-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Keeley
Sent:
To: Newintermediaries@Yahoogroups. Com
Subject: NI -
Encouraging members to use Teleconferencing and Instant Messaging
On the 16th June, another of our
stocktaking events took place - over the phone. I have captured some of the key
essences from the conversation below, but firstly can I please encourage you all to consider the use of
teleconferencing or instant messaging alongside our traditional methods of contact so far, email
and face-to-face. We did have a very rich experience.
As well as being very powerful
mechanisms in their own right because of the speed at which we can bring people
together and the way in which physical location becomes irrelevant, these feel
like particularly compelling mechanisms to use to bring to life and speed up
discussions that have emerged through the email network, or to prepare and
follow up the face to face sessions. We
also felt that action learning sets would be very powerfully enabled by these
two mechanisms.
If you are interested in knowing
more about using teleconference or want to book a session,
contact Georgina Woudstra on georgina@societyofdreams.com.
If you are interested in knowing
more about using instant messaging then Bruce Waltuck would
be happy to show you how to set these up.
You can get hold of Bruce on im4xlns@hotmail.com
I hope this is useful and I look
forward to seeing the use of these mechanisms.
Regards
Jeremy
__________________________________________________________
Notes from NI
teleconferencing session on
Attendees:
Colston
Sanger
Georgina
Woudstra
Mike
Turner
Bruce
Waltuck
Tony Page
Jeremy
Keeley
The
conversation included:
·
introductions
of each other
·
positioning
by Tony and some history of NI development from Colston
·
a
very useful connecting exercise by Georgina
·
a
discussion about the possibilities and some of the limitations of using the
phone for meetings
·
thoughts
on how we will take this forward.
Georgina
provided a significant amount of very useful advice into ways in which the
phone could be used. Bruce also bought his experience of both teleconferencing
ansd instant messaging to the "table".
Key
points arising were:
·
the
NI began F2F with a launch party and email was an early experiment which enabled
a wider community to grow… now there are new channels we can explore that
will allow us to develop the NI even further and lead to some restructuring and
stretching in the way that we do things.
Some of this might be quite fundamental.
·
the
use of the phone needs similar facilitation and organisational attention to
good face-to-face meetings. Careful
listening to the participants is required and the drawing out of the quieter
members - a good session just like a F2F meeting depends of taking time at the
start to introduce people, to "clear the space", get people engaged,
present in the moment and feeling their connection with others. Just like in
real life these hot media can be chaotic, speaking gets out of sync but
productive threads can emerge.
·
the
group of 6 allowed a very rich and respectful discussion in which even the
introverts could participate fully.
Concern was expressed about how it would work in bigger groups. Georgina discussed her experience of groups
of up to 75 and the strong parallels with larger face-to-face groups were
apparent. The better the group knew each
other and the more regularly they met would improve the phone experience.
·
an
excitement about using teleconferencing and instant messaging emerged,
catalysed out of a request from Mike that we understand what was compelling
about using these mechanisms beyond just not having to travel. The compelling points seemed to emerge around
the speed at which we could convert one medium for discussion into another...so
for example a live topic on email could be very easily converted into a much
more real-time discussion in a teleconferencing session. Also (with low cost providers like One-Tel)
it provides an inexpensive opportunity to connect with people all round the
world at the same moment without the time and expense of travel. Instant Messenging (as available through
Yahoo Messenger on the NI Yahoo website) offers similar spontaneity through
keyboard chat.
·
By
comparison trying to dialogue by email can be tedious and an energy drain
having to read lots of words on a page or screen, in Marshall McLuhan (old 1960's guru) terms
this is a "hotter" medium than email.
Email just comes to you, but Teleforum and Instant Messenger sessions
need to be booked and also you need to lift a finger to dial in
·
We
also believed that Action Learning sets would be powerfully supported by these
mediums
·
Joint
facilitators of teleconferences can use instant messaging behind the scenes to
help them to really service the group well
The
following actions and outcomes were agreed:
·
Georgina
offered to establish a teleconferencing facility within Society of Dreams for 3
month trial. These conferences would be
available to all members of both NI and Society of Dreams and it was agreed
that this would enhance their richness.
·
For
a teleconference to be successful it needs an administrator, a content
provider/decider, a facilitator ("someone to hold the space" as
Georgina so beautifully puts it), a recorder of outcomes and agreements,
somebody who will announce it and invite...much as in any other meeting...and
this needs to be driven by the organiser
·
Bruce
offered himself as a faciliator of instant messaging sessions (which have the
same basic requirements as the teleconference)
·
accompanying
this note will be an encouragement to all members to use these mechanisms as
part of enrichening the email discussion and in addition to face to face
meetings...and we will all look out for these opportunities
·
Tony
and Georgina will discuss ways in which costs can be easily covered by the
users
All of us were keen to look for
opportunities from now on. Colston was
keen to explore how we might also maximise the use of the website in
conjunction with this.