Independent of your take on location-sharing, you’ve got to agree, that Facebook nailed it in telling a totally non-technical story about their technology. The short-commercial was a great way to sell technology without ever talking about technology.
Principles..
They talked about learning
They talked about connecting people with people
They emphasized friends
They showed how this integrates easily in everyday life
They talked about sharing experiences
Because of this Facebook captured me with the ad. It inspired me to make sure I’m communicating this kind of message upwards to my leaders and downwards with people who benefit from the tools we build.
I was raised that in a group setting you should always raise your hand and wait until you are acknowleged before speaking.
This social norm no longer applies online.
You have lots of great insights to share, but I’ll never ask you about them unless you start talking.
You live between 3 timezones away from me and I only see you once a year. I can’t read your body language to see that you want to speak and give you permission, but I’ll read your feed everyday.
There are dozens of others who are willing to work together to refine your world changing ideas. Imagine what could happen if you connected.
You’ll understand yourself and your ideas better if start processing them out loud.
You have my permission, go for it, talk out loud. I’m listening.
So the new toy on the recent family vacation was, you guessed it, a tablet computer.
Within two minutes of arrival, one of my wife’s cousins bee-lined it towards me and happily announced he had just received a tablet as a going to university present (not bad, eh?!).
Later I quizzed him, “so will this be your [...]
I try to spend about 20% of my time learning, researching, blogging, engaging and connecting with others. This means reading blogs, news, books, watching talks, playing with toys, leaving comments, brainstorming and dreaming. I try to lead out in initiating discussions in various collaborative spaces I’m a part of.
I have four main streams that I [...]
This is the fifth in a series of posts on how I lead my team in avoiding email.
Note: This post is somewhat irrelevant since it was announed that development of Google Wave is being discontinued. It was a sad day when I read it was being canned since it was a powerful tool. None-the-less, here’s [...]
This is the fourth in a series of posts on how I lead my team in avoiding email.
Another way we try and stay out of living in our inboxes in through the use of project collaboration software. This has many advantages.
1. There is no need to send emails wondering about the status of projects. All [...]
This is the third in a series of posts on how I lead my team in avoiding email.
We have a group Skype chat window that runs all the time. Whenever team members are working and not in a meeting they are expected to “be in the room”.
This is effective for our team that is spread [...]
So yesterday I sat on the edge of a dock on a beautiful lake in Northern Ontario. The roar of my siblings enjoying wakeboarding filled the lake. I was on vacation with my family, but was seated, laptop open, feet dangling in the water, trying to attract whatever I could of the nearest cellular signal.
With [...]
Yesterday I had dinner with a colleague who was a scope of reaching students on over 100 campuses in one of the world’s largest (non North American) cities.
I asked her, “what technological accelerators would help you in your ministry?”
Her answer, “get all our visual tools (videos, cards, pamphlets, stories) onto mobile devices.” She talked about [...]
Two recent articles have really got me thinking about effective ways to work with teams at formulating strategy.
The Theory of the Case
My Eureka Moment with Strategy
The articles emphasize getting team members to agree on what would need to be true in order to move towards a strategy or proposed vision. In this way, a lot [...]
