Denied permission to visit Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the body, the Dalai Lama opened a Google Plus account this week and set up a Hangout to celebrate his “mischievous brother’s” 80th birthday. I was unable to watch in real-time as they met at 1:30am Pacific but I will post the recording of their meeting here as soon as possible.
Presence shared, in real time, across space and time. Outside any foolish limitations of governmental policy.
Let’s use these two fine leaders’ wise choices to continue inspiring us to do whatever we know is right, whatever we know is true. To share whatever we know is beautiful. Whenever – as as often – as we can. Using virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings, whichever serves us best.
I am so happy to have lived to see the day when two world Peace leaders meet in a virtual meeting inside a new social network to celebrate one of their 80th birthdays! Blessings to them. Blessings to us all.
A friend shared this vid with me today because it’s outrageously funny. Take a look…
Look at the Monkey! Is this precious, or what?! The thing is, there’s a lot more to this vid than just the humor.
If you’ll watch it a couple more times after you’ve had your initial laugh, you’ll see that this vid demonstrates a handful of issues that human beings – of all ages, personalities, and persuasions – to encounter and move through on our way to developing webcam “literacy” – i.e., the ability to make good use of webcams for video mail, video conferencing, web conferencing, internet conferencing, and/or virtual meetings.
To be truly effective communicators in the 21st Century, we simply can’t afford to skip webcam literacy. No matter how young or old we are…
A new set of skills are called for when we step away from “publishing papers” online. Whether we’re pairing still webcam images with words or using moving pictures and sound to convey our messages, new kinds of “composition” formats are called for. We can’t just expect to turn our traditional 5-paragraph essays into audio scripts and throw in a few pictures for “visual aides.” That just doesn’t cut it with 21st century audiences. To give you their time and attention, your online audience expects you to acknowledge THEIR concerns and connect with them quickly, effectively, and with candor.
So, what are a few of the questions and issues people need to work through if we’re to make effective use of webcams as communication tools? Let’s make a list here, using the commenting box…
I’ll start.
1) Turning on a webcam is NOT the same thing as watching ourselves in a mirror as we record our pre-written speeches. We simply can’t help being fascinated with the way we look and how we sound as we’re using the camera (as the man was above). We’re human, after all. (Even chimps love looking at themselves in mirrors and on camera.) But, when we turn on a webcam, who or what else do we need to be paying attention to – besides what we look like and whatever it is we want someone else to see and hear?
2) What are some key differences between illustrating our words with still webcam shots (or screen grabs) … and translating our verbal scripts into a video recordings? When, how and why would you choose to use one or the other approach?
It’s been a wild and wooly first few months of 2011 and I’ve been so busy over at my new blog, BeingSocial.Us, that I haven’t updated much here. My sincere apologies to anyone who hasn’t yet heard about the extension of my work to helping Baby Boomer and senior thought leaders use BOTH social media AND virtual meetings to connect with their people. I hope you’ll join me over at BeingSocial.Us
And I’m blogging back here today because the news is so important: Microsoft’s purchase of our precious Skype this week for $8.5B is a big, big deal. On so many fronts.
It’s going to take awhile to see what’s going to happen to us 700 million registered users of Skype. But here are a few things to bear in mind:
When Skype was part of EBay, the company used to issue all kind of data about its growth but solid recent numbers have been harder to locate. A couple of things we do know:
At peak times, over 23 million users are logged into Skype.
Skype is available in 29 languages and is used in almost every country around the world.
35 percent of Skype users utilize it for business purposes.
It also makes sense because Microsoft seems like the most obvious player to offer the general public video chat at home, school and work using mobile phones tables, desktops, game consoles equipped with webcams (like the latest XBox units) and large screen televisions.
Microsoft stands well-prepared to build video chat into all sorts of applications – which only makes sense when everyone now wants to use all their senses to connect with others as we work, play and learn together – across the globe.
However, it’s my hunch that the Microsoft/Skype deal foretells a much bigger game than this. A game I’ve been pointing to for the last five years, while feeling like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.
The big game is moving counseling, coaching, and both traditional and alternative medicine into our living rooms quickly – and a lot more cheaply – than Cisco’s home-based telepresence system called Umi.
Today’s TeleMental Health Institute blog brings Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype into clearer focus for psychotherapists. I want to underscore everything Marlene had to say there. The fact that Microsoft was willing to spend a full $2B more to acquire Skype than either Google or Facebook was willing put on the table is waving the flag of big business, friends: the business of physical and mental healthcare.
Since way back in 2007, I’ve been urging counselors, coaches, health coaches, physicians, and alternative healers of all shapes and sizes to begin testing various virtual meeting tools and to start practicing your virtual meeting chops.
When Xbox consoles have webcams built it (which has been the case for at least the last six months) and Microsoft pays $8.5B to acquire Skype so they can “build Skype’s functionality into Microsoft apps and products” (as Microsoft announced it plans to do)… it’s maybe 12-18 months until it’s going to be possible for YOU to be meeting easily and cheaply with your clients- from your office to their living rooms.
So, if you’re not confident you can easily transition both
1) your crucial business processes and
2) your subtle healing skills
into virtual meeting rooms, now is the time to take a look at what it’s going to take for you to play the new game.
I’m blogging several times a week over at BeingSocial.Us and I’m also happy to offer any reader of this blog a free, 30-minute consultation so I can hear more about your specific situation and explore the fit between your needs and my coaching programs. It would be my great delight to help mental health professionals of all kinds bring your services within easy reach of new clients.
How exciting! That $8.5B purchase signals showtime’s just around the corner! And you’re going to be the show.
If you’re the kind of person who needs to SEE to BELIEVE, please take a look at this vid about Cisco’s Umi unit.And, take a very careful look at the comments beneath the vid there on YouTube. The comments tell the story behind Microsoft’s purchase. At least that’s my hunch. Wondering what you think…
First comment beneath this vid on YouTube as I pulled the link today: “I pay $43 a month for my internet service. I download Yahoo Messenger, with Video and voice chat, … with full FPS. hook up a HDMI or S-Video cord from my laptop to my TV, right click on my desktop, choose output to : TV, and in a matter of seconds, I see my desktop on the TV, “with the messenger Video Chat” and beats the $599 that you’d pay for this crap. even if I had the $600, “I Will NOT” buy this crap.” ~UserIsAnFBIAgent
And here’s a short vid showing how easy it is to use a Logitech TV Cam and Google TV:
There’s news coming out over the last month that technology can – and will – soon provide us with new ways to be present with one another ala Star Wars/Star Trek “holodecks” and “holograms.”
If your fondest wish for a virtual meeting experience is to being able to simulate people being physically present (telepresent) with one another, here are a couple of new stories you may find interesting:
Fueled by extensive market research, Citrix and Cisco are taking different paths towards providing telepresence capabilities to business, education and medical markets. And all of this is fascinating for those of us who find technology fascinating.
But the even more fascinating inquiry – for me, and maybe for you – is wondering how these new holographic capabilities are going to affect our business communication practices and meeting processes.
Telepresence tools – like all of man’s tools – create new possibilities, new environments for human behavior. In so doing, they also create new limitations, new frames of reference that circumscribe behavior. Automobiles, for example, have opened up a whole new “way” of being on the planet – and a whole new set of constraints and hazards, too.
My everyday business requires me to think about new ways I can help my clients take advantage of social media and real-time virtual meeting tools to save time and money – without sacrificing quality outcomes. And every day I run into walls of assumptions about how people can – and should – interact around information and shared tasks together. Face-to-face is hard enough. Then there are the challenges of working together at a distance. . Climbing over the walls of assumptions about “appropriate” interaction in collaborative activities can either liberate groups or tie them up in knots. To be candid, quite often it does both – at first.
So, as I’m reading today about new possibilities for telepresence, I’m both excited about potential new terrain and more curious than ever about the new constraints clients are certainly going to encounter as they move to take advantage of these tools.
It’s going to be fascinating helping human beings look through their assumptions about what someone’s “quasi” physical presence might actually contribute to achieving shared outcomes. And how it might impede that achievement, as well.
So many of us have a Star Trek boy- or girlself who has been longing to be able to “see” and “feel” the semi-physical presence of others in our meetings. There’s no reason to deny it – it’s going to be totally cool!
And, if you haven’t already looked ahead to how having semi-physical presence possibilities is going to affect your communication and collaboration, I invite you this week to consider what you’re going to say and do when you step onto a “holodeck.” How are you imagining you’ll be able to contribute more to a virtual meeting than you can contribute now using FREE web conferencing tools that are already available?
Besides starting out with “Wow! Isn’t this cool? I can hardly believe this is happening…” how will you use telepresence to accelerate the achievement of your meeting objectives? And how will you work around the limitations that “quasi” physical presence may bring to the creation – and sustenance – of shared meaning that groups of human beings require if they’re going to get things done together?
I’d love to hear your thoughts here below or over at Amplify. Take your pick.
I’m reading a number of new blogs lately and one, in particular, really got me thinking this week.
You can read the whole post I’ve been chewing on here on Jeff Lowe’s blog at http://bit.ly/fqEiy8 .
In that post, Jeff’s thoughts are focused on planning for meetings in 3D immersive environments. But the issues he’s raising about the need to design the interactive space for collaboration are hardly limited to meetings in 3D environments. And, in particular, the list of questions Jeff poses for meeting designers seem to me to be crucial to the design of every virtual meeting in which your goal for the meeting is high-energy collaboration.
Granted, not all virtual meetings are focused on collaborative work.
But when you’re aiming for collaboration between people who aren’t in the same room (much less the same time zone), then creating a sense of shared presence is everything. When we’re not able to be face-to-face with collaborators, the room, the meeting flow, and the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic elements and interactions need to work together seamlessly for human beings to achieve a sense of shared presence, shared meaning, and shared purpose.
I’ve clipped all of Jeff’s questions and raised a couple of additional points here on my Amplify blog. Please take a look and, if they stimulate you, too, join in the conversation at Amplify – or right here below.
I’m always curious about what you’re thinking as you’re designing your virtual meetings… These seem like crucial questions to me.
Hello Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, Grants Pass, and Jacksonville, Oregon! I’m looking for one more Rogue Valley author, coach or consultant who’s ready to add virtual meetings to your communication toolbox this year!
At the end of this month, I’m starting up a 6-week small-group coaching program where you will meet in person with others like you and learn-by-doing in a fun face-to-face setting.
Ready to skill yourself up for 2011? We’re going to have some big fun! Read more here. If you’re interested, give me a call right away.
I just caught sight of a promising new development going on in a graduate lab at MIT.
When the tools described below are fully integrated into simple virtual meeting interfaces, we really will have many more choices about how we give and receive healthcare support services, won’t we? How utterly exciting!
MIT Team Developing Tool To Monitor Vital Signs Through Camera
A device under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could monitor changes in a person’s vital signs through a low-cost camera, the Boston Globe’s “White Coat Notes” reports (Johnson, “White Coat Notes,” Boston Globe, 10/5).
Researchers led by MIT graduate student Ming-Zher Poh used public-domain software to identify facial positions and to deconstruct the information into red, green and blue portions of video images.
The device then determines an individual’s pulse by tracking small changes in how light reflects off their face as blood flows under the skin.
The tool could be embedded into a mirror or integrated with a Web-based camera.
In May, researchers published initial results from the project in the journal Optics Express.
Early results found that the MIT device identified pulses accurately within three beats per minute, even when up to three people stood in front of the camera and when test subjects moved (Armstrong Moore, CNET News, 10/5).
The team currently is working on refining the device to take other measurements, such as:
* Blood pressure;
* Oxygen saturation; and
* Respiration rate (“White Coat Notes,” Boston Globe, 10/5).
According to Poh, the device’s noninvasive design could make it useful for several purposes, such as monitoring newborn infants or burn victims.
In addition, the device could be used for telemedicine-based health screenings or remote patient monitoring (MIT release, 10/4).
Are you prepared to take advantage of opportunities to consult with your healthcare providers remotely? Do you know what it’s going to take to be prepared?
I’ve been following the development of this initiative in California for the last three years and I invite you to think of the post below as the starting gun … on a race that will have many heats.
How is telemedicine getting a foothold in your community? I’d love to hear more if you’re willing to leave a comment below…
Imagine a doctor listening to the heartbeat of a patient half a world away. Or a young child opening wide into the peering lens of a high-definition camera. And doctors collaborating online, exchanging digital X-rays, MRIs and potential diagnoses.
Dr. Thomas Nesbitt, right, announces the birth of the California Telehealth Network by demonstrating a live linkup with three UC Davis Medical Center telemedicine locations. Using broadband technology, specialists will be able to assist local doctors in faraway communities.
Telemedicine’s future took another leap forward Tuesday with the launch of the California Telehealth Network, the most ambitious foray yet into the rapidly developing field that links doctors and patients via high-tech tools.
Initially, just 50 clinics, hospitals and other health care providers in California will tap into a broadband network that could eventually link nearly 900 facilities statewide by the end of 2011.
The medical center will serve as the control center for the new network and will help the state develop its telemedicine infrastructure. The telehealth network is expected to cost $30 million, with about $22 million from the federal government as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Health Care Pilot Program, an effort to improve health care in rural America.
With the telemedicine network, more Californians, particularly those in far-flung areas, will have access to medicine’s best and brightest, Schwarzenegger said.
“It should not be a matter of how rich you are or where you live,” he said. “We are celebrating the future of medicine, also known as telemedicine.”
That future couldn’t come soon enough for the family of Rennee Wilson, a young Shasta County girl whose skull was fractured earlier this month during a traffic accident near Redding.
The 3-year-old was in need of immediate care, and the trip from Redding to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento would have consumed precious hours and possibly exposed the patient to additional medical trauma.
Instead, using video cameras that streamed real-time images from Redding to Sacramento, doctors collaborated on saving the girl’s life. From 160 miles away in Sacramento, Dr. James Marcin, a UC Davis associate professor of pediatrics critical care, assisted the intensive care physicians in Redding.
Using the latest telemedicine technology, he consulted with his remote partners on digital images that revealed a fractured skull. He recommended the drugs to administer and even when the Redding doctors should remove the ventilator after she could breathe on her own.
“They needed my brains more than they needed my hands,” Marcin said.
The girl’s family was thankful that they didn’t need to travel to Sacramento for her critical care. “The technology was awesome,” said Phillip Potter, the child’s grandfather.
Telemedicine has been around for years. But until recently, much of the technology has been crude – landline phones that offered no video, dial-up Internet that took an eternity to transmit images or grainy black-and-white videos that were of little use to diagnose an ailing patient.
Today, broadband technology is allowing sophisticated instruments to tap into the Internet’s high-speed digital currents. For example, stethoscopes can be connected to equipment that allows a doctor to remotely listen to a heartbeat. Other equipment allows doctors to examine a wound or see into a patient’s mouth, ears and other parts of the body.
That means physicians now have the ability to treat a patient without ever being in the same room or physically touching them.
“When telemedicine started, no one knew what high-definition was,” said Nesbitt, the medical center’s technology director. “Now we can look into someone’s ear to get a clear picture of an eardrum and look directly into an eye.”
When you’ve become a successful face-to-face facilitator, coach, trainer, or consultant, learning to use virtual meeting tools can be a totally absorbing process. It’s true. Everything’s different than when we’re meeting face-to-face. We have to learn to translate some skills and find ways to live without some things we’ve learned to believe are essential for good relationship and high productivity.
It’s quite a dance. And to be successful virtual meeting leaders, requires practice. Actually quite a lot of practice. Like learning to dance – or riding a bike – no amount of time spent “thinking about it” substitutes for time spent just getting down the new moves.
Then, when we enter the virtual meeting room, we must let go of the “meeting” we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
Cynthia’s Virtual Tea Party explored the subject of “meeting” in virtual meetings, providing participants with a variety of opportunities to experience and reflect on what Cynthia calls “body wisdom.” She used slides, whiteboard participation, text chat, video cam, and music broadcast through the teleconferencing system to elicit and contain participants’ responses to images, sound, words, and both recorded and live video. It was an ambitious and thoroughly enjoyable first effort from a master of face-to-face whole body interaction.
In this rowdy debriefing conversation following the final session of the Spring Virtual Meeting Camp, Cynthia and Tom Carroll (of EvolutionaryLearning.com) and I explore some of the issues that come up when human beings try to squeeze ourselves into virtual meeting rooms. It’s hard for all of us – especially in the beginning of our transition into virtual meetings – not to allow the tools to worsen the mind/body/spirit split that western education systems trained into us.
However, as Cynthia’s party demonstrated, it’s not at all necessary for virtual meetings to make this split worse! In fact, as both Gretchen Wegner’s and Cynthia’s parties aptly demonstrated, when the meeting host/ess makes embodied presence one of the chief objectives of a virtual meeting, participatory strategies can actually create some unique bridging where bodies, minds and spirits experience joining in real-time at great physical distance from one another. And, the research shows more and more that when multi-level connections are made or refreshed – at a distance – people experience a renewed sense of commitment to and responsibility for projects and teams they’ve signed onto.
This is exciting stuff to me! I look forward to hosting some guest posts very shortly from Cynthia, Gretchen, and others from the global Interplay community. They have much to share with all of us who aspire to effective use of online meetings, web conferencing, and even 3D meeting technologies!
PLEASE NOTE: Because Cynthia is such a wild-and-crazy woman, she moves around quite a bit as she speaks. So, be prepared: as you watch this vid, you will experience a less-than-fully-detailed representation of her face at various times during the recording. Personally, I love the way the video alternates between a recognizable image of Cynthia and a kind of nutty pixel-headed avatar image. Very Madhatter-ish!
