Graham Chastney (oak-grove)

Concept of the day: Deindividuation

Anyone who has used email or any other form of electronic communication has seen (and probably sent) written content that shocked you. You were amazed that the person, that you know, could say such a thing in such an aggressive way. The New Scientist has an interesting article that suggests that some of the reason for this is deindividuation:

Social psychologists have known for decades that, if we reduce our sense of our own identity – a process called deindividuation – we are less likely to stick to social norms. For example, in the 1960s Leon Mann studied a nasty phenomenon called "suicide baiting" – when someone threatening to jump from a high building is encouraged to do so by bystanders. Mann found that people were more likely to do this if they were part of a large crowd, if the jumper was above the 7th floor, and if it was dark. These are all factors that allowed the observers to lose their own individuality.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley argues that much the same thing happens with online communication such as email. Psychologically, we are "distant" from the person we're talking to and less focused on our own identity. As a result we're more prone to aggressive behaviour, he says.

The most recent place where I have seen this personally has been in the occasional reply-to-all storms that we have in our email system. Someone will send out an email to whole set of people. Someone else will reply-to-all that they don't know why they received the first email, or similar. This will then set of a storm of activity from people replying to the reply-to-all. Each of these replies will get more and more aggressive in their language.

If only these people sat back and analysed what they were doing they would stop doing it. It's unlikely any of them have read though the recipient list to see who is on it, in their minds they are just replying to some random person. What they are actually doing is replying to all sorts of senior people who could have a great influence on their career, what's more they are abusing a fellow colleague. If they only thought about how they would feel to receive such an email they wouldn't do it.

A wise person once said: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

via TechCrunch

Technorati tags: brain, deindividuation, comments, email

SharePoint Building

Microsoft are celebrating a new milestone for SharePoint:

Today, at Microsoft’s 2007 Financial Analyst Meeting, the company reported that its Microsoft^® Office SharePoint^® Server business generated revenue of more than $800 million in fiscal year 2007, due to strong demand for the enterprise- ready, integrated server capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This represents a growth rate of more than 35 percent over fiscal year 2006.  

The SharePoint team blog also does some reminiscing:

With these great results, it's time for a little nostalgia and some looking ahead. I have personally been working on and off the SharePoint business since 1998 – anyone remember Tahoe? When we decided to start development on SharePoint Portal Server 2001, it was a big step forward for Microsoft. We were making a big bet that collaboration, portals, content management and enterprise search would become mainstream and gain the same kind of broad acceptance that personal productivity tools such as Microsoft Office had experienced.

It looks very much like another Version 3 Microsoft product is becoming mainstream.

The interesting statistic from those on offer is this one:

“The majority of SharePoint deployments in the survey base of 300 U.S. organizations are currently enterprise-wide (61 percent), with 28 percent of the current departmental deployments expected to become enterprise-wide within the next 12 months,” according to IDC. “This is particularly the case for large organizations, where 51 percent plan to extend SharePoint to an enterprise-wide audience.”

Most deployments are enterprise-wide, but even for those that aren't many are expected to become enterprise-wide soon. Many departmental IT projects do not have a chance of becoming enterprise services because they aren't capable of making that transition because of capability, but more often because of flexibility. Other enterprise projects fail to make an impact on the departments because there is no pull from the organisation who is expected to use the tool. Being able to start from either end and succeed is a difficult thing to do and shows that the product is flexible, but also that people like to use it.

Having a collaborative toolset that people like to use is very powerful indeed.

Having a collaborative toolset that is flexible enough to use at the corporate or the departmental level is even more powerful.

Having a collaborative toolset that is flexible enough to change from departmental to enterprise-wide is even more powerful.

Build some momentum and you are probably unstoppable.

Technorati tags: SharePoint, MOSS, Collaborative Workspace

BlackBerrys and PDAs bad for work/life balance - Really !?!?!?

It's becoming a popular trend of reporting "BlackBerrys and PDAs bad for work/life balance".

Is that really true?

Is the device itself actually bad for work/life balance?

Does the very presence of a Blackberry or a PDA have a negative effect on your ability to balance your time?

It's another case of us humans abdicating our responsibility over to the machines and letting them take the blame.

It's not the machine that is the problem - it's our attitude to the machine!

Do I have the ability to turn my Blackberry off? Of course I do!

Do I have the ability to leave my BlackBerry at home when I go out for the day? Of course I do!

It's a tool that I use, it's not my master and I'm not a slave to it.

If my boss sends me an email at midnight, that's his problem! I don't see why I should carry my BlackBerry around just in case he does.

If I choose to go through my emails on the night before returning from holiday so that I can have an easier run in on Monday morning that's my choice. It's not the machine making me do it. If I blame the machine then I'm just ducking the real issue.

When I was a child I kicked a ball through a window. When I was caught I blamed the ball, but I was still the one that was punished. N-one would expect otherwise.

I know that, for many people, the need to respond to something is very strong, but we need to learn to ignore it, or to turn it off. I would be a very rich man if I had a £1 for every time someone interrupted a face-to-face meeting we were having so that they could answer the phone. But it's still not the phones fault for ringing, it's our fault for answering it.

What does collaboration and collaboration technologies mean to you?

It's a question posed by Stu to which I was going to write a comment, but the comment got too big, so I turned it into a post.

Some thoughts.

Working together is a good thing

In most situations working together is a good thing. There are all sorts of sayings down through time that would support this:

• Many hands make light work.
• Two minds are better than one.
• Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. (Proverbs 1000-600 b.c.)

So it's long been recognised that working together produces more.

There are constraints to working together

Although we know that working together is a good thing we work within a set of constraints. Some of these constraints are physical, some of them are more to do with our individuality as humans.

The time and space barrier

Two of the major physical barriers to working together are time and space, we cannot all be in the same place at the same time.

One of the ways we overcome these barriers is to arrange a time and a place where we can work together - we call this a meeting. Meetings are as old as mankind, we've always done it. Overcoming the time and space barriers by having a meeting is an expensive thing to do, but it's also a very rich experience where we use all of our senses and all of our intelligence if it's done well (considering how long we have been doing meetings it's a mystery to me why there are so many bad ones).

One of the reasons we write, draw, paint, sculpt, model is to overcome the time and space barriers. Art creates an expression of our thoughts or feelings that transcends the time in which it was created, it can also transcend the space in which it was created. Expressions in art may not, however, provide the richest experience. When I visit art galleries I love to read the labels next to the art because it gives me a richer experience. At one gallery I went to they had a recorded commentary from the artist, this gave an even richer experience, I suspect that had the artist been there in person the experience would have been even richer.

The human barriers

We are all individuals, as such we work with other people in different ways. There are some things we love to do together, there are some things we prefer to do on our own. Each of us has individual preferences. If we are to work together in an effective way we need to build a whole set of things between each of the individuals: trust, respect, experience, understanding, etc.. These things do not necessarily come easily and normally do not come quickly.

My best experience of working together has been on teams where we had worked together long enough, on a common goal, where the human barriers no longer existed and we were able to work in freedom from them. I've recently been on FranklinCovey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People course. They call this type of working "synergistic working". As a British person there is something about the word "synergistic" that sticks in my throat, but I know what they mean. Synergy is about working in such a way that the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Another way of thinking about it could be the principle of resonance.

What does collaboration mean to me?

So, back the Stu's question.

Collaboration is working together in a way that tends towards synergy.

What does collaboration technology mean to me?

Collaboration technology is a set of technology that is aiming to enable collaboration outside the time and space barriers while still providing an appropriate richness of experience. It's the richness of the experience that helps us to overcome the human barriers.

I've talked before about the different ways that we talk on a telephone conference call. I am sure that I have a completely incorrect impression of some people because I have only interacted with them on conference calls. Conference calls are definitely not a synergistic experience, there isn't enough richness for that.

There have been many occasions when I have built up an impression of someone from their emails, only to have it smashed to bits by meeting them in person.

I regularly find myself in the situation where the technology has enabled me to overcome the time and space barriers without providing the appropriate richness of experience. In that sense then, for me, collaboration technology is still a yet to be fulfilled promise.

A Creative Commons Example: I've had a picture published!!!

I use flickr to publish my photos so that I can use them on the blog, but also so friends and family can see them. Photography is a hobby which I enjoy and could really get into, but I have decided to restrict myself for now.

My standard setting for flickr copyright is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. This one happens to be covered by version 2.0. I'm quite relaxed about people using my pictures, but I don't want them making lots of money out of me (as if that was possible).

A few weeks ago I was contacted by someone putting together a free magazine that gets distributed at a number of regional airports in the UK. They liked one of the pictures we posted from our skiing holiday in Bansko, Bulgaria and wanted to use it in a feature.

Even though the magazine is free, it's still commercial, so they were seeking permission in lines with the copyright agreement.

I gave permission asking that the "attribution" still stood and for a copy of the magazine in return.

Last week two copies of the magazine arrived with my photo in them and my name by the photo .

It's a surprisingly good feeling to know you are a published photographer - even if it is just in a free magazine.

Creative Commons worked. They had access to the file, they could have just used it without asking, but they didn't. Others may have used pictures without asking and without attribution but the fact that someone went through the process of shows that it can work.

 

Technorati tags: Creative Commons, Flickr

Happy Hour is 9 to 5

I used last weeks holiday as an opportunity to read Happy Hour is 9 to 5, I was one of the fortunate ones who got a free copy in the Christmas give away. I was going to read it over the Christmas break, but circumstances overtook.

For anyone not familiar with this book it's written by Alexander Kjerulf who goes by the job title of: Chief Happiness Officer.

The basic premise of this book is that happiness at work is a good thing for everyone, and that the opposite is also true. The book is a great holiday read without too much detailed analysis of research, but with loads of practical examples and comments.

The book contains a number of exercises to use to assess your own happiness at work and to direct you towards finding greater happiness. It also provides exercises for managers. My current position doesn't include managing people, but I'm often in situations where I indirectly manage people, and certainly provide their motivation.

I've finished reading the book, but I haven't got the exercise done yet. I need to do the exercise because there will have been little point in reading the book if I don't.

Even before doing the exercises, though, I am aware that my own attitude needs some work especially if I am going to regain an attitude to work that isn't "Meh" but is "Yay" (see this section). That means making some changes, which requires some planning and some action. It's also closely linked to the research on My Brain from last year.

Not sure that the The Order of the Elephant idea translates to UK culture though, will have to think about that one:

"Kjaer Group, a Danish company that sells cars in developing nations, introduced The Order of the Elephant a few years back. It’s a huge plush toy that any employee can award to any other, along with an explanation of why that employee deserves The Order. The praisee gets the elephant for a couple of days, and at two-feet tall it’s hard to overlook if it’s standing on that person’s desk.

Other employees stopping by immediately notice the elephant and go, “Hey, you got the elephant. What’d you do?”, which of course means that the good stories and best practices get told and re-told many times. This is an excellent, simple and cheap way of enhancing learning and happiness at work."

from the What makes us happy at work? section of the book.

I've certainly witnessed the observation on meetings though:

Psychological experiments can be very devious, and this one was certainly no exception. The focus was meetings and the format was simple: Groups of people were asked to reach agreement on a contentious topic.

Here’s the devious bit: Unbeknownst to the other participants, one member of the group was an actor hired by the researchers. The actor was told to speak first in the discussions. In half the experiments he would say something positive, while in the other half he would start by saying something critical. After that he simply participated in the discussion like the other group members.

The experiment showed that when the first thing said in the meeting was positive, the discussion turned out more constructive, and people listened more and were more likely to reach a consensus. When the first statement was critical, the mood became more hostile, people were more argumentative and consensus became less likely.

The researchers concluded that the way a meeting starts has a large impact upon the tone of the discussion and on whether or not the group will eventually reach a consensus.

from the What makes us happy at work? section of the book.

Technorati tags: Happiness, Alexander Kjerulf, Happy Hour is 9 to 5

Cisco take on WebEx

The big news of the day seems to be that Cisco is to purchase WebEx. There is a good deal of commentary already available (here, here, here) most of which focuses on the Cisco and Microsoft relationship.

Does this change the relationship between Cisco and Microsoft, I doubt it. The motivations are different. Microsoft is interested in web conferencing to sell Windows software, Cisco is interested in web conferencing to sell network equipment. Neither of them see these capabilities as core to who they are. If I were a WebEx employee I would be worried about that.

You could say that this is Cisco broadening its portfolio into services, but it's not going to do that at the expense of it's core business - network equipment. Cisco's relationship with Microsoft also helps them to sell network equipment so they aren't going to jeopardise that either.

The interesting thing for me is what this does to Cisco's MeetingPlace software and all of the TelePresence work they have been doing. There are some significant technology overlaps here, though probably not too many market overlaps. Bringing these markets and capabilities into the existing WebEx customer base would make for a very compelling suite of capabilities.

 

Technorati tags: Cisco, WebEx, Microsoft

£17 billion wasted on unnecessary meetings

We waste £17 billion on unnecessary meetings according to a survey carried out for Polycom.

The thing you need to notice is that this survey is talking about face-to-face meetings. The premise here is that these face-to-face meeting would be more valuable if they were done over the phone, or some form of teleconferencing (because it was done for a video conferencing company).

I've written before about the different advantages and disadvantages with teleconferencing. I'm sure that there are a lot of unnecessary face-to-face meetings, but I don't think that the real answer to this issue is to move the meetings from one medium to another. Far more value could be derived by meetings being well prepared and having a proper purpose.

The other major issue is that many people aren't actually 'present' at most of the meetings I attend whether they are face-to-face or on the phone. People have so many interruptions that they allow to cut into their meetings that the meetings themselves have a significantly reduced value.

Moving from face-to-face meetings to teleconference or video conference meetings may save some CO2, but it isn't going to make us any more productive, if anything it will make us less productive.

Matthew Stibbe has an interesting insight:

"I’m still wrestling with how I can change my working practices to become more efficient and focus more on productive work and less on meetings. I think the answer lies in making my communications outside meetings more effective."

I am, of course, being a complete hypocrite here because I'm typing this while listening to someone presenting something on the phone .

 

Technorati tags: Meetings, Surveys

Telepresence - Video Conferencing V3.0?

On this day when one of the important people in the world (Tony Blair) will be talking to another bunch of important people (the Iraq Enquiry) over a "video link" I thought I would talk about the latest iteration of "video link" - "telepresence".

If you can take major global decisions over a "video link" why does anyone travel anywhere?

Once upon a time companies invested loads of money in ISDN links and dedicated video conferencing equipment in an attempt to get their staff to travel less and to be more responsive. Many of them had a flurry of activity, training people how to use the specialist equipment. Once the facility became available the rooms where the equipment was housed were fully booked, but bit by bit the poor unsuspecting video conferencing equipment became neglected and unused.  People found that the rewards for seeing someone on a screen were not high enough compared to the hassle of setting the conference up, getting the room booked and getting everything working. We discovered that voice was "good enough".

The other week I was in a customer office and passed a set of five "video conferencing" rooms, in each of these rooms the equipment wasn't even cabled in. I asked one of my colleagues there how long it had been like this. The answer "Ever since we moved in months ago".

A few dedicated followers still use specialist video conferencing equipment but for most of us Video Conferencing Version 1.0 came and went.

Having discovered that it was too much hassle getting the dedicated equipment working we decided to try a different route. "Why don't we give everyone a camera and then they can sit at their desk and be part of the conference?" we thought. But network bandwidth was limited, and cameras were expensive, and screens were only small. Each of us tried out desktop video conferencing, each of us thought it was great for a few minutes before we thought "what's the point?".

Most people I know have a USB connected camera somewhere in there desk or at their house; most of them are sat in boxes gathering dust.

Loads of kids still video conference their buddies but for the rest of us Video Conferencing Version 2.0 came and went.

Many products take until version 3.0 to be useful, could Video Conferencing be one of them?

Over the last few months a flurry of announcements and commentary has been expended on the new buzz word- "telepresence" (or Video Conferencing Version 3.0?).

If you haven't a clue what I am talking about you should watch one of the many videos that are available (here, here, here).

At the same time the desktop video conferencing arena is going through a change as the quality is getting better and better.

But will these changes make us use it? Why didn't I use video conferencing before?

This is a purely personal perspective, but I have heard others express similar views.

The face-to-face element of face-to-face meetings are overrated. The amount of personal effort I am willing to expend to get the face-to-face experience is very small. I normally work from home and using a telepresence type facility would require me to undertake some travelling. I'd need some convincing before I could see the value in the effort required. I'm one of a growing number of people in this situation. What I actually want is a far more realistic "around the piece of paper" experience. I want to be able to share a piece of paper and voice far more than to be able to share a face. I'd actually be more interested in sharing my hands than my face.

There are occasions when face-to-face is very important. They tend to be meetings within a particular context (negotiations, interviewing) but I don't personally spend all day in those type of meetings.

There are some things that I do want from something I would call telepresence, especially when I'm working from home. I want to feel like I am in a team and I think that video could play a huge part in that. I want to feel that I am sat with a bunch of colleagues whom I could look at and ask for help in a way that is far less intrusive than Instant Messaging or the telephone. I suppose what I am asking for is ambient presence.

Technorati tags: telepresence, halo, cisco, video conferencing

The joys - sometimes - of telecommuting

Steve has written a great piece on telecommuting.

The advice is good for anyone teleworking, I have a little of my own to share too:

• Realise that you don't need to be sat at a desk to participate. Participating while walking can be just as good. Be careful though, that you aren't too out of breath.
• Create the 'I'm busy' signs so that everyone understands when you are not to be disturbed. These need not be real physical signs, but need to be clear signals. One of the problems with modern earpieces is that people can't see clearly that you are busy.
• Run a personal blog. Colleagues don't just want to talk to you about work stuff, most of them also want to know about you.
• Remember that the people you are interacting with might not be from the same culture as you, aren't having the same weather, might not even be in the same season.

I'm not actually a fan of the telecommuting or teleworking words because they have both become heavily linked to home working. Most teleworkers I know sit in an office.

 

Technorati tags: Teleworking, Telecommuting