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Small Group Wisdom – Going Virtual: Not So Fast!

It was time for additional prototypes to come forward for the next meeting. However, like a prior experience, the projected meeting attendance was diminishing quickly for this follow-up event. So, the date was pushed out another week for more people to be able to attend.

In meeting separately with each other, and some of us by phone, it was proposed we move the discussion from the proverbial email “Reply All” to an online forum. One of our members offered to set it up and we could all become contributors.

It seemed like overnight and he had us up and running on the new platform. Included in some of the original posts were photos and notes. It didn’t take long for additional entries to appear as well as comments by others to some of the topics. Not so fast!

What soon became apparent was that not everyone was ready for the new platform. Only about 50% of the group was active. While some took right to it, other members had yet to logon, or respond; this could be as simple as they had already voiced some response in prior emails and saw it unnecessary to add more.

One of the topics in the forum included a proposal from me to hold the meetings in the mornings – ah, back to the Entrepreneurial Conference Room – in order for more people to attend. Seeing not much response in the forum, I put out an email asking about attendance. Now we had answers in both email and on the forum. That was not such a good idea on my part; I should have followed the notion of decide which platform to use and stick to it (I did put email responses I received as entries in the forum).

I liken this experience to the first time we did a breakout group using a Skype conference call; a few bumps and grinds, then success. More importantly the new online forum gives us some flexibility we didn’t have before in conducting group meetings. And, we can have a more active, on-going dialogue with greater continuity than email threads, or in-person group meetings. One other thought that came to mind is there will be no need to call for volunteers to take the Minutes of the meeting; each member can add their comments to the forum for all to see.

We are still working on the next meeting date, but with the online forum now in place, we can continue our work until everyone’s calendar frees-up to meet in-person. Who knows, maybe we’ll resort to avatars and Second Life to add a little animation and persona to our new online presence. Don’t laugh too hard; Second Life may be just the right marketplace for our next great idea: “The Second Life world has a fully-integrated economy architected to reward risk, innovation, and craftsmanship.”

Is there a vocation in screening incoming email

This question crossed my desk in an email recently: “I wonder if a mid/large company could justify paying somebody to do nothing but sit around doing triage on this stuff and forwarding/highlighting the more relevant materials.” This was in response to a discussion on how many newsletters, bulletins, newsfeeds, etc. that one could possibly subscribe to and reap some benefit.

As I began to look at my own habits, I realized that I was ‘skimming’ through some subscriptions, deleting others (without reading them) based on the headline, and left wondering why I subscribed to as much as I did. For me, I believe I am taking the ‘nugget’ approach. I am looking for that one little nugget amongst many that will be useful in my work, or personal life.

But, it did bring to light how the readers of the materials that we produce must feel. We enjoy many subscribers to our monthly eNewsletter, and this blog. We are probably like others who feel we offer useful content and ideas; my bias favors the Innovations we feature from time to time, and the Entrepreneur’s Challenge. We are in the midst of a reader survey for our eNewsletter, so I guess I am more sensitive to the topic than at other times.

Back to the question this person has raised. First, it seems there is an opportunity to screening multiple subscriptions to the same publication, newsletter, etc. In my own employment over the years, I remember a time of stapled distribution notes on the front of a magazine cover. You would read it, put your initials on the paper slip, and then pass it to the next person (on the list). 

Today, I am quick to forward an entire issue, or a quick cut and paste of something interesting. What if someone did that for me, i.e., delivered a custom compilation from many sources that are of interest to me? Extend that to the entire organization in the role outlined in the question posed to me.

I can see how it can be done with RSS newsfeeds, and tools like Yahoo Pipes may be just the ticket. But, can automation really do as well as a human? Is it easier for human intervention to adjust to the “business rules” that may be required to deliver the select content, or can automation be applied in a reasonable way? It’s one thing to build an automated business rule, and it’s another thing to maintain it.

What do you think?