Technology and Corporate Training: Webinars, Video Conferencing and Podcasts
To meet the evolving demands of a global marketplace, businesses are searching to find inexpensive and alternative solutions to keep their employees knowledgeable and prepared for the varying consumer trends. As a result, it has become necessary for many businesses to replace critical components of their traditional training models with cost effective solutions. For many companies, that solution has come in the way of webinars, video conferencing, and podcasts.
Webinars, video conferencing, and podcasts serve as an interactive, affordable alternative that covers global borders, budget constraints, and uses the latest technology to further company’s training and development initiative.
1) it shows digital convergence by crossing global boundaries
2) Questions can be typed in the screen; red, yellow and blue boxes; interactive table digiselves that can be manipulated to facilitate the training.
3) Affordable alternative in the economic crunch, no hotel fees, air travel or ect.
4) Combines video, audio, and text
5) Podcasts can be chronicled and categorized to provide access to training anytime
6) Facilitator can be located in one geographic location and the trainees in other geographic locations.
7) Can be translated into any language
8) Streaming links and RSS feeds
9) WWW
10) Different industries that are on the cutting edge-pharmacy, corporate, real estate, retail, schools.
11) The LMS system for target
*What am I trying to prove?
1) Is this new way of training effective in all areas: cost, knowledge,easy?
2) How does this affect employees perception of company training? How do they feel about it?
3) how does this exemplify digital convergence.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
topic and potential thesis
Digital Media Convergence-
Technology and the Corporate Meeting: Webinars, Video Conferencing and Podcasts
To meet the evolving demands of a global marketplace, businesses are searching to find inexpensive and alternative solutions to keep their employees knowledgeable and prepared for the varying consumer trends. As a result, it has become necessary for many businesses to replace critical components of their traditional training models with cost effective solutions. For many companies, that solution has come in the way of webinars, video conferencing, and podcasts.
Technology and the Corporate Meeting: Webinars, Video Conferencing and Podcasts
To meet the evolving demands of a global marketplace, businesses are searching to find inexpensive and alternative solutions to keep their employees knowledgeable and prepared for the varying consumer trends. As a result, it has become necessary for many businesses to replace critical components of their traditional training models with cost effective solutions. For many companies, that solution has come in the way of webinars, video conferencing, and podcasts.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
webinars and digital convergence
1) http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e097d797f8c69b86b668274eb1867385f562b135743f9d6acafb7ed89d1aae052&fmt=H
2)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F02946%2Fzh4jq%2Fifd.pdf?auth=co&id=8540&part=3
3) http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e097d797f8c69b86b668274eb1867385f5314dcd0113ac91b3d81f2158c2c44f4&fmt=H
4)http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e097d797f8c69b86b668274eb1867385f5314dcd0113ac91b3d81f2158c2c44f4&fmt=H
5)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F07322%2Fmdd8x%2Fxsy.pdf?auth=co&id=8543&part=3
6)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03153%2F3h81d%2F0f8.pdf?auth=co&id=8544&part=3
7)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F17xv4%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8545&part=3
8)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F16xv4%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8546&part=3
9)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F1x8gy%2F3fx.pdf?auth=co&id=8547&part=3
10)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F1x8gy%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8548&part=3
2)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F02946%2Fzh4jq%2Fifd.pdf?auth=co&id=8540&part=3
3) http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e097d797f8c69b86b668274eb1867385f5314dcd0113ac91b3d81f2158c2c44f4&fmt=H
4)http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e097d797f8c69b86b668274eb1867385f5314dcd0113ac91b3d81f2158c2c44f4&fmt=H
5)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F07322%2Fmdd8x%2Fxsy.pdf?auth=co&id=8543&part=3
6)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03153%2F3h81d%2F0f8.pdf?auth=co&id=8544&part=3
7)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F17xv4%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8545&part=3
8)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F16xv4%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8546&part=3
9)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F1x8gy%2F3fx.pdf?auth=co&id=8547&part=3
10)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03795%2F1x8gy%2Fdsv.pdf?auth=co&id=8548&part=3
and there was more....
1)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=29371431&site=ehost-live
2)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=28037955&site=ehost-live
3)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=28349790&site=ehost-live
4)Pitching 401(k)s To Generation Y Is a Tough Sell Jennifer Levitz. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern Edition). New York, N.Y.:Sep 27, 2006. p. B.1
5)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F01546%2Fejbj9%2Fpfg.pdf?auth=co&id=8536&part=3
6)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F02191%2F2bvby%2Fysh.pdf?auth=co&id=8537&part=3
7)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03170%2Fm8d55%2F5sd.pdf?auth=co&id=8538&part=3
2)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=28037955&site=ehost-live
3)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=28349790&site=ehost-live
4)Pitching 401(k)s To Generation Y Is a Tough Sell Jennifer Levitz. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern Edition). New York, N.Y.:Sep 27, 2006. p. B.1
5)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F01546%2Fejbj9%2Fpfg.pdf?auth=co&id=8536&part=3
6)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F02191%2F2bvby%2Fysh.pdf?auth=co&id=8537&part=3
7)http://students.rider.edu/service/home/~/%2F%2Fwilsontxt.hwwilson.com%2Fpdffull%2F03170%2Fm8d55%2F5sd.pdf?auth=co&id=8538&part=3
more reference links
SUPPORTING DISTANCE COLLABORATION
As part of a research program on distance collaboration at Sun Microsystems, we carried out a study of a number of groups, each of which was located in more than one geographical location and had well-established practices for collaborating despite the separation.
We looked for groups reflecting a range of technologies. Our focus was on a series of regularly-held distance meetings with participation from all locations (e.g., staff meetings). We were interested in the use of various distance technologies (audio, video, and data sharing) in making these meetings and the collaboration within the group possible. Our goal was to observe well-established practices, learn what did and did not work, and--where appropriate--intervene with new technology and ways of using it that might improve the collaboration.
Our study produced a number of conceptual framings and corresponding practices that provided better support for distance meetings. We will discuss three of these here: 1) the conceptual framework of a distance meeting place; 2) the mandate to level the playing field in distance meetings; and 3) the importance of providing local hosts. From local to distance meeting places
1) Local meeting places. It is natural to think of a meeting occurring in a physical space--an office, a conference room, or even a hallway. However, it is interesting to note that participants work to create the conceptual space that holds their meeting. For instance, meetings may migrate, leaving one space and continuing in another, or they may take place in spaces occupied by others not participating in the meeting (e.g., hallways, cafeterias, large rooms, and shared offices). Consequently, work must be done to identify and separate the meeting within space, across time, and across people.
We will use the term place to refer to this conceptual location within which a meeting occurs.
The notion of the place of a meeting can be usefully extended to cover its existence in time as well as space. The bracketing of a meeting with "start" and "stop" is also a production of its participants, and may be quite complex. Bracketing the meeting may include negotiating to acquire the space, deciding to start the meeting, transitioning from a preceding meeting, following a separate meeting that has some of the same participants, deciding to end the meeting, and relinquishing the space to others.
2) Distance meeting places. It is attractive to analyze distance meetings as a pair or group of connected local meetings.
However, an alternative framing leads to an entirely different view: Just as we discovered that installing continuously on video between two offices at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, created the perception of a single shared office, we learned at Sun that a distance meeting occurs in a single constructed place called a distance meeting place.
Distance meeting places are constructed just as local meeting places are. The participants construct them in the course of their activity, and refer to them naturally as places. For example, a telephone call exists not here or there, but in some (distance meeting) place encompassing both. The there in "Are you still there?" refers to that place, and also appears as, "Are you still here?" or "Are you still on?"
Similarly, a meeting composed of 35 people in two conference rooms, with an additional eight people calling in from their desks, and five more from their homes, is experienced as a single place. For example, we observed participants asking, "Who's just joined us?" and "Is George here?"
Along the same lines, a participant in a video-based staff meeting stated, "I am counting on all of you in this room [to help me review this]." The room referred to was neither of the two physical rooms involved, but rather the place--a conceptually constructed room--holding all participants in the distance meeting.
That people are creating distance meeting places is supported by much of what we observed in our study. Their behavior reflects that they are doing whatever is necessary to create a single distance meeting place out of actual local spaces and the communication mechanisms that serve as raw material.
Further, the construction of a distance meeting place from local spaces may or may not be accompanied by the creation of local meeting places. For example, in a large distance meeting, the larger groups in two sites each constructed a local meeting place as well as the place for the distance meeting, while several calling in from their desks at another site were part of only the distance meeting place. We saw an interesting contrast between the orientations of these two types of participants. Both were oriented "out" to the distance meeting place, as evidenced by addressing everyone and looking into the middle distance when interacting. However, participants in the large local meetings were also involved in exchanges that took place solely in their local meeting places, as evidenced by strong eye contact and visible gesturing. An interesting boundary case was a meeting in which two people who usually called in from their individual offices participated together by sharing a telephone in a local conference room. Much of the time both participants oriented to the distance meeting place; it was as though each was still in their own private space. Level playing field
Ideally, a distance meeting would provide an experience just like being present in a local meeting. In reality, however, the addition of distance technologies to communication media changes things radically. Different technologies have different characteristics and introduce different constraints and benefits, and are therefore appropriate for different circumstances.
1) Local meeting work. The task of holding meetings is work and requires skill. As part of membership in a working group, people develop meeting skills of considerable complexity and sophistication. Moreover, people count on the system that supports meetings to provide many things for them as participants. There are many such provisions. They include being able to:
a) see who is present and what they are doing.
b) hear participants talk.
c) see how participants react.
d) make yourself heard.
e) direct remarks to one or more people.
f) shape your behavior to affect or minimize the effect on others.
g) design what you say specifically for the person you are addressing ("recipient design").
These characteristics are also reciprocal. If something is true of the action/relation from me to you, then it is true of the action/relation from you to me.
2) Meeting skills. A distance meeting is regarded as a meeting, and therefore people use their existing meeting skills. In the absence of anything else, people bring to bear on the distance meeting all their skills for acting in local meetings.
3) Providing equal access. We take it for granted that the space in which we work supports these meeting activities in a uniform way, providing equal access to all participants across physical locations. Actually, even local spaces do not provide equal access. That reality, however, is over-shadowed and forgotten by people using sophisticated skills to repair difficulties. For ex ample, they move their chairs so they can see, look uncertain when communication is unclear, or cup an ear to signal to speakers that they are having trouble hearing.
Distance technology does a much poorer job of providing equality of access. Remote participants are harder to hear and see, and in telephone conferences, it is much harder to tell when they are present. The presence of the local reality is much stronger than the presence of the remote reality. Lacking pressures to the contrary, people are likely to forget about the remote realities in favor of the local realities that impinge on them much more strongly.
Interestingly, much can be done to reduce this discrepancy of access between the local and the remote. Practices specifically for this purpose can be introduced and enforced. We call this constructing a level playing field.
For example, in telephone conferences, a common practice is to show slides locally at all locations, synchronizing slide changes explicitly or technologically. However, our observations revealed that this practice has problems. First, the mechanics of synchronizing and confirming the changing of slides distracts people from attending to the content. More importantly, the local access to slides is such a strong force that participants local to the speaker will always have an advantage. Worse, speakers will inadvertently trade on their richer access to local participants, producing behavior that only works locally (e.g., pointing at a slide).
Creating a level playing field in this case produces a surprising result. Both remote and local people should work from handouts of the slides. All participants then have equal access to the material, which prompts the speaker, even when talking to local people, to refer to the slides in a way that works for everyone. In our study, we found the practice of everyone working from paper to be far superior to using slides alone. Local vs. distance hosting
Local hosting. One of the most important factors in supporting distance meetings is providing a coordinated hosting infrastructure. Setting up local meetings requires local access. The activities include determining that a room has appropriate, operational equipment; the room is available for use; and previous occupants have vacated the space in a timely fashion. Generally someone must set up equipment and be present before and during the meeting so that people know that the meeting is taking place and speakers have whatever they need. When a meeting is changed to another room at the last moment or even changed during the meeting, the host must arrange for all participants to be notified of the change.
Distance hosting. Distance meetings require local hosts at each space. These hosts carry out all the local hosting activities and ensure that they are coordinated. To achieve this, they need to be in touch with each other to bootstrap the communications, help break down the walls between the spaces, and set up the boundaries that identify and define the distance meeting. In short, as a team they must be the distributed support structure for the local meeting places and the distance meeting.
Three conceptual framings for supporting distance meetings have been discussed: 1) the idea of a distance meeting place; 2) the mandate to level the playing field in distance meetings; and 3) the importance of providing local hosts. These framings and mechanisms are effective in enabling participants in distance meetings to achieve the sense and actuality of collaboration that is normally produced and taken for granted in local meetings.
We would like to thank those at Sun Microsystems who made this project possible, particularly Eric Richert and Mattias Bergman of the Workplace Effectiveness Group of Workplace Resources. We would also like to thank the Sun work groups who participated with us and helped us explore and modify their working practices.
~~~~~~~~
By Austin Henderson, Ph.D. and Lynne Henderson, Ph.D.
Austin Henderson is an expert in computer science (Ph.D., MIT), ethnography, and design. His 35-year career in human/computer interaction includes research and architecture and design with BBN, Xerox, Apple, and Fitch. He is currently a principal of Rivendel Consulting & Design in La Honda, California, working with corporate customers in interface, product, and strategic design. Austin and Lynne are co-authors of the case study "Rearranging the Rooms." You may reach Henderson at henderson@rivcons.com
Lynne Henderson, Ph.D. is founder of the Social Fitness Center and a lecturer at Stanford University. She is also a principal of Rivendel Consulting & Design, a firm specializing in the design and development of socio-technical systems in support of work practice. She is currently studying emotion and cognition in technologically supported groups. You may reach Henderson via e-mail at lynne@psych.stanford.edu. Visit her organization's website at www.socialfitness.com.
As part of a research program on distance collaboration at Sun Microsystems, we carried out a study of a number of groups, each of which was located in more than one geographical location and had well-established practices for collaborating despite the separation.
We looked for groups reflecting a range of technologies. Our focus was on a series of regularly-held distance meetings with participation from all locations (e.g., staff meetings). We were interested in the use of various distance technologies (audio, video, and data sharing) in making these meetings and the collaboration within the group possible. Our goal was to observe well-established practices, learn what did and did not work, and--where appropriate--intervene with new technology and ways of using it that might improve the collaboration.
Our study produced a number of conceptual framings and corresponding practices that provided better support for distance meetings. We will discuss three of these here: 1) the conceptual framework of a distance meeting place; 2) the mandate to level the playing field in distance meetings; and 3) the importance of providing local hosts. From local to distance meeting places
1) Local meeting places. It is natural to think of a meeting occurring in a physical space--an office, a conference room, or even a hallway. However, it is interesting to note that participants work to create the conceptual space that holds their meeting. For instance, meetings may migrate, leaving one space and continuing in another, or they may take place in spaces occupied by others not participating in the meeting (e.g., hallways, cafeterias, large rooms, and shared offices). Consequently, work must be done to identify and separate the meeting within space, across time, and across people.
We will use the term place to refer to this conceptual location within which a meeting occurs.
The notion of the place of a meeting can be usefully extended to cover its existence in time as well as space. The bracketing of a meeting with "start" and "stop" is also a production of its participants, and may be quite complex. Bracketing the meeting may include negotiating to acquire the space, deciding to start the meeting, transitioning from a preceding meeting, following a separate meeting that has some of the same participants, deciding to end the meeting, and relinquishing the space to others.
2) Distance meeting places. It is attractive to analyze distance meetings as a pair or group of connected local meetings.
However, an alternative framing leads to an entirely different view: Just as we discovered that installing continuously on video between two offices at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, created the perception of a single shared office, we learned at Sun that a distance meeting occurs in a single constructed place called a distance meeting place.
Distance meeting places are constructed just as local meeting places are. The participants construct them in the course of their activity, and refer to them naturally as places. For example, a telephone call exists not here or there, but in some (distance meeting) place encompassing both. The there in "Are you still there?" refers to that place, and also appears as, "Are you still here?" or "Are you still on?"
Similarly, a meeting composed of 35 people in two conference rooms, with an additional eight people calling in from their desks, and five more from their homes, is experienced as a single place. For example, we observed participants asking, "Who's just joined us?" and "Is George here?"
Along the same lines, a participant in a video-based staff meeting stated, "I am counting on all of you in this room [to help me review this]." The room referred to was neither of the two physical rooms involved, but rather the place--a conceptually constructed room--holding all participants in the distance meeting.
That people are creating distance meeting places is supported by much of what we observed in our study. Their behavior reflects that they are doing whatever is necessary to create a single distance meeting place out of actual local spaces and the communication mechanisms that serve as raw material.
Further, the construction of a distance meeting place from local spaces may or may not be accompanied by the creation of local meeting places. For example, in a large distance meeting, the larger groups in two sites each constructed a local meeting place as well as the place for the distance meeting, while several calling in from their desks at another site were part of only the distance meeting place. We saw an interesting contrast between the orientations of these two types of participants. Both were oriented "out" to the distance meeting place, as evidenced by addressing everyone and looking into the middle distance when interacting. However, participants in the large local meetings were also involved in exchanges that took place solely in their local meeting places, as evidenced by strong eye contact and visible gesturing. An interesting boundary case was a meeting in which two people who usually called in from their individual offices participated together by sharing a telephone in a local conference room. Much of the time both participants oriented to the distance meeting place; it was as though each was still in their own private space. Level playing field
Ideally, a distance meeting would provide an experience just like being present in a local meeting. In reality, however, the addition of distance technologies to communication media changes things radically. Different technologies have different characteristics and introduce different constraints and benefits, and are therefore appropriate for different circumstances.
1) Local meeting work. The task of holding meetings is work and requires skill. As part of membership in a working group, people develop meeting skills of considerable complexity and sophistication. Moreover, people count on the system that supports meetings to provide many things for them as participants. There are many such provisions. They include being able to:
a) see who is present and what they are doing.
b) hear participants talk.
c) see how participants react.
d) make yourself heard.
e) direct remarks to one or more people.
f) shape your behavior to affect or minimize the effect on others.
g) design what you say specifically for the person you are addressing ("recipient design").
These characteristics are also reciprocal. If something is true of the action/relation from me to you, then it is true of the action/relation from you to me.
2) Meeting skills. A distance meeting is regarded as a meeting, and therefore people use their existing meeting skills. In the absence of anything else, people bring to bear on the distance meeting all their skills for acting in local meetings.
3) Providing equal access. We take it for granted that the space in which we work supports these meeting activities in a uniform way, providing equal access to all participants across physical locations. Actually, even local spaces do not provide equal access. That reality, however, is over-shadowed and forgotten by people using sophisticated skills to repair difficulties. For ex ample, they move their chairs so they can see, look uncertain when communication is unclear, or cup an ear to signal to speakers that they are having trouble hearing.
Distance technology does a much poorer job of providing equality of access. Remote participants are harder to hear and see, and in telephone conferences, it is much harder to tell when they are present. The presence of the local reality is much stronger than the presence of the remote reality. Lacking pressures to the contrary, people are likely to forget about the remote realities in favor of the local realities that impinge on them much more strongly.
Interestingly, much can be done to reduce this discrepancy of access between the local and the remote. Practices specifically for this purpose can be introduced and enforced. We call this constructing a level playing field.
For example, in telephone conferences, a common practice is to show slides locally at all locations, synchronizing slide changes explicitly or technologically. However, our observations revealed that this practice has problems. First, the mechanics of synchronizing and confirming the changing of slides distracts people from attending to the content. More importantly, the local access to slides is such a strong force that participants local to the speaker will always have an advantage. Worse, speakers will inadvertently trade on their richer access to local participants, producing behavior that only works locally (e.g., pointing at a slide).
Creating a level playing field in this case produces a surprising result. Both remote and local people should work from handouts of the slides. All participants then have equal access to the material, which prompts the speaker, even when talking to local people, to refer to the slides in a way that works for everyone. In our study, we found the practice of everyone working from paper to be far superior to using slides alone. Local vs. distance hosting
Local hosting. One of the most important factors in supporting distance meetings is providing a coordinated hosting infrastructure. Setting up local meetings requires local access. The activities include determining that a room has appropriate, operational equipment; the room is available for use; and previous occupants have vacated the space in a timely fashion. Generally someone must set up equipment and be present before and during the meeting so that people know that the meeting is taking place and speakers have whatever they need. When a meeting is changed to another room at the last moment or even changed during the meeting, the host must arrange for all participants to be notified of the change.
Distance hosting. Distance meetings require local hosts at each space. These hosts carry out all the local hosting activities and ensure that they are coordinated. To achieve this, they need to be in touch with each other to bootstrap the communications, help break down the walls between the spaces, and set up the boundaries that identify and define the distance meeting. In short, as a team they must be the distributed support structure for the local meeting places and the distance meeting.
Three conceptual framings for supporting distance meetings have been discussed: 1) the idea of a distance meeting place; 2) the mandate to level the playing field in distance meetings; and 3) the importance of providing local hosts. These framings and mechanisms are effective in enabling participants in distance meetings to achieve the sense and actuality of collaboration that is normally produced and taken for granted in local meetings.
We would like to thank those at Sun Microsystems who made this project possible, particularly Eric Richert and Mattias Bergman of the Workplace Effectiveness Group of Workplace Resources. We would also like to thank the Sun work groups who participated with us and helped us explore and modify their working practices.
~~~~~~~~
By Austin Henderson, Ph.D. and Lynne Henderson, Ph.D.
Austin Henderson is an expert in computer science (Ph.D., MIT), ethnography, and design. His 35-year career in human/computer interaction includes research and architecture and design with BBN, Xerox, Apple, and Fitch. He is currently a principal of Rivendel Consulting & Design in La Honda, California, working with corporate customers in interface, product, and strategic design. Austin and Lynne are co-authors of the case study "Rearranging the Rooms." You may reach Henderson at henderson@rivcons.com
Lynne Henderson, Ph.D. is founder of the Social Fitness Center and a lecturer at Stanford University. She is also a principal of Rivendel Consulting & Design, a firm specializing in the design and development of socio-technical systems in support of work practice. She is currently studying emotion and cognition in technologically supported groups. You may reach Henderson via e-mail at lynne@psych.stanford.edu. Visit her organization's website at www.socialfitness.com.
potential bibliographic references
Collaboration Gets It Together
As collaboration tools mature, they are being assembled into virtual workspaces that can bring employees and companies together.
AFTER YEARS OF HYPE, collaboration tools may finally be approaching that elusive goal of enabling employees, vendors and customers to work with one another when they're in different locations as smoothly as they can in face-to-face meetings. And for those organizing the meetings, these tools can help them do it a whole lot more efficiently than ever before.
Collaboration technologies had their humble beginnings in e-mail but now include everything from application sharing to workflow management to videoconferencing. But what's finally bringing these technologies into companies is the way they are being assembled into virtual workspaces.
"We were going crazy," says Christy Keener, senior vice president of organization at CNA Insurance in Chicago. She had the job of bringing together 350 people from different parts of the company to review corporate strategies and direction. Prior to the conference, those involved became bogged down in project status reports, budgeting, conference goals and, in particular, review and discussion of key documents. With input from hundreds of dispersed groups, keeping track of changes and responding to the revisions of others proved to be a nightmare. By setting up a hosted virtual office using the Caucus Consortium's Team software, Keener grabbed control of document tracking.
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Caucus Consortium is composed of a software firm, collaboration consulting firms and an educational institution. Team is part of a new generation of virtual workplaces. Available either as an in-house or a hosted product, the software combines communication, document management and project management features into a customizable, virtual-team portal.
"That project launched our use of collaboration technology," says Keener. "We couldn't possibly have managed without those tools."
CNA's experience is far from unique. Although the basics of collaboration involve nothing new, the tools have finally matured to the point where they can facilitate human interaction without being a burden on IT or users. As a result, Framingham, Mass.-based IDC estimates that companies have spent about $4.5 billion on collaboration applications this year.
Those sales are being driven not by technological breakthroughs so much as by product packaging and integration. Much like collections of related office or systems management applications, collaboration software packages now come bundled with tools for emulating every aspect of an office environment, from physical features such as conference rooms, bulletin boards, telephones, file cabinets and calendars to interpersonal interactions such as chat and document exchange. The latest tools create realistic virtual offices, minus the coffee.Virtual Offices
Typically, virtual offices are set up as secure intranet or extranet portals. Some are designed to resemble a physical office, with "walls" where information can be posted or accessed. Team members have "facilities" to communicate with one another and move the project to its conclusion. These include all documents created during the project, discussion archives, calendars, bulletin boards and timelines as well as communication tools such as e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing. One useful newcomer is presence management, which works like AOL Instant Messenger's "buddy list" -- an icon or picture indicates who is currently logged into the office and available for real-time interaction.
At CNA, for example, any employee can access the portal, which has a steady feed of insurance industry news and company announcements, plus links to the corporate knowledge base and e-learning area. On the left of the screen is a button that CNA employees who are members of a virtual team can click on to access their virtual office.
CNA uses Collaboration Architects LLC, a consulting firm in Falls Church, Va., that's part of the Caucus Consortium, to customize each of the virtual offices with the tools needed by a particular team. Features include a general discussion space, project management and budgeting tools, status reports, issues logs, responsibility matrices, project goal and summary, as well as the normal communication and document storage and management functions.
And access to collaboration portals doesn't need to be limited to those within the organization. Environmental consulting firm Jones & Stokes Associates Inc. in Sacramento, Calif., for instance, often brings together staffers, clients, partners and subcontractors from around the western U.S. to prepare Environmental Impact Reports (EIR). Virtual offices created by Pleasanton, Calif.-based Documentum Inc.'s eRoom application include repositories of thousands of references used in compiling an EIR. Once a document is authored, eRoom automatically notifies the next person on the approval line that it's ready for review.
"One client became excited about having documents online because now, for the first time, they had easy access to all of their own materials in a searchable format," says Lane Yago, who was manager of design and implementation for applied technology solutions at Jones & Stokes until he left the firm last month. "People are not used to having that kind of power."
Those consulted on EIRs can also use eRoom to share files during meetings, as long as participants have the appropriate software loaded on their workstations. For specialized and less-commonly used tools such as geographic information systems and computer-aided design software, participants can at least share screenshots.
Companies such as Jones & Stokes and CNA report no significant problems with implementation. It's quite likely that most companies already have the infrastructure needed to create virtual offices. Bandwidth needs are minimal unless you want to do videoconferencing, say users. Some companies may need to add one or more servers. Alternatively, collaboration packages can be outsourced.
Although CNA Insurance has a large internal IT group and Jones & Stokes has only a few IT staffers, both preferred to outsource because they could then scale collaboration services to meet their needs without having to provide IT support internally.
"If [Jones & Stokes] were a billion-dollar company with a 100-person IT group, [they] might do it in-house," says Yago. "Since the IT support team is busy maintaining the network, hardware and software for all branches of the company, it made more sense to outsource."Cultural Change
To spawn a new virtual room, all Jones & Stokes has to do is go to the Facilities screen, fill in the appropriate information, designate what type of shell or template to use and enter the naming convention. "It isn't deploying the technology that is challenging," says Yago. "It's getting the people to use [it], experience the benefits and turn it into a standard practice."
According to Yago, the virtual office concept requires IT to spend a lot of time training users and becoming familiar with the demands of each project so the collaboration environment is optimized for the task at hand. Before setting up a new room at Jones & Stokes, Yago would meet with the project managers to make sure he understood all the physical things that needed to be done on the project, who would do what, and most important, the intended final product. He could then automate the processes and leverage eRoom to obtain the desired result.
ERoom has several templates to make configuration easier, but they must still be customized to specific project needs. Setting up a site is a matter of assembling the virtual office out of the pieces available in the template, so it's less customizable than if a company owned all the underlying software. The trade-off is in terms of ease of use; you just click on the features to add them. The eRoom Web site has samples of the templates that visitors can play with to see if the software meets their companies' needs.
However, notes Keener, virtual office packages may not be right for every meeting. CNA uses Caucus' Team software for big events, such as the 350-person convention described earlier and a finance project involving about 40 people. But a virtual meeting room can be overkill for smaller projects that involve only a handful of people, especially if the participants can meet in person without much trouble or expense.
Keener's advice: Start out with a couple of teams for which face-to-face meetings would clearly be too expensive or time-consuming. Then scale it down until you find the size and type of meeting where the collaboration suite itself becomes a burden. "Where the circumstances make it easier and more convenient to use the tool, people will use it," she explains. "You have to look for the right degree of pain."Functions of Common Collaborative Tools Matching collaborative
tools to appropriate
functions is key to
creating an efficient
virtual workspace.
Legend for Chart:
B - Goal-setting Design
C - Norm-setting Design
D - Business rules Design
E - Roles & responsibilities Design
F - Custom interface Design
G - Wizards & templates Design
H - Web-based media Data Collection
I - Rich media Data Collection
J - Enterprise data Data Collection
K - Document management Data Collection
L - Productivity tools Processing
M - Data analysis tools Processing
N - Group decision tools Processing
O - Application sharing Processing
P - Project management Action
Q - Workflow Action
R - Synchronous Discussion
S - Asynchronous Discussion
T - Streaming Discussion
U - Structured Discussion
V - Organized Discussion
W - Branching & linear Discussion
X - Forms-based Discussion
Y - Web access Access
Z - E-mail access Access
AA - Wireless access Access
BA - Shared presence Success Factors
CA - Personal information Success Factors
DA - Consulting & training Success Factors
EA - Time-bounded events Success Factors
FA - Team building Success Factors
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q
R S T U V W X Y
Z AA BA CA DA EA FA
E-mail (*) (*) X
X X X X
X
X X
Chat (*) (*)
--
X X X
X X
Instant messaging (*)
--
X X X
X
Discussion boards (*) X X (*) X X
(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*)
X X X X X (*) X
(*) X X X
Webcasting X (*) (*) X X
(*) X
X (*) (*) X
X X
Virtual workgroup X X (*) X
X X (*) X X
X (*) (*) X
X
E-commerce apps --
X (*) X
X (*) (*) X
X = Supported, (*) = Partially supported
SOURCE: CAUCUS SYSTEMS, ANN ARBOR, MICH.
~~~~~~~~
By Drew Robb
Robb is a freelance writer in Tujunga, Calif.
As collaboration tools mature, they are being assembled into virtual workspaces that can bring employees and companies together.
AFTER YEARS OF HYPE, collaboration tools may finally be approaching that elusive goal of enabling employees, vendors and customers to work with one another when they're in different locations as smoothly as they can in face-to-face meetings. And for those organizing the meetings, these tools can help them do it a whole lot more efficiently than ever before.
Collaboration technologies had their humble beginnings in e-mail but now include everything from application sharing to workflow management to videoconferencing. But what's finally bringing these technologies into companies is the way they are being assembled into virtual workspaces.
"We were going crazy," says Christy Keener, senior vice president of organization at CNA Insurance in Chicago. She had the job of bringing together 350 people from different parts of the company to review corporate strategies and direction. Prior to the conference, those involved became bogged down in project status reports, budgeting, conference goals and, in particular, review and discussion of key documents. With input from hundreds of dispersed groups, keeping track of changes and responding to the revisions of others proved to be a nightmare. By setting up a hosted virtual office using the Caucus Consortium's Team software, Keener grabbed control of document tracking.
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Caucus Consortium is composed of a software firm, collaboration consulting firms and an educational institution. Team is part of a new generation of virtual workplaces. Available either as an in-house or a hosted product, the software combines communication, document management and project management features into a customizable, virtual-team portal.
"That project launched our use of collaboration technology," says Keener. "We couldn't possibly have managed without those tools."
CNA's experience is far from unique. Although the basics of collaboration involve nothing new, the tools have finally matured to the point where they can facilitate human interaction without being a burden on IT or users. As a result, Framingham, Mass.-based IDC estimates that companies have spent about $4.5 billion on collaboration applications this year.
Those sales are being driven not by technological breakthroughs so much as by product packaging and integration. Much like collections of related office or systems management applications, collaboration software packages now come bundled with tools for emulating every aspect of an office environment, from physical features such as conference rooms, bulletin boards, telephones, file cabinets and calendars to interpersonal interactions such as chat and document exchange. The latest tools create realistic virtual offices, minus the coffee.Virtual Offices
Typically, virtual offices are set up as secure intranet or extranet portals. Some are designed to resemble a physical office, with "walls" where information can be posted or accessed. Team members have "facilities" to communicate with one another and move the project to its conclusion. These include all documents created during the project, discussion archives, calendars, bulletin boards and timelines as well as communication tools such as e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing. One useful newcomer is presence management, which works like AOL Instant Messenger's "buddy list" -- an icon or picture indicates who is currently logged into the office and available for real-time interaction.
At CNA, for example, any employee can access the portal, which has a steady feed of insurance industry news and company announcements, plus links to the corporate knowledge base and e-learning area. On the left of the screen is a button that CNA employees who are members of a virtual team can click on to access their virtual office.
CNA uses Collaboration Architects LLC, a consulting firm in Falls Church, Va., that's part of the Caucus Consortium, to customize each of the virtual offices with the tools needed by a particular team. Features include a general discussion space, project management and budgeting tools, status reports, issues logs, responsibility matrices, project goal and summary, as well as the normal communication and document storage and management functions.
And access to collaboration portals doesn't need to be limited to those within the organization. Environmental consulting firm Jones & Stokes Associates Inc. in Sacramento, Calif., for instance, often brings together staffers, clients, partners and subcontractors from around the western U.S. to prepare Environmental Impact Reports (EIR). Virtual offices created by Pleasanton, Calif.-based Documentum Inc.'s eRoom application include repositories of thousands of references used in compiling an EIR. Once a document is authored, eRoom automatically notifies the next person on the approval line that it's ready for review.
"One client became excited about having documents online because now, for the first time, they had easy access to all of their own materials in a searchable format," says Lane Yago, who was manager of design and implementation for applied technology solutions at Jones & Stokes until he left the firm last month. "People are not used to having that kind of power."
Those consulted on EIRs can also use eRoom to share files during meetings, as long as participants have the appropriate software loaded on their workstations. For specialized and less-commonly used tools such as geographic information systems and computer-aided design software, participants can at least share screenshots.
Companies such as Jones & Stokes and CNA report no significant problems with implementation. It's quite likely that most companies already have the infrastructure needed to create virtual offices. Bandwidth needs are minimal unless you want to do videoconferencing, say users. Some companies may need to add one or more servers. Alternatively, collaboration packages can be outsourced.
Although CNA Insurance has a large internal IT group and Jones & Stokes has only a few IT staffers, both preferred to outsource because they could then scale collaboration services to meet their needs without having to provide IT support internally.
"If [Jones & Stokes] were a billion-dollar company with a 100-person IT group, [they] might do it in-house," says Yago. "Since the IT support team is busy maintaining the network, hardware and software for all branches of the company, it made more sense to outsource."Cultural Change
To spawn a new virtual room, all Jones & Stokes has to do is go to the Facilities screen, fill in the appropriate information, designate what type of shell or template to use and enter the naming convention. "It isn't deploying the technology that is challenging," says Yago. "It's getting the people to use [it], experience the benefits and turn it into a standard practice."
According to Yago, the virtual office concept requires IT to spend a lot of time training users and becoming familiar with the demands of each project so the collaboration environment is optimized for the task at hand. Before setting up a new room at Jones & Stokes, Yago would meet with the project managers to make sure he understood all the physical things that needed to be done on the project, who would do what, and most important, the intended final product. He could then automate the processes and leverage eRoom to obtain the desired result.
ERoom has several templates to make configuration easier, but they must still be customized to specific project needs. Setting up a site is a matter of assembling the virtual office out of the pieces available in the template, so it's less customizable than if a company owned all the underlying software. The trade-off is in terms of ease of use; you just click on the features to add them. The eRoom Web site has samples of the templates that visitors can play with to see if the software meets their companies' needs.
However, notes Keener, virtual office packages may not be right for every meeting. CNA uses Caucus' Team software for big events, such as the 350-person convention described earlier and a finance project involving about 40 people. But a virtual meeting room can be overkill for smaller projects that involve only a handful of people, especially if the participants can meet in person without much trouble or expense.
Keener's advice: Start out with a couple of teams for which face-to-face meetings would clearly be too expensive or time-consuming. Then scale it down until you find the size and type of meeting where the collaboration suite itself becomes a burden. "Where the circumstances make it easier and more convenient to use the tool, people will use it," she explains. "You have to look for the right degree of pain."Functions of Common Collaborative Tools Matching collaborative
tools to appropriate
functions is key to
creating an efficient
virtual workspace.
Legend for Chart:
B - Goal-setting Design
C - Norm-setting Design
D - Business rules Design
E - Roles & responsibilities Design
F - Custom interface Design
G - Wizards & templates Design
H - Web-based media Data Collection
I - Rich media Data Collection
J - Enterprise data Data Collection
K - Document management Data Collection
L - Productivity tools Processing
M - Data analysis tools Processing
N - Group decision tools Processing
O - Application sharing Processing
P - Project management Action
Q - Workflow Action
R - Synchronous Discussion
S - Asynchronous Discussion
T - Streaming Discussion
U - Structured Discussion
V - Organized Discussion
W - Branching & linear Discussion
X - Forms-based Discussion
Y - Web access Access
Z - E-mail access Access
AA - Wireless access Access
BA - Shared presence Success Factors
CA - Personal information Success Factors
DA - Consulting & training Success Factors
EA - Time-bounded events Success Factors
FA - Team building Success Factors
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q
R S T U V W X Y
Z AA BA CA DA EA FA
E-mail (*) (*) X
X X X X
X
X X
Chat (*) (*)
--
X X X
X X
Instant messaging (*)
--
X X X
X
Discussion boards (*) X X (*) X X
(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*)
X X X X X (*) X
(*) X X X
Webcasting X (*) (*) X X
(*) X
X (*) (*) X
X X
Virtual workgroup X X (*) X
X X (*) X X
X (*) (*) X
X
E-commerce apps --
X (*) X
X (*) (*) X
X = Supported, (*) = Partially supported
SOURCE: CAUCUS SYSTEMS, ANN ARBOR, MICH.
~~~~~~~~
By Drew Robb
Robb is a freelance writer in Tujunga, Calif.
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