I had a great time in Orlando recently for the 2009 PMI North America Global Congress. The PMI New Media Council did a presentation titled “Why Should You Care About Social Media?”.
Bas De Baar (ProjectShrink), Cornelius Fitchner (PMPodcast), and I (pmStudent) collaborated for our segment of the presentation, focused on demonstrating the use of new tools to manage virtual teams and allow them to collaborate.
We practiced what we preached….I’ve been using some of these tools for a long time myself and we used them to collaborate on our presentation with Bas in Holland, Cornelius in California (and Switzerland) and me in South Dakota. (Kudos to Loyal Mealer who first introduced me to vyew.com, a tool I’ve used extensively since then on several projects.)
It’s a goofy theme and we are certainly not acclaimed actors, but take about 15 minutes to check this out, especially if you are concerned with working remotely with people. Keep in mind we only demonstrated a few free tools….this isn’t an endorsement of the specific tools we used and there are many, many options available out there.
Bas put the video together as a part of his video podcast at ProjectShrink.
(Bas is the one who can’t pronounce Gouda, I’m the goofy-looking one in the red shirt, and Cornelius is on Skype with us after a bit.)
Do you have any questions on this topic? Leave a comment below and ask away! I’ve used a lot of different tools in different organizational environments, and I know we have other experienced people here who can lend their own expertise.
Social media, and web-based sharing tools in general, are extremely helpful in improving communication and accelerating progress in teams scattered across the globe. I have been using Sharefile (a secure file storage location), Google Sites (a really easy-to-use and powerful Wiki), Yahoo Groups, Twitter, Facebook, GoToMeeting, Skype and Yahoo! Messenger for various business activities. We ALWAYS encounter objections from IT departments and administrative people concerned about security. It’s a valid concerned that needs to be addressed, but the solution UNFORTUNATELY is usually “Sorry, you can’t do that.” In fact, many clients assure me it’s “impossible” for them to even do a video phone call in their international company. Wow! Don’t they know it’s the 21st century?!! That attitude is simply not going to work, as your competitors will find a way to overcome these objections if you do not. Find solutions! Stop resisting the inevitable. Teams in successful WILL collaborate using these kinds of tools in the future. In fact, a project team at one of my clients actually used Webex while all 4 of them were in the same room! It turns out they found it easier to collaborate using Webex when working on their shared presentation rather than huddling around a single computer.
It’s the 21st century. Time to find a way to make these tools work.
Thanks Kimberly. In the last part of the video there was a question about the security aspects. I ran into this same issue working for a federal contractor.
There are real security concerns, but there are a lot of services out there that take measures to ensure security. I find most of the people who are against these kinds of tools will bring up the security issue as a show-stopper, but they are not the security experts.
The IT Security guru on my last project team was great. You can discuss security considerations with them in an evidence-based manner. Part of any trade study to select a tool should include input from security gurus. That way your REAL security concerns are addressed, and when some manager starts shouting about how it’s unsafe you can call bullsh*% on them.
Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com