, where the groups could come together to actually develop their mobile apps over an intensive 2-day period.

A few people suggested some potential structures for a conference mashup. Ronda Grizzle pointed me in the direction of THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp), a "free, open 'unconference' where humanists and technologists meet to work together for the common good." As Ronda described it:

It's an unconference--short, cheap, no papers, no invited speakers. It's about gathering together a small group of varied experience and skills to actually work on problems and issues. The agenda is set during the first hour of the conference, with people suggesting topics for sessions, and then voting on the topics. The ones with the most votes get put on the schedule. Nobody brings presentations or reads at you; it's about making connections and getting work done.

Their website is a rich resource for planning and implementing an open space-type conference where there is a much greater focus on networking and collaborative discussions. They also have a Boot Camp option for helping people develop new skills. This is generally an "add-on" to the larger un-conference.

Paul Angileri shared the idea of Gangplank, a group of small business owners from a variety of fields who meet and work together on a regular basis, in part to encourage cross-pollination and innovation. Their Manifesto would make some great conference organizing principles:

We have the talent. We just need to work together. Different environments need to overlap, to connect and to interact in order to transform our culture. In order to create a sustainable community based on trust, we value:

• collaboration over competition
• community over agendas
• participation over observation
• doing over saying
• friendship over formality
• boldness over assurance
• learning over expertise
• people over personalities

Tim Davies offered another model, based on "The Interesting Conference":

By simply paying the £20.00 ticket price and bringing our own mug and plate of goodies to share, access was granted to a quirky, lively, but refreshingly low-key event. Organiser Russell Davies filled Conway Hall in Bloomsbury with 200 guests and 30 interesting speakers, who were tasked with presenting for 10 minutes on a topic unrelated to their day jobs. The result was eclectic and delightful: a school teacher entreating us to reconsider our assumptions about nuclear power; a designer confessing her Indian superpowers; a typographer mapping out his 5000 mile cycling adventure; and a media consultant revealing psychological violence in 1970s girls’ comics. The latter taught the women in the audience to never mock a monkey, for fear of winding up like poor Kitty, whose demise is graphically documented in the Misty magazine circa 1979.

A sense of democracy and community spirit pervaded the day, with speakers introduced on a first-name-only basis, everyone lunching together in the park, and, at one point, the entire hall standing to wave their arms in unison as they conducted an invisible orchestra (led ably by a man identified only as John, who won a competition to conduct a real orchestra a few years back and wished to pass on the skill).

Tim also had some great suggestions for combating conference homopily on a smaller scale, without going the complete conference mashup route:

Alternatively, just inviting someone from outside the field to keynote at an event, or people from different fields to take part in key panels, may be a way to at least shake up unquestioned assumptions that are often implicit in homiphilous gatherings...

Conference Challenges

A few commenters had some concerns. Tracy felt that the conference mashup idea won't work in all sectors:

Nonprofits are the best to setup since they're mission-driven. The public sector is another good one as well since it's under one roof.

The private sector is tough because there's a lot of competition and talent could be taken away and rivalries can start (which is not a bad thing, but not good for your purpose on this post).

And despite her personal enthusiasm for the idea, Ellen Behrens said that some past experiences with the concept had led her to believe it might be a hard sell.

My association staffer experience tells me that it's one of those "nice in theory but tricky in practice" ideas. Mostly because of (guess!) money.

When I've heard association execs talk about various conferences they've held in cooperation (and collaboration) with other associations, they've generally ended with a remark such as, "We'll never do that again."

Why not? "We did most of the work, but they got half the revenue." Or: "Most of the attendees were our members, but they got half the revenue." Or: "The logistics of holding a conference are difficult enough without doubling -- or tripling -- or quadrupling -- the number of player groups involved."

There's no doubt that both Tracy and Ellen raise some very legitimate concerns. The objection I suspect we'd hear most frequently is that other industries or sectors don't understand our issues and problems, so what would we have to learn from them?

To Tracy's concern that there could be issues around talent stealing and competition, I actually think that a mashed up conference would cause LESS of a problem. I think there's probably more competition within an industry than between industries, so if companies can come together for industry-associated conferences, they would have less to fear from a mashed up version. 

One challenge I think would be in deciding how to mash it up--which industry or occupation would you connect with and how would you frame the conference to meet the needs of all the stakeholders? This would require considerably more planning and networking than probably goes into most conference organizing efforts, although I think it would be well worth the work. 

I also think there's a general entropy challenge that comes from having the same people organizing conferences year after year. I've been involved with several organizations where I've tried to introduce some new ideas and been met with a ton of resistance from the organizers who have been running their conferences for years. They feel like they have a model that works and no one wants to mess with it. Even adding some things around the edges--like incorporating technology--can be a real challenge.

This whole conversation has me thinking more about conferences as professional development and what we could be doing to shake things up to make them more interesting and useful. I'd love to hear more from people on what conferences they've attended recently that were really interesting and what activities made them that way. . .

Conference Homophily is a Problem--Maybe Conference Mashups are the Solution

I'm back from a two-day conference and I think I've discovered one of the reasons conferences are becoming a big waste for me--the homophily problem, otherwise known as "birds of a feather, flock together."

Most professional conferences are made up of people who are in a particular occupation or industry, which means people who tend to look at the world through the same lens. We tend to view problems and solutions within familiar, proscribed frameworks and to see the same enemies and heroes in any given situation. The problem is that this gets boring. It's also dangerous, because it impedes our ability to see and adopt new ideas.

What if we did a different kind of conference though, one designed to specifically address the conference homophily problem? I'm thinking of a conference mash-up, where we combine different groups of professionals or industries into a single conference where the workshops and networking could let us build on each others different frames of reference.

We could start small--maybe combining people in similar occupations who work in different industries. I'm thinking, for example, of a conference for classroom teachers and corporate trainers/educators. We have a lot in common but there are enough differences in what we do and how we do it that we could definitely learn from each other.

A conference mashup could be really radical too--like accountants and graphic artists or the financial services industry and bio-tech. Surely we could learn from each others approaches. If nothing else, we'd probably have some really interesting conversations. 

What do you think? Could this work? Or is it a completely crazy idea?

Virtual Career Fair Lessons Learned: Planning and Preparation

Virtual Career Fair and Job Shadowing Presentation

View more presentations from michelemmartin.

One of the projects I completed earlier this month for a client of mine was an online career fair. It was geared toward middle and high school students, their parents and educators.  Our goal was to expose them to career exploration information and some summer job search tips and techniques.

The event took place over a three-day period, with a "teaser" webinar the week before the career fair to help entice people to attend the sessions during the actual event. We used a wiki, a Ning network and a Twitter account for the bulk of our online outreach and interaction. We also set up a page describing how other individuals and groups could help us promote the career fair that included downloads of flyers and copy and paste info for them to include in emails and on their websites. 

The career fair included a series of live webinars that we then recorded and archived on our wiki for those who weren't able to attend the live events. We also had some pre-recorded webinars that were uploaded at different points throughout the three days.

The group I worked with on this project had worked together previously on other activities, but this was their first time doing something entirely online. They also had varying levels of expertise in using the technologies, so that impacted how they participated and what they contributed to the project.

The first part of the presentation above highlights some of what we learned and the outcomes of the event, but I wanted to highlight a few lessons and include some more here. I'm dividing this into a few posts because there are a lot of lessons. :-)

Lessons Learned in Planning and Preparation

• The planning time was less than it might have otherwise been because we worked with a team who has worked together before. I think we would have had to triple it if we were working with a group who had not developed the levels of trust we had.  I will say that the planning time was  equivalent to what it would have been if we were planning an in-person event, so doing an online event didn't necessarily save us any time in planning.

• It is possible to plan a big event without ever meeting in person. All of our meetings were conducted online and via conference call, which also helped us get comfortable with the technologies and tools for actually delivering the career fair. Since we were physically located in several different counties in the southeastern PA region, being able to do all of our planning without a physical meeting was a definite bonus.

• We used Google Docs for our meeting minutes, which was really helpful. We would log on to our webinar platform and I would type the notes as we talked. Team members who weren't able to attend a particular meeting could easily review what we'd discussed and it also made it easier for people to indicate when they'd completed a particular task or add information. We were also able to do a better job of documenting our process, which will be a big help the next time we do one of these.

• Practice sessions with the presenters were absolutely necessary and really helpful in making sure that everyone was comfortable with the technology. A few of the presenters had actually done webinars before, but most had not, so they very much appreciated the opportunity to try things out before their events. It also allowed me to make sure that the technology was working with each presenter's computer. I will say that for next time, I'm going to get more people to help with these practice sessions, as they took up quite a bit of time.

• Related to the practice sessions, it also worked out well to have a Presenter's Page with guidelines on how to participate in the webinars, suggestions for preparation and links to ideas on how to do effective online presentations. Not only was it helpful for those who had already agreed to participate, it was a useful presenter recruitment tool because it gave them a pretty good idea of what they would be doing.

• As I mentioned, the team I worked with to plan and implement this project had never done something entirely online. They also had varying levels of comfort with the different tools. What was probably the most interesting for them was seeing how we could actually do many of the things that they've traditionally done face-to-face in an online environment and how that actually expanded their reach. I think that next time, though, I would probably push them to actually use the tools themselves more. While a few of them, for example, added directly to the wiki, most would email me materials and information and then I would take care of the updating. It will be easier to do this next time because we all have a better idea of what we're doing, so I can focus more on helping them to use the technologies themselves.

In my next post, I'll talk about some of the lessons we learned during implementation of the actual event. I'd love to hear your ideas and feedback about experiences you've had in putting together online events.

Reflections on an Open Space Conference

Last week I ran an Open Space conference for 50 service providers who work on connecting individuals with disabilities to employment. For the uninitiated, Open Space is a format that encourages dialogue and problem-solving around key topics, rather than pre-set presentations. Just wanted to capture a few thoughts/reflections while they're fresh:

• I worked with a team of about 8 people to put the conference together. We did it entirely through teleconferencing, a project wiki and some emails--not a single face-to-face meeting. Logistically, the Forum went off without a hitch, proving to me once again that face-to-face for planning can be overrated.

• We violated one of the tenets of Open Space by identifying the topics/issues to be discussed ahead of time. I did this because we felt like it might be too much to go from traditional conferencing to the wild frontier of a self-organizing conference with nothing in between. It worked well, as it gave people some focus for the discussions. Next time we may go totally Open Space. 

• We ended up being a little more old-fashioned than I wanted when it came to note-taking. Ideally, we would have had people working directly in a wiki, projected onto a screen. Unfortunately we had last-minute tech issues that forced us to go with the old "flip chart" approach. I must admit that I'm spoiled at this point and was glad that someone else will be typing up those notes.

• Several of the individuals attending the conference--and a few of our facilitators--have disabilities, including visual impairments and brain injury. A few were in wheelchairs. I was concerned about moving people around to different rooms, taking notes, etc., which forced me to be much more aware of the issues that people with disabilities face in the workplace. Interestingly, these challenges were not difficult to overcome--they just required us to think ahead a little and be prepared.

• We got rave reviews from participants about the effectiveness of using the Open Space format. We had them focusing on ideas for addressing a number of different challenges, so they basically had an entire day to brainstorm and network with colleagues. Apparently this was a massive relief to people who are sick of attending "death by PowerPoint" conferences. They felt like their voices were heard and that some actionable ideas came out of the groups.

• Our "next step" plan is to put everything on a wiki so that people can see the ideas that were developed. Interestingly, at the closing session when we were discussing this, a few people kept saying that "you" (meaning the group that organized the Forum) needed to follow up on the ideas the group generated. I pointed out that the power of both Open Space and a wiki is that ANYONE can take charge of an idea that interests them, so we were transferring the ownership back to them. Not sure this was totally appreciated, but at the same time, it's where we need to be.

What seemed to work well for us was providing people with Open Space guidelines prior to the Forum and then reviewing those guidelines again during the opening. We also identified facilitators ahead of time, but then asked for volunteer notetakers in each group. This seemed to get people engaged as  co-creators.

I'm not sure what I would change for the next time, other than diving deeper into Open Space. The group seemed like they could handle it and I think it would be an interesting experience for them. I'll also be sure that we have the technology to put our notes directly on the wiki so that we avoid having to re-type them.

"An Ideal Conference Helps to Define a Community"

Over the holidays I had a chance to watch this video interview with Robert Scoble and Tim O'Reilly. Some good stuff on the differences between BarCamp (open to everyone) and FooCamp (invitation only), but the money quote for me was when O'Reilly said:

"An ideal conference helps to define a community."

I love this quote. It puts the notion of community-building at the center of conference-going. It says that the best conferences aren't about the workshops or the vendors or the location. They are about the processes that are in place to help create and define a sense of belonging and membership.

This is where a lot of conferences fail. Conference designers assume that communities are formed based on things like our job titles or industries or membership in an organization.  This is true to some extent, but many of us are not particularly passionate about our job titles or the industries in which we work, sad to say.  Real community is fueled by passion and interest, not solely by our membership in a particular group. The best conferences help us tap into the passion and harness it for connections and creating "aha" moments for participants.

Last month I helped organize a conference for youth practitioners from across Pennsylvania. We used a modified Open Space format where we defined some "big questions" to explore and then spent a day collecting everyone's thoughts about those questions. There was no pre-determined agenda other than the questions. We had no PowerPoints or "presenters." It was just a bunch of people in different rooms with flip chart paper and some issues they  cared about.

For most of us, it was one of the best conferences we'd attended because it helped us better understand who we are and what we're trying to accomplish in working with our young people. It helped us define our common purpose and re-connected us to what makes many of us passionate about the work.

It was also a little scary for some. There was less structure than they were used to, no experts to define the parameters or tell them what was important. This is part of community-building, too, though--helping each member of the community find and feel their own power to contribute. Some are more comfortable with this notion than others, but it's a necessary part of the community-building process.

As I continue to work with several professional groups to develop events and design the right processes for creating connections and sharing best practices, I'm going to keep this O'Reilly quote in mind. I think it's something to bank on.

What do you think of this quote? Is your idea of the ideal conference one that creates community? And what kinds of processes/activities make you feel that sense of belonging?

How Do You Faciliate Activities for a Large Audience?

Blogger and friend Christine Martell will be presenting next week at the VizThink conference where she'll have the (dubious) honor of facilitating a 30 minute visual activity with 300 participants. Over at the VisualsSpeak blog, Christine and business partner Tom Tiernan are wondering how you facilitate for a large audience, and more particularly:

• Are the group dynamics of a large audience different than small groups?
• How do you prepare for an audience you’ve never met?
• How do you make sure your program is tight enough in order to minimize disruptions?
• How do you use any tools or props?

I've seen Christine facilitate and she's awesome, but I think that for even the best facilitators 300 people and 30 minutes presents quite a challenge.

Christine plans to write about her experience in the VisualsSpeak email newsletter next month, but I'm sure would be happy to get ideas and guidance from those of you who have had experiences working with large groups. If you have advice for Christine, please feel free to leave me something in comments or to go leave something over at Christine's place. I'm happy to write up a summary if we get a lot of feedback, so hit me with your best shot. In the meantime, I'm going to be doing some thinking about this myself.

Photo via Peter Lambert

Why Face-to-Face Still Rules

Yesterday's plea for rethinking face-to-face meetings apparently struck a nerve, as a lively discussion broke out in comments and Jane of Wandering Eyre weighed in on her blog.

As you'll recall, I was complaining that a group I'm working with wouldn't use online tools to gather information, preferring to meet face-to-face and I suggested a few reasons why I thought that might be true.

I was initially going to keep the converations going through comments, but too many people had interesting things to say, so I'm bringing them into another post.

Here's what I've learned so far.

First, I'm not alone in wishing that we could figure out how to get people to move online, at least in certain circumstances. Writes Shannon of Random Mutterings:

This has been a very challenging question for our organization as well. As a nonprofit with globally dispersed staff, face-to-face meetings are expensive, often unfunded by donors, difficult to coordinate. But yet there seems to be no progress without them -- it is almost as if people don't become "real" until you meet them in person. I think this resistance is more pronounced in cultures where technology is not so prevalent. I don't have any suggestions or solutions, only frustrations. But I am open to all suggestions for how we can make virtual teaming work when the reality is that there is no substitute for face to face, but costs and other concerns often prevent it.

This made me feel somewhat better, because after I wrote the post I started to think I was just being unnecessarily crabby. But obviously other people struggle with the same issue. And I think that Shannon's point that people aren't "real" without face-to-face contact is an interesting one. I certainly know that it's one reason why I like bloggers to include their photos on their site so I can at least picture a person doing the "talking."

That said, a number of people had some additional suggestions for why so many resist moving away from f2f meetings. First up was Harold Jarche, who suggested that people are simply uncomfortable with online tools and that if we could just expose them and let them poke around, it might be an easier sell. I tend to agree with this, although in my particular case, the group I'm working with is apparently familiar with things like blogs and wikis, but have no interest in using them because it "takes too much time." Which I find interesting, given that they're willing to give a day and night to a trip that will accomplish less.

Then Jane at Wandering Eye suggested that people might be uncomfortable with the transparency and accountability that comes with online meetings, something that definitely hadn't occurred to me:

When you hold a meeting over chat, develop an idea on a wiki, discuss solutions to problems on a discussion board, or collectively edit a document, you leave little traces of the process everywhere. There are transcripts, different versions of documents, and there is an actual record of who made what comment and contributed what material.

In a f2f meeting, we rely on a person to take notes. We all know that Meeting Minutes are nothing more then a list of decisions and action items. Meeting minutes do not reflect the decision process, the tension a topic may have induced, or the crazy idea that got thrown on the table and very quickly was swept under the rug. Meeting minutes are the sanitized version of what really happened. Sometimes, they are so sanitized as to be completely useless to those who were not in attendance.

Conducting committee work on the web can be dirty, it can be chaotic, and, in most instances, it is open for all the world to see. Moving committee work to the web is the picture of radical transparency and that scares people. Big organizations hate admitting failure and process can look like failure.

Wow! Very true, I think, although I also wonder if people have been that strategic in their thinking. Or is this something that they intuitively understand and dread? Regardless, this is a really powerful point that probably does have an impact.

Another reason to keep meeting face-to-face was suggested by Bronwyn Maudlin--the "trust factor":

I think there's something more going on here that goes beyond relationship building and motivation, or lack of comfort/knowledge of web 2.0 tools, and that's about trust. It's about looking people in the eye, seeing their body language and being able to react appropriately to all those nonverbal cues. It's the ability to react instantly when a question or concern is raised, rather than waiting for cumbersome written messages to make their way back and forth across the ether. As humans, we're built with a lot of communication tools that we often aren't aware we're using.

Michelle Murrain echoed these thoughts and added that to her, face-to-face is the "glue" that holds virtual groups together. She also made a plea for balance, arguing that while she didn't want to spend all of her time traveling, she also didn't want to spend all of her time in front of a 14" screen either.

I think that it's important to find the balance, and understand that people who might seem simply wedded to old ideas might actually have a point. It's not really about efficiency of information transfer, it's about information transfer of the kind that can only happen when people are physically in the same room together.

One final suggestion for why face-to-face persists came from Chris, who suggested that the real issue here is that 70% of us are extroverted, which means we tend to get more out of talking and face-to-face interaction and less out of reading a website or adding to a wiki:

There have been many studies in this area over the years. Basically, only about 30% of us are satisfied with quickly interacting for the exchange of data.

That leaves a whopping 70% who want to meet in person, and who will NEVER prefer to do otherwise. In short, these people draw their enthusiasm and personal energy from direct contact with other people. Video does not satisfy that need. Podcasting does not satisfy that need. It involves more than sight and sound.

Now if Web 2.0 tools could pump human pheromones across a "meeting enhancement" wiki, then you might have a hope of prying those people out of the face to face meeting mode. Apparently, the scent of others who reach agreement is part of the face to face crowd's need. . . .
Anyone up for developing a pheromone releasing keyboard?

This is something I'd considered after I wrote the post. I'm definitely an introvert, so to me, social media is a dream come true--social interaction and information sharing on MY terms! But I also do a lot of work with an extrovert who HATES all things Internet. At a minimum she needs to talk to (at?) me over the phone in order to get her thoughts in order. In her perfect world, though, I would be on call 24/7 to capture everything she says because she's never sure when she's going to come up with something good. Her response to just about every situation is "we need to have a meeting." I say this lovingly (we have a great relationship), but she's one of the people I have in mind to avoid by doing more things online. To me it would be so much EASIER to get to what I need.

So where does this take us? Tim Davies has one suggestion:

There is something interesting about looking for the 'bridging' technologies. The ways of meeting, or holding a conference call, that bring in benefits of social media and online technologies alongside an existing meeting/discussion practise - so that face-to-face meetings without their online compontent become unthinkable... and the online compotent without the face-to-face becomes a bit more thinkable...

I've been exploring this a bit with conference calls, using parallel online workspaces for note-taking (http://www.thinkature.com was particularly interesting to use), and through making sure from meetings information is captured and fed back to people through an online tool - rather than as an e-mail attachment / paper minutes. By offering the online element and tools 'in-addition', no-one is forced at first to engage any of the extra features (or as they may see - complexity) - but as participants come to experience the added value - the hope is that they choose to use these tools and that they transition away from inefficient ways of meeting...

Very true and this feeds back into what Harold suggested, which is finding ways to get people comfortable with the technology.

I also think that at a minimum, we need to do a better job with structuring meetings and outcomes and being sure to share that information on the web using tools like tagging and RSS so that people see how information can be better categorized, accessed and used when we put it online. One of the beauties of online meeting, I think, is the creation of re-usable bits of knowledge that can always be accessed and re-packaged long after a meeting is over.

But at the same time I recognize that at least for the foreseeable future, people will still want face-to-face. It may be something that we've evolved to need, as Chris and Bronwyn suggest. Or it may just be that it makes us comfortable. Regardless, I'm afraid we'll always have meetings. The best I can do is to figure out how to eliminate some and then make those that remain more productive.

A Plea to Re-Think The Desire to Meet

Question for the Day: Why does the face-to-face model of sharing information persist?

Currently I'm working with a state-wide group of youth providers working on a specific grant.  One member recently circulated an email asking if people were interested in meeting for a few days and if they were, what did they want to accomplish?

Within minutes, several emails came back indicating that 1) getting away to a meeting would be difficult and 2) if they were to meet, the main reason to do so would be to share information and answer some specific questions they have about how to operate their programs.

Since I've immersed myself in social media tools, I've found that in most situations, I will now ask myself if this is something that could be done more effectively and efficiently on the web. In this case, the first thing I thought was "Why do we need to meet? We should just set up a wiki with the questions and then have people post responses and resources to answer them." Apparently I'm alone in this thought process, though, as meeting organizers are forging ahead.

This got me thinking--Why is it that within certain circles, the first response to information-gathering is to have a meeting?

Having a meeting makes no sense to me when people are short on time to begin with and when many would be traveling 3-4 hours and would have to stay overnight to participate. Finding an online solution would be more cost-effective, make better use of everyone's time and would also provide a permanent repository for the information that these people will undoubtedly need again at some point.

Sometimes I think I'm missing something. Is it possible that because I'm so web-enabled I'm forgetting about the importance of face-to-face meetings and need to quit thinking that the answer can always be found online? (Of course, there's irony in the fact that I searched for answers to this question on the web).

Cliff Allen at SuretoMeet has a good answer to this question, I think:

As his chart suggests, if people are short on time and they need to gather information, then online is the way to go. If, on the other hand, they are seeking to build relationships and to become motivated and inspired, then face-to-face is the answer.

In the case of the group I'm working with, the clear reason for the meeting is to share information. Many members are already working together, so relationships aren't the focus. They may want a little inspiration, but in my experience with this group, the meetings they hold don't necessarily accomplish that objective.

So why does face-to-face persist? A few reasons, I think:

• They've always done it this way.
• They haven't moved into that web-enabled mindset of asking if it's something that could be better accomplished with online tools.
• They have (in my mind, unfounded) faith that when people meet, there is actually a structured transfer of information.

On that last point--if meetings were such a great way to be sure that people had the detailed information they needed to do their jobs, why is it that we continually revisit the same questions in every meeting? In the case of the group I'm working with, the questions they want answers to are questions they've wanted answered in every face-to-face gathering we've had in the past year! Obviously face-to-face isn't working too well for them.

I suppose that this is all part of the issue of technology stewardship--helping people realize when it makes sense to use technology to get things done. Sometimes I'm frustrated, though, by the persistence of the old ways of thinking. Or maybe it's just that I don't want to have to lose a day in order to get the information I need when there are better ways to do the job.

Am I off-base?

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The Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Portal

In the past few days, I've found a number of new portals online. I'm starting to wonder if we can't learn a thing or two from what's happening.

First, via Eisenblog, came Open Learn University's portal, created by Stuart Brown in Netvibes to support OU students and instructors.

Then I find Crimson Connect, the student-run Harvard University portal, developed in the wake of student dissatisfaction with Harvard's "Official" website. (Take note--if you don't create a useful website for your organization, someone else might take matters into their own hands).

And finally, last night I see that Impactiviti has launched a Training Bloggers portal using Pageflakes, featuring feeds from some of the best bloggers in the training and development space. This on the heels of two other portals they've created--Pharmacentral for the pharmaceutical industry and the Marketing Bloggers portal for marketers.

So why should we care?

First, take a quick look around each portal. Harvard's includes access to email and Facebook, shuttle schedules, Boston weather, feeds to student clubs, athletic events and activities, the library--even dining hall menus. Open Learn University's portal has video lesson feeds, feeds to each of their departments, and a keyword search of their content. The Training Bloggers portal includes feeds to several different categories of T&D blogs, pre-selected for quality.

Think about how these types of portals could be used in the nonprofit world:

• Create a "cause-related" portal that includes feeds to related blogs, audio, video, etc., as well as a calendar of events, etc. I've written about this before and I'm really seeing the possibilities now.

• Create portals to support better conferencing. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about how to improve the conference experience. Portals are another option. Imagine sending an email out to all conference participants with a Netvibes or Pageflakes portal link that includes feeds to weather, newspapers, events, etc. in the location where you'll be holding the conference. It could also include a calendar of events and feeds to the wiki pages I suggested that you use to develop the conference agenda and get the conversation started. It could also include access to MySpace and Facebook modules, audio and video feeds on related content, email, etc. This can also become a way to follow-up on a conference, by adding feeds to those bloggers who are blogging the conference.
  

• Create an organizational portal for staff and volunteers and make it the start page for staff so that they can be updated daily on what's happening in the organization.

Putting together a portal is really not that difficult. It's a matter of finding the content you want to include,  setting up the tabs in Pageflakes and/or  Netvibes and then sharing them with the world.

You can see how other people are already doing it. Tony Hirst blogs here about how he created the predecessor to the Open Learn University portal.  PC World  has an article about creating a Netvibes portal or you can check out this screencast that will give you the basic elements of setting up and configuring an account and using tabsharing. If you're interested in Pageflakes, then this tutorial can help get you started.

The tools are there. Many people are already using them. It's just a matter of us figuring out how to use them on an organizational scale to create value for various stakeholders. As I watch what other people are doing with these tools, I can't help but feel that we may be missing something big if we don't act soon.