Are You "Engaged" or Just "Going Steady"?

When I was in the fifth grade, my schoolmates and I used to say we were "going steady" when we decided to spend time with someone of the opposite sex. Far from being a serious commitment -- because really how serious is anything when you're 10 -- "going steady" meant that you'd give a boy your undivided attention for about 2 weeks or so until both of you got interested in someone else.

Everybody is chasing the holy grail of "engagement" these days. Since many of us started using the term in the late 90s to describe the act of deeply involving people in communication and other activities, others have jumped on the proverbial bandwagon and started to define their jobs, their consulting firms and their organization's success in terms of how well they "engage" a whole range of stakeholders.

In general, I say "Bravo." I am sincerely happy to see people focusing on how they can "engage" people in meetings and events or "engage" customers with a brand instead of just trying to tell them things all the time.

What does concern me, though, is the tendency I've seen for some people to define "engagement" as simply encompassing short term involvement. For example, "engaging" people at a meeting might mean that we simply get people to push a few buttons on an audience response system or "engaging" customers might simply mean that we get them to post a response on our blog.

The reality is that real engagement goes beyond simply keeping people amused or entertained or getting them to participate. Real engagement is about results. Real engagement is about execution. And real engagement is about real work.

The next time you're about to use the word "engagement," stop and think. Is what you're doing going beyond simplistic attention-grabbing schemes? Will your efforts to engage people have long term impacts on your organization? How will you leverage the input from the "crowd" that you "source"? Are your efforts at engaging people through social media really producing results over a substantial period of time?

In short, are you really "engaging" people or just "going steady"?

Moving to the Age of Collaboration

A profound shift in the way human beings communicate and coordinate work is underway and this shift has enormous implications for leaders in organizations. The value proposition for Industrial Age organizations was focused on making people, machines, and product lines more efficient. In The Information Age (aka The Knowledge Age), value creation centered on how humans store, access, manipulate and transfer knowledge and ideas. We are just now entering The Collaboration Age, which is more about how networks – both human and electronic – create value by sharing and integrating and co-creating knowledge and ideas. Traditional information technology powered the Information Age and collaborative technology (including social media) is the engine for The Age of Collaboration.

One of the key leadership competencies of a networked Collaboration Age is the ability to build and profit from highly effective relationships. And in order to create good relationships, leaders must develop and model high degrees of self-knowledge, be authentic in their behavior, and have good instincts for engaging diverse groups of people in the work of the organization. In these times, the networked organization is distributing power in the organization in new ways and leaders are learning – more than ever before – that true power lies in the ability to 1) Be real and 2) be open the collective wisdom of an organization in order to both formulate and execute strategies.

Showdown at the Meetings Corral: Face-to-Face vs. Virtual

In my opinion, well-designed face-to-face meetings will be the premier leadership medium of the 21st Century. While some people think virtual meetings will overtake face-to-face, I think they're fooling themselves. Live meetings are now, and will continue to be, an essential means of managing our way out of the economic crisis we currently face and navigating our way into a vibrant future.

Of course, many organizations are turning to virtual alternatives to bringing people together with tons of intriguing technologies that can be used before, during, after, or yes, even in place of, a face-to-face meeting. Twitter, threaded discussions, teleconferencing, web conferences, webcasting etc. are all being used frequently to augment face-to-face interaction.

I've been a strong proponent of collaborative technologies to connect, inform, and engage people for over two decades. However, I also believe that there is no replacement for face-to-face meetings. This is why Presidents and Secretaries of State don't conduct diplomatic missions via web conference.

There are three important ways that face-to-face meetings differ from virtual ones. First, in our information-saturated world, getting people's attention gets more difficult all the time. Face-to-face meetings provide an unparalleled opportunity to capture people's attention -- it's a maximum bandwidth situation, so to speak. (This of course assumes that the meeting has been well-designed to hold participants' attention and appeal to all five senses.)

Second, there is the immersion factor. Face-to-face meetings can last days, not hours. And the experience is full immersion. While you might be able to hold a threaded discussion over an extended period, you don't have everyone engaged at once for hours at a time.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, is the speed at which trusting relationships can form. People will develop deeper levels of trust at a greater rate of speed in face-to-face meetings than they do in virtual ones. Trust is directly correlated with the speed at which you can do business.

What we're obviously moving towards is a "both/and" versus "either/or" situation in the form of hybrid meetings that integrate face-to-face with virtual elements. In other words, it's time to put the guns back in the holsters and shake hands.

Moving into the future, we'll have more holographic videoconferencing, virtual world interaction, dynamic visual cartography tools and much more. However, now matter how ingenious technology becomes, nothing will ever replace face-to-face interaction.

Reframing life: White Coats and A Wheelchair

Today I was sitting in the reception area of a major medical center. While I was waiting, suddenly, right next to me I heard fearful groaning sounds coming from a man who was backing away from three people in white coats walking towards him. It was clear from his behavior that he was developmentally challenged, and everyone in the reception area starting shifting in their seats.

The three "white coats" were trying to calm and coax the man to come with them. It wasn't working. He began groaning louder and saying "No!"

Suddenly, one of the women trying to help him said, "I wonder if a wheelchair would help?" Another of the trio quickly went to get one and they brought it towards the disturbed man saying "Would you like to ride? Do you want to go for a fun ride?" Bingo! He immediately calmed down, started smiling, and hopped right in the chair. I wanted to give a cheer! Everyone immediately relaxed.

I thought about how important the concept of "framing" is. I thought about my own fears and how I could reframe them to not only be less scary, but even fun -- like the wheelchair. I wondered at the lightening speed of emotions and reactions that we all experience in life -- whether it's in business or in our personal worlds.

If we can just remember to reframe, then, in a silvery second, terror can become joyful anticipation, anger can become happiness, despair can become hope, hate can become love.

I know it can happen. I saw it today.

Three Ideas for Fixing Town Hall Meetings

Can you believe the video footage coming from these health care town hall meetings in the U.S.? There must be a lot of mothers out there wringing their hands or turning over in their graves. The heckling, rude comments, and outright rages are both embarrassing and counter-productive.

How can this situation be remedied? As a person who has been designing interactive meetings for long time, I have a few suggestions:

1. The only people who should be allowed in the room are people who have some level of familiarity with the health care bill that they are there to comment on. A summary of the key points of the bill should be put together by a bipartisan entity and made available online and in public libraries. An online test of some key points in the summary would be the entry "fee" -- you would get your ticket from a website where you took the test. (Note: Most public libraries provide access to the internet for those who don't have their own computers.)

2. Before any discussion at all begins, the entire group should be made aware of guidelines for behavior during the session. Any breach of these guidelines should result in immediate expulsion -- they've managed to do this in courtrooms for years.

3. Break into smaller groups! Leaving the whole group sitting opposite a lone figure on the stage makes for a mob environment. You can't have a real "conversation" between 1 person and hundreds of people.

A traditional Town Hall meeting is not necessarily the best format for an interactive discussion about a highly controversial topic. Reformating the meeting to include pre-work, small group interaction, interactive technologies and clear behavior guidelines would go a long way towards creating a much more civilized dialogue.

A terrific model for completely "remodeled" town hall meetings comes from a group called "America Speaks" -- you can learn more about it here...http://www.americaspeaks.org/

If we bring more civility to these dialogues on health care, we can tap into the best thinking of well-informed citizens to solve one of the most important issues of our time.

Faux Content

Bad content is proliferating on the web like the newly planted mint in my garden. It seems that everyone is happy to share content freely with others, just not very good content.

Here are some examples.

I was invited to a virtual trade show recently. The good news is that the cost to me monetarily was zero. The bad news is that I was treated to a boatload of content for which I had absolutely no use. The presentation I attended was full of research that looked intriguing at first because it had a lot of interesting mathematical equations and research terms but ultimately it simply confirmed what I knew on the basis of common sense. (Not to mention the fact that the "presenters" were sponsors.) The vendor "brochures" contained the same stuff that I wouldn't pick up at a regular trade show, and the chat session I attended was full of questions like, "How do I turn off my pop-up windows?"

Then today while I was browsing Twitter, I was directed by a fellow Tweeter to a YouTube video that was described as "deeply inspiring." What the guy in the video essentially said was "Do what's right, not just what's expedient." Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say something like that before. I truly was inspired...to hit the stop button and check my email instead.

My final example comes from a well known technology website that offers "White Paper Membership." This was the most disappointing experience of all because after I reluctantly gave them my name and email address, what I received in return was a recent white paper that could have been written almost a decade ago. It was chock full of generalities and sorely lacking in specific examples and useful information.

I think part of the reason this content problem is starting to become more prominent is that we have begun to devalue "intellectual capital." We've operated on the assumption that you can get content for free for quite a while now and as "crowdsourcing" has gained in prominence we have become less and less willing to pay for content. I think that subject matter experts are now starting to realize that giving away a lot of content for free doesn't necessarily result in a sale down the line so they're pulling back on what they provide gratis.

Of course there are exceptions and daily I find things on the web for free that are fantastic, but I think what we'll see more of in the future are micro payments for truly useful content. I used to think that I'd never (or very rarely) pay for content on the web but I've been fooling myself that I'm getting something for nothing when in fact, I've been emptying my "time and attention" wallet to pay dearly for faux content.

Virtual Meetings Mania

Well, the cycle has come around again. Over the years people have developed a strong appetite for using virtual meetings at various points in time. During oil crises, after 9/11 and more recently because of the economy and flu viruses. My phone calls and emails are full of questions about what technologies to use and how to design interactions in virtual environments.

Here's the thing. Virtual meetings are fantastic. I know that because I've been designing them for about 20 years using the full range of technologies from teleconferencing to Twitter. However, it's easy to be seduced into thinking that virtual meetings are going to save you a pile of money or that they're a viable alternative for replacing all or most of your face-to-face meetings.

Virtual meetings require just as much careful design as face-to-face meetings... and that costs money. You need bandwidth... and that costs money. You need marketing... and that costs money. Certainly there are ways to save money by using electronic alternatives, but don't fool yourself into thinking that just because Skype is free that you're going to slash your meeting budgets to zero.

During times like these, I always try to remind people that they need to think about the effectiveness side of the equation. Will the meeting medium you choose deliver the value you're looking for? Will people be more or less engaged by the way in which you set up interaction? What is the real purpose for your meeting and how should you appropriately integrate technology?

Technology-driven approaches to communication have a long history of a very high failure rate. Instead, use a purpose-driven approach. If you focus on your purpose and design your interaction around it, you'll be much happier with your results.