Endless Knots

Enterprise 2.0: Leading Collaborative Teams

Having spent the past two centuries working on this topic, it seemed only  appropriate to organize a panel at Enterprise 2.0. Thus, we've convinced two of our favorite colleagues, Virginia Adamson from Volvo IT and Mike Prevou from Strategic Knowledge Solutions to schlep to Boston and hold forth with us.

We've carried on projects with both Virginia and Mike over the past few years. Each is doing different but related things to make it easier for distant teams to work together. Here's the scoop. Another panel worth attending:

Leading Collaborative Teams: How Volvo IT and the US Army Enhance Performance with New Behaviors and Tools #e2conf41 (Location: Carlton)

Wednesday, June 24 - 3:30 pm–4:30 pm

What happens when enterprises take a broader approach to collaboration? These two organizations—the global technology provider for one of the world's leading enterprises and the knowledge unit of one of the world's preeminent military units—chose to invest in both technology and people. Their experiences incorporate new behaviors that are critical to driving true collaboration alongside new ways to use tools, such as SharePoint. In both cases, unusually high levels of performance have followed from their approaches.

Moderator - Jessica Lipnack, CEO, NetAge

(Enough already about me)

Jessica Lipnack writes, speaks, and consults about collaboration. Co-author of six books, she is an expert on virtual teams, networked organizations, and social media. A long-term member of the Enterprise 2.0 Advisory Board, she stays in touch with a wide network of practitioners and thinkers, including the participants in her sessions.

Speaker - Jeffrey Stamps, Chief Scientist, NetAge

Jeff Stamps is co-author of numerous books and articles, including Virtual Teams and The Age of the Network. His early insights into what makes collaboration work have been picked up by organizations around the world, including Volvo and the US Army, where he has designed methods and tools for cross-boundary work that drive extraordinary performance.**

Jeff Stamps is co-author of numerous books and articles, including Virtual Teams and The Age of the Network. His early insights into what makes collaboration work have been picked up by organizations around the world, including Volvo and the US Army, where he has designed methods and tools for cross-boundary work that drive extraordinary performance.

Speaker - Michael Prevou, Phd, LTC, US Army Retired and Chief of Knowledge Strategies and Innovation, SKS, Inc.

Mike Prevou specializes in collaboration for knowledge and learning solutions. He has been involved with numerous collaboration initiatives for the Army, including being responsible for designing, deploying and maintaining Army communities of practice; developing knowledge assessment process; and co-authoring and leading workshops around the Battle Command Knowledge Systems' "Teams of Leaders Handbook." A 24-year Army veteran, he holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Kansas along with two master's degrees and leads numerous transformational change initiatives both within the Army as well as other organizations.

Mike Prevou specializes in collaboration for knowledge and learning solutions. He has been involved with numerous collaboration initiatives for the Army, including being responsible for designing, deploying and maintaining Army communities of practice; developing knowledge assessment process; and co-authoring and leading workshops around the Battle Command Knowledge Systems' "Teams of Leaders Handbook." A 24-year Army veteran, he holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Kansas along with two master's degrees and leads numerous transformational change initiatives both within the Army as well as other organizations.

Speaker - Virginia Adamson, Senior Business Consultant, Content & Collaboration Services, Volvo Information Technology

With more than 25 years in the Volvo Group and an Engineering background, Virginia Adamson has experience ranging from product development to business and strategy development. She has worked for AB Volvo, Volvo Trucks and Volvo Information Technology in Greensboro, NC, as well as Gothenburg and Umeå in Sweden. In her current position Virginia provides consulting services to help customers develop collaboration strategies, utilize collaboration tools, and learn to work more effectively across all boundaries whether cultural, organizational, or geographical.

**Jeff at work

In real but not quite

We all know my fave coffee house and you're beginning to get the picture of how much I (and we) frequent said establishment. And so it was no strange event that took us there last Sunday, collllllldddddd as it was, following a walk along the Charles River in nearby Cambridge. And we all know that people have a habit of offering me their tables when they are one and I am more than one (which is a bit of an existential statement).

Happened again this particular day as the place was packed at 4 in the afternoon. Nary a table in sight so we took our places at the bar, also a congenial location as you get to watch the baristas performing their art. I had turned my back for a moment when a man sitting near the window motioned to Jeff and, next thing I knew, we were relocated to the front of the house. I stopped along the way to admire the photo exhibit now showing (here's one of those great photos).

Enjoyed the cappuccino, as always, came home, and there were a coupla twitter messages a-waiting:

ctanowitz: was that you at Taste today at 4:15?
ctanowitz: I was the guy at the counter who let you have the table.

Of course, I inquired why Chuck Tanowitz, photographer, blogger, and new media strategist at Schwartz Communications hadn't said hello. He wasn't sure it was me and, thus, being a nice person didn't want to pester someone if not the right one.

So we almost met - and to underscore how silly the virtual world really is, it turns out we live just a few blocks apart. And still haven't met.

Waving to Chuck as he's probably walking past right now.

The hazards of Second Life

BusinessWeek.com has a good roundup - "The (Virtual) Global Office" - of company efforts to use Second Life (the virtual world where you too can be two people or three...) by Rachael King: They hold meetings that are simultaneously face-to-face and virtual, they recruit new talent, they collaborate, and sometimes things get out of hand:

Cisco is among companies that recruit in Second Life. "My extended team uses Second Life primarily to recruit new talent," says Andrew Sage, a marketing vice-president at Cisco, adding that Second Life is good for finding workers under the age of 25. Yet even for an executive as tech-savvy as Sage, using an avatar in Second Life can be challenging. Early on, during a recruitment seminar for resellers, Sage accidentally caused his avatar to fly away while making a presentation. "Needless to say, it wasn't ideal," Sage says.

I hope he made it back to terra firma, so to speak.

"Mixed reality" for virtual teams

Techie alert: Sun has announced something very interesting in the virtual reality space.

Non-techie alert: A computer company has come up with a truly innovative way for people to meet online.

Our friends at Leading Virtually, the new blog out of SUNY Binghamton, are directing us to a great little movie from Sun that shows their new collaborative work environment called MPK20. Apart from the name reminding us of 3PKO, THIS IS REALLY COOL!

As Rebecca Jestice points out on her post, most online "virtual environments" duplicate the real world. Same old, same old, as usual with technology innovations--the horseless carriage, i.e., whereby the next thing mimics (or is named for) the one that preceded it.

Thus, most of the efforts to create online collaborative environments begin with building replicas of existing real-world spaces. A few months ago, we saw a Second Life facsimile of the building, floor, and room we were standing in to watch that company's virtual collaboration space demo.

Sun has broken the mold with MPK20 (OK, it's named for their canny building-naming system: they have 19 buildings on their Menlo ParK campus, which makes this the 20th). It doesn't look like a Sun building (at least not the ones I've been in); it integrates real-world collaboration with its virtual offspring; and it even has a playroom (well, it's a music library, but still...).

Sounds nutty, especially if you're new to this stuff. Take a look and tell me if you don't think this is a breakthrough. What got me was that avatars (keen readers, remember Cracking the code on virtual DNA a couple of days ago) can enter virtual team rooms that include screens where real meetings are projected via video hook-up. That's different.

Which is why Nicole Yankelovich, Sun's principal investigator for Project Wonderland, as the effort is known, describes it as "mixed reality"  (ComputerWorld, Feb 11, 2007).