(PDF, 10 pages, 248 KB)
"Systems that display the presence of others, systems that enable others to keep a running commentary on things that they are thinking about or reading, and systems that enable real-time discussions go some way toward re-constructing the spontaneous opportunities afforded by in-person work. People working together in the same office have many spontaneous opportunities during the day to engage at a personal level—chance hallway meetings, coffee break catchups, and water cooler discussions. These personal engagements provide insight into the true character of others on the team, and they either build or diminish trust … with inter-personal trust being a critical factor for team productivity."
People engage with people when working on a project together-—they talk about what’s going on, they share war stories, and they talk about life beyond the cubicle or office walls. When carried out in balance with completing the work at hand, it is a good thing for people to be able to talk and share, because it helps them understand the other people on the team and how to work most effectively with them. While these discussions can form and disband freely in a face-to-face team environment, it is normally more difficult to create the conditions for appropriate sharing when team members are in a distributed environment. Pillar 5 of IT-Enabled Team Productivity—Build Social Engagement through Presence, Blogs and IM—considers how new tools for real-time interaction (presence and instant messaging) and for free-form discussions and interaction (blogs) can be used to build social engagement between physically distributed team members.
This paper discusses:
- The Situation Today ... why email and teleconference updates don't cut it.
- Negative Effects on Team Productivity ... by not providing a forum for distributed team members to engage at a personal level.
- The Ideal Future Situation ... attributes required for building social engagement between team members.
- Positive Effects for Team Productivity ... when an appropriate set of technologies are provided for keeping up-to-date with other team members.
- Case Study: Michael Hyatt, President and COO of Thomas Nelson Publishers ... and how Michael "gets it" with his brand new From Where I Sit blog.
- Technologies to Consider ... including blogging systems and services, blog newsreaders, presence and instant messaging, and Skype
What's Next
This concludes the discussion of Pillar 5, on Building Social Engagement through Presence, Blogs and IM. I'd love to hear how you are working to build social engagement in your organization for distributed teams. Please drop me an email, at michael.sampson@shared-spaces.com. Whilst you’re writing that, I’ll start on Pillar 6, Enterprise Action Management. Until next time, kind regards, and all the best for your endeavors toward making your teams more productive through the appropriate use of IT.
Comments