Use what you preach...

As I mentioned previously, with an American friend we developed a training module to demystify Web 2.0 for a leadership training course. Unfortunately, my friend could not be physically present in the meeting room and provided his contribution to the training remotely. As the session was going to take four hours, we referred back to POTS, the plane old telephone system, as we wanted to make absolutely sure the connection would stay open for the four hours.

At the start of the session, one of the attendees asked us why we did not use some of the technologies we highlighted, such as Skype, to give the training. We pointed out the need for reliability, and by a matter of fact, we were proved right, as some of the assistance got difficulties keeping their wireless Internet connection up and running for the duration of the training.

This got me thinking. In my previous post I spoke about advanced, 3D, collaboration tools. They are cool, but we all know they require quite some bandwidth, which may occasionally not be available, resulting in delays, crashes and frustration. Now, if it is to play a game, or having fun, that's perfectly fine. But when you have 30+ people in the room, expecting you to make the best out of the time allocated, and deliver them a perfect job, you can just not take the risk of having problems. And Murphy's law applies here too. If something can go wrong, it will at the worst possible time.

To make a long story short, the session went well and the participants gave excellent feedback. They felt they really learned something. We had no major hick-ups and the POTS did its work perfectly. The lesson I learn out of this, test out and play with the latest technologies, as it is important to understand what is out there and when to use it. But when you need to do a professional job, make sure to go back to some proven technology. The technology used by NASA in space shuttles is also old and proven.

Do I look like my Avatar?

In my last post we talked about NetMeeting and the fact it was rather old fashion. Let's now move to the other extreme, the use of 3D virtual collaboration software such as Qwaq, Nortel's Web.Alive or environments such as the ones that can be found in Second Life. In her blog entry "Restoring the Meaning of Virtual Collaboration", Patti Anklam speaks about Sun's Project Wonderland, another attempt in this area.

What is different is that, using a personification of yourself, called an avatar you basically work in a video game. You can walk through a room, where your presentation is hanging on the wall and stop, together with the avatars of the other people you are working with and discuss what is being displayed.

Is that science fiction? Actually not, early versions of such software is available today and companies are starting to use such collaboration approaches. The fundamental question in my mind is whether we actually need such fancy approaches or not. I am sure the younger generation, who grew up with video games, is fully acquainted to work that way. Others need to get used to it. I am asking myself what the added value is of going this far. Testing out some of the environments, I found the inclusion and update of the work documents rather slow.

Being able to share a common document or application is critical for virtual collaboration, being able to take control, enter information, perform changes etc. is mandatory. But do I need to have my avatar running around in a virtual room to achieve this? That's what I am absolutely not convinced about. I can already hear some of you telling me I'm old-fashion. And you may actually be right, but I am trying to separate hype from usefulness. And I cannot find the added value of my avatar.

Working remotely with somebody is unnerving for people that are not used to it, in the sense they are working with somebody they do not see. To address that, I used to swap photos with my remote collaborators. You may argue that this is the reason of the avatar. And it could be, unfortunately, you can choose any avatar, so there is no resemblance between your avatar and yourself. In that sense it defeats the purpose. Do you agree with me?

NetMeeting, a Dinosaur?

A couple weeks ago, a friend and I were asked to prepare a four hour session about web 2.0 for a leadership training course of one of our joint customers. They wanted an emphasis on collaboration, marketing and increased customer interaction. What made things interesting is that my friend lives and works in North America, while, as you know, I am living in Brussels. To make things even more interesting, my friend cannot be physically in the training room, but will have to call in remotely. This will really force us to use all the capabilities of the Internet. One of them that came to my mind immediately was obviously NetMeeting. I am saying obviously, because this is a tool both of us have been using over the years.

Googleling (is this actually English?) the term NetMeeting, I ran into a couple interesting pieces of information. First I found "The Web Conferencing Blog" where David Chao points out it is really a hassle to use the product as setting up the connection is lengthy and difficult and consists in getting IP addresses and typing them in. And yes, this is an issue I have personally experienced a number of times already, so I can relate to the post. However, NetMeeting is a tool that is  recognized and accepted by many IT departments. There exist many other tools, many of which are more effective and faster, but either they are not free, or not "safe" enough for the IT experts. David is also pointing out the product is obsolete and not ported to Vista.

Here I have to disagree with David, as I found on Kurt Shintaku's blog a note dated November 2nd (can I now time travel?) and pointing to the Beta version of NetMeeting 3.02 for Vista.

The reason we plan to use NetMeeting is that, despite the unfriendliness of the set-up of the connection, it is very easy to share control. In the training we are giving, we are sharing short sessions, and so being able to take control over at each session needs to be quick and fast.

So, yes, NetMeeting may sound like a dinosaur, but then a well preserved one that still provides a lot of service to many people.

Instant Messaging, more than a gadget

Instant messaging, whether it is MSN, Yahoo, AOL or any other, is a simple tool that allows quick interventions and fast responses. I have a tendency to use it all the time with my teams. It allows me to immediately have an answer to a question, without having to interrupt what the other is doing. It also allows me to trigger a conversation with a simple question, " are you available?". When I get that question, I typically respond with the telephone number of where I can be reached. It's an easy way for fast interactions, allowing each of us to continue our work without major interruptions. Unfortunately, our IT department, as many others I suppose, refuses the use of commercial Instant Messaging tools that allows collaboration across companies. There are apparently security risks of doing so. They now standardized us on Office Communicator, which is a nice product that integrates well with Outlook and shows automatically when you are available or not. But it does not allow access outside the firewall.

In that we are missing a major collaboration opportunity. Indeed, many of us are working with partners, our supply chain is reaching outside our own company. And it is with those people that we want and need to work. Do we need multiple instant messaging tools to achieve this? We shouldn't. Because there should not be a difference in the way we engage our best partners and our own resources. I still cannot understand why Microsoft and the others have not managed to solve the security issue. Or is there actually a security issue? Isn't it the will to be able to control what employees do with people outside the company?

The more our companies are going global, the more we need to work with people we only have electronic contact with. Making those relationships simple and easy, facilitating the communication, should be the number one goal of our IT departments. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. What do you think about this?

What tool for what collaboration?

In previous posts I talked about specific tools that can be used for collaboration. Today, I'd like to take the debate a little further. Increasingly I believe that there is no ONE tool that fits all types of collaboration. Unfortunately, I have not found any research on the subject of what tool to use for what type of interaction. There are plenty of tools out there, going from instant messaging to telepresence, and if my discussions with HPLabs researchers last week is any indication, there are several others to come. However, which tool is used when, is and remains the question.

Let me give you some examples, both in business and private life. You run a project with a number of colleagues around the globe. How do you keep track with them? Well, for a simple question you may want to use instant messaging. It allows you to know who is on-line and gives you a quick response. You can probably not be very precise as you don't want to overload the other party, but through a number of quick questions and answers, you can get the response you are looking for. For a status update on the other hand, you may want to use teleconferencing facilities, being from Skype, from your teleophone company or from any other source. What you are looking for there is that all key members of your project hear the same thing at the sane time.

If you now want to see what has been developed, you may have to use other collaboration tools such as netmeeting, to allow you to share screens with the other players. And there are a bunch of other things to do that each may require a different tool.

I'm sure you get my point. What tool should we use for what purpose. If any of you know of some research done in that space, please let me know.