Nowadays, they use also their laptops. A well prepared meeting with disciplined and motivated participants is a very efficient communication method. This method can now be used by every internet user.
It is possible, to form global work-groups, which can cooporate as if all members would sit in a meeting room. The work-group is different from a chat room or a news group, because it works, to get results, in a limited time and up to a specified dead line.
Therefore, the meetings must be carefully planned and moderated. In global internet work-groups the participants can be from different countries, and they communicate, using video conferencing via phone lines or the internet. Different languages and cultural backgrounds can cause some minor problems, but the advantages are greater.
The members save much time and money, which otherwise they would have to spend for traveling to the meeting location. Why should people travel, for instance, from Europe and Asia to USA, to take part at a meeting ? For many meetings, it is not needed, that people come together for a face to face meeting. Managers, with whom I now and then discuss the advantages of global work-groups, in general argue, that personally meetings are needed, and that it is impossible to get the same results with an online work-group.
However, I doubt that. It may take some time, to get accustomed to it, like it needed time for people to use emails.
Global workgroups have several other advantages:
- the members can give better support to each other, because they can meet online at any convenient time with one or several other members.
- because of the different cultural background of its members, a global work-group finds more new ideas, using brainstorming or other heuristic idea finding methods.
- using mind mapping software, the meeting can get structured and documented during the meeting. The meeting report will need only some modifications, which saves the time of the moderator.
An online meeting must be more carefully prepared than a personal meeting. Before an online meeting can be arranged, the moderator has to check, if all participants have the same tools available and know, how to use them. All these tools must be tested with every new member, before the meeting can start.
Needed tools are:
- Internet phoning and video conferencing like Skype
- Plug-ins for Skype, above all screen sharing software like Mikogo ( can be downloaded from Skype)
- Mind mapping software like MindManager or ConceptDraw MindMap
- And the common office suites, like Microsoft Office.
- Camcorder, if objects like production machines shall be shown. Meetings without a good preparation are a waste of time for all. And with online meetings this is even truer.
- Documents should be sent early enough to all meeting members, so that they can study them carefully
- For the discussion in the meeting the moderator should prepare a mind map of the document.
The moderator should then invite all participants to the online meeting, agree the time and the length of the meeting with them and send everybody an outline, what shall be discussed. During the meeting, the use of mind maps is helpful, to keep the members focused.
For problems with feed back loops, concept-mapping software should be used, because mind maps with their radial, linear structure are not a good representation for these problems.
Some templates of mind maps should be prepared offline before the meeting, so that the moderator has a collection of standard template mind maps available, how to structure the meeting, how to present the information and the work after the meeting.
During the meeting each mind map should be developed online and the members should take active part in it. If after some time all members agree, that the mind map is more or less finished, the moderator should save it and go on to the next topic.
After the meeting, the moderator should check all mind maps, restructure them, if needed and send them to all members for approval.
Based on the mind maps, the reports are written, including the mind map at the beginning of the report. To avoid problems with the formatting, the reports should be transferred into the pdf format. The Acrobat Reader is free for download and each member should have installed the latest version on his computer.
For the internet online meeting a safe communication can be important, if for instance, secret information is discussed, like inventions, which are not yet patented or financial figures of companies.
The total communication process must be carefully checked:
- the computers of all participants must be checked against viruses, Trojan horses, phishing software etc.
- only encrypted email providers should be used, like hushmail
- all sent documents must be encrypted, which can be done with Pdf-Writer
- Skype itself encrypts the spoken words and should therefore be safe.
- Mindjet offers an online MindManager web site, which uses encrypted communication lines with a 128 bit key.
- change all passwords after some time and use only strong passwords, with a combination of small and big letters and numbers and a length of more than about 10 letters.
If all these precautions are taken, then a safe communication is possible. If all members use Skype, they can phone or use video conferencing. For private purposes and with few members only, it is free. Companies, which use many members in a video conference have to pay.
A useful plug-in for Skype is a screen sharing software like Mikogo, which can be downloaded from Skype. Documents can be shown on the screen of a member and all the others can see it.
links
Skype http://www.skype.com
MindManager http://www.mindjet.com
encrypted emails https://www. hushmail.com
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