Knowledge Transfer through a free Global Videoconference on the internet

Its 2pm in Europe, 8pm in Singapore, 9pm in Tokyo and 8am in New York, the same day, 10th September 2009.

I fire up my ooVoo. I click and call the four team members and we all appear on the computer screen in high quality. It looks like the video links that you see everyday on the television news.

Because I can see everyone, it is a very similar feeling to all sitting around a meeting table.

We talk naturally most of the time.

For 50 minutes we work our way through an agenda that includes, as a main topic, an overview of a collaborative work space that we have just set up and all need to start using. As a team of knowledge management and innovation experts and practitioners, we are going to compile a manual and courseware with a list of essential and highly desirable KM Tools, Techniques and Technologies.We aim to complete the first draft by the end of this year.

I think that, for fast and cost effective knowledge transfer, videoconferencing like this must be top of the list for me, as an essential tool.

After the video conference on the internet, I got myself a cup of coffee and reflected for a few minutes. Just a couple of weeks ago we were all together, as a team for the first time, in Singapore. In just a few days, we got to know one another and we started to build relationships, trust and respect, and a sense of optimism in working together. Now, two weeks later, I feel like I have physically attended a further meeting with them all. We agreed to have our second meeting, and first learning review, in two weeks time.

Please follow this blog, labelled 'Planetary Knowledge' and watch this space if you wish to follow my experiences in attempting to develop effective virtual knowledge working.Your feedback is most welcome.

(from the book under development
Planetary Knowledge - effective knowledge working in a global knowledge economy)

Ron Young

PS I have absolutely no financial interest in the tools I will describe in this book. I simply wish to openly share my experiences of those that work well.

More information at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Global videoconferencing using ooVoo

Today was my first experience of a 5 way
free video conference using ooVoo.

We were from New York, S.France, Singapore and
two from Tokyo.

The quality was excellent and, because we each had
4 other team members on our PC and Mac screens, it
was a true sense of being together. So much so that
the video/audio conferencing protocol I was used to,
to stop people butting in, or avoid long period of
silence, was simply not necessary, as we could all
naturally scan each other as if sitting around
a meeting table.

And if thats free video conferencing on the internet
today, totally acceptable, I certainly look forward
to the future developments too.

Ron Young

More information at

www.knowledge-management-online.com