THE FUTURE OF VISUAL COLLABORATION A Thought Leadership Industry Report
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ............................................................................................................................4
WHAT’s DIGITAL COLLAB?......................................................................................... 5 Who are our MEMBERS? ..................................................................................................6 WHY VISUAL COLLAB 2018? .............................................................................................7 Why SUPPORTING DIGITAL COLLAB? ................................................................................8 co-hosts and keynotes .....................................................................................................9
MAJOR DISCOVERIES .............................................................................................. 10 Structure ....................................................................................................................... 11 Patterns......................................................................................................................... 12 The effects of a digital trend .............................................................................................................. 12 Augmenting human capabilities ........................................................................................................ 13 The permissions culture..................................................................................................................... 14
Evidence-based observations ......................................................................................... 15 Nothing replaces face to face communication .................................................................................. 15 I MUST BE SEEN, I MUST BE HEARD ................................................................................................... 16 Technology adoption issues............................................................................................................... 17
CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................ 19 SEARCH THE FUTURE ...................................................................................................... 20 RECOMMENDATIONS..................................................................................................... 21
About the author .................................................................................................... 22 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... 23 Special thanks ................................................................................................................ 23 Special Guests from ....................................................................................................... 23
References ............................................................................................................. 24
3
PREFACE
“It’s becoming more important to train soft skills and social capabilities to prepare managers for the modern environment. The world is changing rapidly, and more complex problems are demanding solutions. No one can solve all these problems alone; you need help from others. Modern technology allows you to work with people all over the world. From video chats to shared documents, international collaboration is so much easier. Technology has not only made 'soft skills’ like cross-cultural communication into vital educational goals - it’s also made them much easier to teach. Through technology, we can have the whole world in one place.”i Niina Halonen EU ID Business Development Manager at LG
“Wouldn’t it be better if we could create a shared workspace that all participants can access, either directly or via a personal device, from wherever they happen to be? A system that makes tools available that encourage all team members to add text-based notes, and a space where all participants are equally able to annotate their thoughts and share ideas. The result being a far more representative, inclusive and accurate record of everyone’s ideas and contributions - and crucially, delivering usable data that can be exported, analysed and sorted.”ii Jon Knight Director of Ascentae and Nureva Representative in the UK
4
WHAT’S DIGITAL COLLAB? Digital Collab is a Thought Leadership Community facilitated by col.lab. Our goal is to open a space for relevant industry stakeholders, technology producers, workplace designers, group facilitators, knowledge managers, and other business leaders, to be able to encounter and express themselves in meaningful conversations about the future of the digital workplace and its tools for visual collaboration and group decision-making.
5
WHO ARE OUR MEMBERS? Anyone interested to learn how to work with groups for solving problems and decision-making, or to make training and teaching more participative and fun with digital tools for visual collaboration. Our current members are knowledge managers and experts in group facilitation that know how to increase the performance of teams and organizations as facilitative leaders. Check here for more details about our members. Facilitative Leadership is a people–centred, quality and results driven process of developing and supporting a culture in the workplace that facilitates goal achievement through effective relational processes. Digital tools for visual collaboration are a critical enabler for facilitative leaders.
Visual Collab 2018 participant’s profiles can be reached here
6
WHY VISUAL COLLAB 2018? There is undoubtedly a new trend in the workplace - including schools, universities and business organizations - for the use of interactive screens and specialized software that increases the effectiveness of teamwork. In 2018, we ran our first Future Café (a special type of a Knowledge Café) at the RSA House in London with several knowledge contributors from both Europe and North America. The Knowledge Café is a conversational method in which small groups of people come together to have open, creative conversations on a topic of mutual interest, to surface their collective knowledge, to share ideas and to gain a deeper understanding of the issues involved. For our first Future Café we were challenged with two questions by our keynote speakers. •
Despite the interactive whiteboard having been invented in 1991, why is it that so many organizations still struggle to move way from white paper and post it notes and what are the signals of change that might lead to the wider adoption of digital visual interactive collaboration?
•
How do we design for active participation in problem solving?
This report addresses the first question and a subsequent Part II will be focusing on the latter.
7
WHY SUPPORTING DIGITAL COLLAB?
With this first Digital Collab community gathering and its Future Café session outcomes, we are educating the customer about the benefits of digital tools for visual collaboration and group decision-making. The so called “team displays” manufacturers need to rethink their value proposition not just to include enhanced features but also to involve their customers or knowledge expert partners as early as possible in the design process to find out about real use cases and how to better address them.
8
CO-HOSTS AND KEYNOTES
Visual Collab 2018 special contributions, from left to right clockwise, Colin Messenger (Senior Analyst, Futuresource Consulting), John Hovell (Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder at STRATactical International), David Gurteen (Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning consultant, speaker and facilitator), Jon Knight (Commercial Director, Ascentae), David Martin (Chairman, Nureva). I am truly thankful for their contributions and conversational leadership within this community.
9
MAJOR DISCOVERIES To organize the flow of ideas produce we have adopted the following conceptual model - the perceptual iceberg (Senge, 1990)
From Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization (1990)
10
STRUCTURE
Three major ideas have been classified as structural elements for the importance they had as sense making beacons, organized in a hierarchical manner, with one overarching notion and two subsequent ideas: •
We shape our tools and, therefore, our tools also shape us. o Technology in support of human activity not driving it. o Uninterrupted tech and the creation of trust.
11
PATTERNS Here are the major ideas classified as patterns. THE EFFECTS OF A DIGITAL TREND The massive adoption of digital technologies is pervasive, this reflects in several evidences, such as the number of local cafĂŠs and community hubs that now offer access to social networks and are increasingly integrated with those. On the other hand, this digital trend also impacts the adoption of technology in a similar way to the clothing fashion. If your meeting room is not dressed up with the latest range of digital tools, what would your customers think when they meet you?
Regus huddle Room (meetingbrookers.com)iii versus old fashioned conference room (designtrends.com)iv
12
AUGMENTING HUMAN CAPABILITIES Since the invention of the wheel, the general drive behind all technology creation is the augmentation of human ability to perform a task that otherwise would be more costly and painful. The digital revolution merely expands the already existing technology of storing and sharing knowledge made possible by the Guttenberg’s invention of the movable blocks pressv. In a recent book (2018), the historian Niall Fergussonvi concludes that the economic impact of the invention of the press in the XV century in terms of percentual growth, has vastly superseded the economic impact of the invention of the PC in the last century. NEW TECH START AS GIMMICK However, this drive to adopt the latest digital tools as fashionable gadgets creates a paradox. The purchase is driven by the latest technology offers in the market not by what people need to collaborate in the context of the organization’s digital maturity. The speed of tech change means we already start moving on before we have learned. This can also be causing resistance and reluctance to share, despite the changing attitudes between generation that are driving new adoption habits, that are reported in the observations below. In what concerns digital tools for visual collaboration, we must start with the question ‘what does the group needs. We may need to change the current model of how we run conventional meetings to make them more engaging and fun, without losing their effectiveness, and then to design the technology for these new styles of meetings.
From 15 Hi-Tech Conference Room Design Images (Newdesignfile.com)vii
13
THE PERMISSIONS CULT URE Under this last heading I have assembled several seemingly unrelated ideas. Perhaps because of not fitting in the previous categories. But there was always an elephant in the room, and it was screaming out loud. Meetings as well as any human interaction in an organization do not take place in a cultural void. The quality of such working culture greatly impacts the outcomes of group collaboration and team development, regardless of technology. The separation between action and reflection is usually a norm and the lack of time and space for connecting the two generates the usual problems. The prevalence of a ‘permissions culture’ is at odds with a workplace where action and reflection-on-action are united, mutually feeding each other in meaningful and purposeful ways. Conventional meetings are either too inhibiting (presentations, status reports and managed discussions) or too loose and disorganized to creatively engage people in joint reflection and decision-making. How would design to make them more effective? They frequently generate feelings of frustration and/or exclusion and fail to provide space for good ideas to emerge and germinate. This means that huge amounts of time and money are spent working the wrong way. More time and money are then spent trying to fix the unintended consequences.viii Using visual collaboration technology tends to require and offers the possibility to adopt a new mode of thinking about work. Undoubtedly, the quality of the meeting host determines the style of collaboration. Leaders who adopt the role of facilitators and embrace the values of participation in decision-making can be more effective in the use of digital tools for visual collaboration.
14
EVIDENCE-BASED OBSERVATIONS Finally, these are the more observational elements derived from the conversations. NOTHING REPLACES FACE TO FACE COMMUNICATION How can technology get close? This stance departs from the structural element “augmenting human capabilities”. Remote working and technologies for the remote meetings would never surpass the value of face to face communication, would this be true in a few years’ time with the latest technology developments such as immersed 3D virtual reality and AI (Artificial Intelligence)? The geographical distance as a barrier for collaboration is a major driver behind a great deal of technology development since the dawn of mankind. From the smoke sign technology of native tribes in North America, to the navigation technology breakthroughs made by the Portuguese in the XV century to the first telephone by Antonio Meucci in the XIX century[i], bringing down the distance barrier has been a permanent major drive for human invention. Yet, today, there is still a lot we miss whenever we meet at a distance. The Visual Collab hybrid session we have hosted in the RSA House has demonstrated that we are close to achieving the effectiveness of attending a face-to-face meeting from a distance. Observations ranged from different world views. There is the danger that a travel cost saving can destroy the value of a human connection. There is also this in-depth belief that ‘I have to be in the same room’ that explains the reluctance to use remote conferencing technology, because it prevents the richness of human interaction.
Nureva Span™ software was used for note capturing during this session.
15
I MUST BE SEEN, I MUST BE HEARD Some might thing remote conferencing technology still takes too long to explain and use so that the value proposition window can be too short to gain the advantage over face to face meetings. On the other hand, videoconference providers are making their products more intuitive and easier to use. Meeting technology, such as the one we used in this Knowledge CafĂŠ, needs to work well first time and every time, like when I am grabbing a pen and writing on a flipchart. The new digital tools must offer the same simplicity advantages of the traditional ones. Collaboration happens when two or more people are watching something together, without the shared views of a document or a diagram there is not enough communication bandwidth for effective problem solving and decision making. Besides this, the power of anonymity must be considered in the design of meeting technology apps, it has the potential to free up people to express what they really think and turning the stones up-side down. Obviously, this same effect can be accomplished with good facilitation. Children when learning to walk needs to fall and you do not want them to stop falling because we need them to learn. The closest surrogate to this technology-enabled anonymity augmentation in a face to face meeting will be the proper use of group facilitation. Group facilitators generate the enough level of mutual trust in a group to bring about the level of candour for all issues to be surfaced and addressed without fear of consequences. I would argue that we should be using anonymity in a group conversation with caution, it can be a powerful meeting technology.
Sample from Nureva Span™ software screen capture that was used for note capturing during this session.
16
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION ISSUES These observations depart from the structural element “the effects of a digital trend�. We can classify them in several categories. GENERATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Millennials and other tech savvy younger generations are paving the way for a massive adoption of digital tools for collaboration and their parents, and even grandparents, that want to stay connected simply must follow them and embrace the trend. These days, digital communications have an impact on the way kids interact and not just among themselves but also with their relatives. For some of these younger gens, a chat of text messages can be more than transactional and become a proxy to face to face conversations. Generation Y & Z have similar patterns and prefer sending email rather than using the phone, as voice conversations are perceived to be too time consuming and should be avoided at work. TOO MANY OPTIONS
The industry is exploding faster than the actual user adoption rate. When the telephone was invented, people would have a limited number of choices when adopting the technology. Today the opposite occurs, we have several brands in the market long before the actual need is fully mature, and this tends to create confusion and anxiety. Will I be able to find the right technology for me? Would I be losing support if the brand I have purchased disappears? In the visual collaboration industry there is a lack of universal standards and standardized tools that could be easily adopted by most consumers. The leading brands such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, or Polycom, compete among themselves to become market standards on their own. USABILITY ISSUES
The tyranny of IT teams and their strict firewalls tend to create barriers for digital collaboration with external third parties such as customers and other potential partners. However, the managerial concerns of using the public cloud for storing and sharing sensitive information and the perceived insecurity of cloud-based apps has not deterred the massive growth of cloudbased business such as Salesforce, Smartsheets or Trello. Even within the large multinational organizations, maverick work teams and even entire departments are finding collaborative shortcuts not just with external parties but also among themselves, by totally bypassing the corporate Intranet whose closed nature is becoming less and less relevant. Who wants to search for an internal directory when LinkedIn can also liaise you not just with your colleagues but also with your business partners and potential customers? Other issues addressed were the need to integrate handwritten annotations in a virtual meeting room and the lack of voice recognition tools to capture conversations during a videoconference. Something that AI researchers could be working on in a near future, to create a virtual meeting
17
assistant that summarises the conclusions at the end of each conversation topic in the meeting and offers some group facilitation tips to the group to better accomplish its goals? GETTING THINGS DONE
We need to have new processes for collaboration as well as technology. Meeting technology needs to be designed to support time and space for groups to reflect on action and to extract the lessons learned besides the daily ‘stand up’ conversations about project management and the issues at hand. It is nice to have technology designed to help ‘scrum masters’ or assigned project leaders to keep daily work on track but we also need facilitators to help the group extract learning on how best to achieve its goals.
18
CONCLUSIONS When we try to combine the power of digital tools for group collaboration we approach the realm of GDSS - Group Decision-Making Support Systems. Since the late 90's, traditional GDSSs use an interface that builds on the keyboard as the major source of data input. Whereas today, new touch screen technology such LG in-cell, enables multiple touch points in a screen and natural writing behaviour (like writing on a piece of paper). Would this finally be replacing the flipcharts in meeting rooms? How would the market be responding to the appearance of a large digital canvas where the knowledge workers can contribute handwritten notes and digital media such as video and annotate on top? Why would the visual interactive collaboration technology be in strong demand? We know for a fact that sticky notes in walls are increasingly being used by lean managers, scrum masters and group facilitators in all sorts of collaborative-intensive projects, including Future Search conferences.
19
SEARCH THE FUTURE As the IAF (International Association of Facilitators) Future Foresight Toolbox will outline, there are many stages in a future search conference, namely: •
Understanding the domain
•
Surfacing current assumptions
•
Exploring weak signals of change
•
Identify critical uncertainties
•
Building scenario scaffold
The Knowledge Café can certainly be applied in several of these stages, but for this first edition of Visual Collab 2018 we focused on exploring the signals of change that might lead to the wider adoption of digital visual interactive collaboration. The potential for such new collaborative tools is tremendous. Yet, technology by itself does not engage your team nor the whole organization, for all that matters. Having the chance to use powerful digital tools in the meeting room or in the classroom is only the tip of an iceberg of a truly collaborative organization. You will be needing a lot more to take advantage of the full potential of a digital collaborative workplace.
20
RECOMMENDATIONS Technology providers need to team up with trainers, coaches and group facilitators to deliver something more than a digital tool for group decision-making. The package needs to include the skills' enhancement for their users to be able to lead a transformative change in their teams and subsequently throughout the whole organization. I have found this diagram used by an Ohio's based company - Meeteor - quite inspiring and I am sure this is signalling a trend for a possible future scenario that can soon become mainstream and fully adopted by all the providers.
The Meteor’s approach to technology-supported meetings
But don't worry if you are not there yet. Your current tensions will be a source of inspiration for the kind of conversations we host in Digital Collab, with our knowledge cafĂŠs. You will also learn how easy it is to take this 'process' with you and run it in your own team or organization. The recipe is very simple: total freedom to interact and engage within the minimal possible structure. Some folks call this a liberating structureix. Eventually, you will be learning, like me, that you are your own meeting technology.
21
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Paul Nunesdea is the English author name of Paulo Nunes de Abreu, a collaboration architect who convened Visual Collab 2018 to host relevant industry stakeholders in meaningful conversations with the purpose of building a circle of practice and knowledge exchange around visual interactive collaboration and group facilitation expertise. With more than 4,000 highly valued follower on LinkedIn that recognise him as a trusted voice in the fields of visual collaboration and group decision-making, Paul Nunesdea is ranked at the top 1% Social Selling Index rank in the world's largest professional network with more than 562 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide and can be reached here.
22
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was made possible, thanks to the following organizations that sponsored and supported Visual Collab 2018:
SPECIAL THANKS
SPECIAL GUESTS FROM
Visual Collab adopts the Gurteen Knowledge CafĂŠ as a work method for the Future Foresight sessions with guest members from the Gurteen Knowledge Community and from the IAF - International Association of Facilitators Special Interest Group in Alternative Futures Facilitation.
23
REFERENCES
i
In Pulse: Digital Transformation in Education https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-transformationeducation-niina-halonen/ ii
In Pulse: Is there a better way to use annotation in the workplace? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/better-way-use-annotation-workplace-jon-knight/ iii
https://www.meetingsbooker.com/
iv
https://www.designtrends.com/arch-interior/office-designs/conference-room.html
v
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg
vi
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/300/300405/the-square-and-the-tower/9780141984810.html
vii
http://www.newdesignfile.com/post_hi-tech-conference-room-design_347658/
ix
http://www.liberatingstructures.com/
24