Australia: Notes from the Road

I’m blogging from my trip down under. I thought it might be nice to cross post one here for a little blog continuity!
fogAll work and no play makes Nancy a dull and out-of-shape girl, so today I headed out early to Australia’s beautiful Blue Mountains with Bronwyn Stuckey et al for a bit of a tramp in the misty woods near Katumba to see the “Three Sisters.” (Full trip pictures here.) I deeply appreciated the chance for a bit of play, because my two weeks here are packed with workshops and conferences. So some time on the wild is perfect.

While a dense, misty fog kept us from seeing the sculptural grandeur of the Three Sisters formation, we had a wonderful walk. The weather kept away the tourists and for long stretches of the walk down the The Giant StairwayGiant Stairway and along the valley wall we had the woods to ourselves. We took our time going down the over 500 steps, but even still, my knees and legs were a bit wobbly.

As we walked along the ridge above the valley, the sounds of the birds were amazing. We saw vivid red and blue birds (I need to look up the name), small finches and heard many more. Along the way, we had the a pair of Lyre birdsextraordinary good luck to come upon a male and female pair of Lyre birds. Apparently they are attracted to blue. I was wearing blue. Heh! The walked towards us, giving me time to pull out my camera and catch the pair before they flew up to a distant gum tree.

There were many small, colorful spring flowers – miniature show pieces – and burbling waterfalls. Thankfully, we did not have to walk back up the 500 stairs, instead taking the worlds steepest funicular train. We snagged the front seats (which are really the back seats going up) and in just a few minutes, we were back up at the rim and headed back to Echo Point were we started. Here are a few shots of the ride up:

Blue Mountain Tramway

Tomorrow the workshops begin – on Monday, Stewarding Technology for Communities in the morning, Graphic Facilitation in the afternoon. Join us?

Waving from Europe

At Kruller Moller museum, the NetherlandsI’m on the road again, this time for nearly three weeks in Bonn, Germany, Eschede, The Netherlands (where I am now, typing from under a cozy quilt at my friends Lilia, Robert and young Alexander), Brussels (for KM4Dev’s annual gathering) then back to Bonn for one more facilitation gig and staying with friends Ulf and Virginie. Along the way I have met up with some of my online or “imaginary” friends such as Cosmocat and Aldo de Moor, having fabulous conversations and meals. I am focusing on the F2F time, so little blogging. Check the photostream.

More on replacing business travel from Jessica Lipnack

Flickr CC from linh_nganLast week I wrote about Obliterate or strategically use business travel?

Then I saw this post on Facebook by NetTeams wizardess, Jessica Lipnack. Her emphasis on the social processes resonates. It is worth a link here…

Facebook | Jessica Lipnack’s Notes

…Many reporters, for example, The New York Times’s fine one, Steve Lohr, whose article, “As travel costs rise, more meetings go virtual,” took the headline earlier this week. Nothing wrong with Lohr’s article, good, solid reporting with news for the newbies to the area: Cisco’s telepresence offering, high price tag aside, makes participants feel like they’re “there;” “companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for training and sales;” and this, worth the pull quote:

A report last month by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a group of technology companies, and the Climate Group, an environmental organization, estimated that up to 20 percent of business travel worldwide could be replaced by Web-based and conventional videoconferencing technology.

Twenty percent? Me thinks a lot higher. But, numbers aside, where Lohr’s article is like all the rest – and where it misses the point – is in this: Technology alone does not solve the problem. I’ve harped on about this before. Our old motto, “90% people, 10% technology,” is being drowned out by the reflexive action whereby companies/organizations throw technology into the hands that once held airline tickets.

Here are a couple of more related articles if you are interested in this topic of when and how to replace F2F meetings with virtual meetings.

July 31 Addition: As an added afterthought (I keep adding links) this is also a technology stewardship issue. Who is building the capacity to use these tools well? What does their community of practice look like!)

Photo Credit:
Uploaded on July 7, 2008
by linh.ngân

Obliterate or strategically use business travel?

Uploaded on July 24, 2008  law_kevinFast Company has a provocative article out yesterday under their “Big Idea” flag about “obliterating” business travel. Sounds like quite a headline, eh?

July 23, 2008
“Within five years, technology will obliterate the need for business travel.” – Inspired by new videoconferencing technologies and rising fuel costs

… Companies too are making an active effort to limit employees’ air travel for the duel-pronged benefits of cutting costs and being environmentally friendly. AT&T has reportedly reduced employee air miles by 15% through video conferencing and Web meetings, while Accenture plans to have 22 video conferencing rooms installed around the world by the end of this year.

OK, I am in firm agreement that we can cut out a lot of business travel, particularly when we are doing things like information dissemination. I cringe each time go to or hear of international gatherings where the structured interaction is all presentation. Thank goodness for meals and coffee breaks. But I think we should seriously rethink large conferences. See Jim Benson’s post on this… But what about the other things we get on airplanes and fly around the world to do, both explicitly and implicitly, with each other? (No, I’m NOT talking about mile-high clubs!)

We know we can do meaningful work and learning with each other at a distance, even without video conferencing. (In fact, please, I don’t want to have to get out of my yoga clothes for a vid!). Sales can happen via online technologies. But is there a “throw out the baby with the bathwater” element here? Will we obliterate business travel, or use is both more sparingly and strategically? I think it is the latter and here’s why.

Learning is not an instant… it is a path
I was chatting with Tony Karrer (lots of good stuff in his blog and at his new venture with Michele Martin, Work Literacy) earlier today about “training.” Oi, such a word. One of my friends says “training is for dogs, learning is for humans.” I’m not quite that rabid (or am I a dog?) but often feel like training is dumping information on people (see this clever slide show for an articulation of this.) We have expectations that training as an isolated act solves a skill or more general learning need.

In my experience, it ain’t that simple. Yes, there are certainly things we can learn and apply with a quick workshop – online or face to face (F2F). But taking learning and deepening it, applying it to work, innovating upon it – that takes time. And it sometimes takes poking at the issue from more than one direction. Working on it over time. Or perhaps with more than one stick. This is where blending online and F2F can sometimes be the thing that puts us over the current hurdle. I learn something online with you today. I go off and work on it. We help each other online. Then we get to meet, have a great meal and we start out talking about our projects, and then we go from there, discovering new learning from each other we never even imagined. Kismet, made possible by the space we create when we take time to meet F2F.

Why is there something important about this F2F stuff? Because so much of learning is nurtured by the social context and sometimes the online social context is not always sufficient for everyone. I find it very satisfying. My sister does not. Have we had some shared experiences to compare? You bet. So those of us who smugly say we can do it all online have not yet found a way to translate those rich experiences to others with different preferences and styles of learning and interacting. And, hey, we still can’t sit down and make/share a meal fully online.

Going F2F creates a different and time bounded social context. We give each other full attention for a limited amount of time. Online, we may spread that attention out – even if we are using synchronous technologies. One of the most powerful gathering experiences for me is being able to work and stay at the same place with people – a research facility, the same hotel, or in a colleagues home. The mix of work and play, of social and intellectual, creates a different sort of stew that jumpstarts my learning differently than online. Being able to “sleep on” what we said today makes tomorrow’s conversation deeper. This F2F stuff is different, not better or worse.

We benefit from that difference. The translocation to another place jostles new ideas and opens us up. We get out of our cocoon and I think that can be very productive. And in my experience, it bolsters and deepens both the learning and the subsequent online interactions.

So lets reduce business travel – it saves time, money and the environment. But lets not obliterate it because there is value in the social learning context of face to face gatherings, particularly ones that open the space for us to create meaning and ideas together. Skip the panel and the presentation. Break out the good food, wine and tea. Let’s sit elbow to elbow, look over each others’ shoulders and let’s get to work. AND, let’s do great things together online.

Photo Credit (CC)

view photostream Uploaded on July 24, 2008
by law_keven