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Effective Team Meetings and Leadership
Since you have such busy lives and NO time
to get together with your team members for various classes, consider meeting
virtually.
The business world has perfected this
process over the last couple of years. As the cost of travel has skyrocketed
(due to increased gas prices, airline unreliability, and the hassle of having
people out of their offices so much), many businesses have found great ways for
employees to participate in meetings LONG DISTANCE!
High(ish) tech approaches to web conferences and
meetings include using web cameras and microphones to talk to each other in real
time.
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Skype – You can see each other during meetings if you have web cams. If
not, you can still talk to each other.
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Dimdim.com allows you to host fee web conferences for up to 20 people at
a time. You can use web cameras and mikes to see and talk to each other in
real time during your meetings. This would be helpful if you have distant
team members.
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Vyew.com is similar and is free for up to 5 people in a meeting at
once. (There are small monthly charges if you want more people at the same
time, etc.)
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Other
similar services that are more sophisticated and cost more with continued
use include:
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Try “Go
to Meeting” You can get a free trial for a month at their web site!
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WebEx is another similar service.
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Microsoft’s
LiveMeeting is a good one too!
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Intercall – Similar to the others with a 1-month free trial!
More “medium-tech” ideas for meeting virtually
include:
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Set up a
group in
Google Groups and only invite your team members (and me?) to the group.
That way, no one else can find your documents or discussions.
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You can post your documents (drafts of papers, etc.) there for proofreading
and editing. I’m exploring using this with classes as well.
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I’ve set up a group for each class as a whole that we can play with. This
might be a good way to distribute documents without having to go into
eCampus (especially when it is down!).
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Social
Networking Sites: Of course you can use your favorite networking site
such as Facebook
(you can be my friend if you want!), MySpace, Twitter, etc. Some tend to be more
“professional, business-like” including Plaxo and LinkedIn. You
can share documents in Facebook and MySpace, so you could create a group in
there and allow your freinds (team members) to use it.
Of course you can use the tools in eCampus/Blackboard.
I’ve set up a “private chat room and whiteboard” for each team to meet
virtually. You can email your team as a group as well.
Bottom Line: It doens't matter what you use to meet virtually.
Just do it! :-)
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