How TeemingPod enhanced our Management Meet!

I have often awaited brainstorming sessions with much glee! It’s a great feeling to gather and discuss plans with diverse people from other teams. It helps one to plan further with valuable feedback and streamline the entire process. As you might guess right now, I have attended one such meet and I am glad to see it as a well-planned meet!

There is a very rich exchange of information that happens in these meets. Often, many things are exchanged in an informal way between individuals; however, this means every single person at the meet may not be aware of these conversations and inputs discussed between other team members.

This is probably the reason why I often felt a need for a structured information sharing approach due to which the whole process turns out as an enriching one for all! I also felt that information sharing should be easy and can serve as a rich source for those who are unable to be a part of all the discussions during the meet or are not able to attend the meet!

I was glad to see that we utilized social interaction to the fullest in this year’s management meet. There were various topics discussed right from leadership to strategy. There were more than 40 people who shared their views on every topic and there were some great discussion sessions. Just imagine if this discussion happened either through email or in the form of comments on a blog. Oops! What a mess it would have been with 40 people sharing and discussing their view points on every topic.

This is the moment when I can confidently say that TeemingPod deserves credit for a very structured approach I saw in these discussions. In TeemingPod, discussions were very well organized; such as the various views on the topic were well distinguished, users who are inclined towards a given view and their supporting points could be easily distinguished, which points are attracting debatable answers and so on.

Apart from all the above advantages, one more advantage which we could get out of TeemingPod was usage of all these viewpoints even later on during our group discussions! This helped one to see clearly the strengths or shortcomings of a given approach from various angles as seen in the discussions.

Probably this was the first time people indirectly contributed in individual group discussion by putting forward their view points well ahead of time.

Some astounding new ideas were also put forward and I must say, there was an amazing response! There were suggestions that came pouring in and the entire team could utilize this information to the maximum.

Not to say that such meets are complete without any presentations. These thought-provoking and decision making presentations when shared ahead of time with the people; receives a good response in terms of feedback and comments during the presentation. Sharing such presentations well ahead of time provides sufficient time for people to go through the presentation and get their queries resolved during the presentation. For those, who could not share their inputs verbally; had an option of sharing ideas through comments in TeemingPod. Hence, not a single valuable thought was lost in this process!

TeemingPod thus allows social interaction anywhere and anytime. I must say, this has been one of our most productive sessions. Are you ready to go the TeemingPod way?

A New Idea for the New Year!

It’s a brand New Year and I am sure you all must have had a very enjoyable time! There are many who may even be still extending their holiday plans! This is the time one cherishes being with family and friends. I am sure it also brings back fond memories.

The other day, I was deciding upon enhancing the way social interaction happens online and I happened to go back to my school days. The endless sessions of lessons were a great time to connect with friends on the back bench! Those are the days which actually gave me an idea about something new and useful.

I remember the classroom sessions that often made us discuss things amongst each other rather than ask questions to the professor directly. In fact, I even remember that some of the most valid points were brought up in the midst of these discussions. The main point here I would like to bring attention to is the amount of valuable information that is generated through these discussions. We can observe the same scenario in a professional setup as well. There are many presentations and conferences that are conducted to impart/share knowledge with others. In this case, I have noticed that the amount of information and discussions that happen, during and after the presentation; is a valuable resource for both the presenter and audience. The feedback however may never reach others who are not a part of the discussion or have not attended the presentation, as most of it may be purely verbal or shared online at various places.

Sharing presentations online was one way to share the PPT file with others. However, this missed the most valuable discussions which happened during the session. To share this valuable information, currently, the trend of ‘twittering’ is very widespread and is visible amongst professionals and youngsters alike. I have often noticed users posting tweets about good inputs about a presentation or an interesting conference. This however, does not give other users a clue about the actual presentation and its content. The simple reason being, a person who is reading the tweet has never seen the presentation. Either the presentation is not shared at all or is shared on a third party site which is different from where the tweets appear.

Also, when people start tweeting about the presentation; others may not know the right hash tag or keyword to use as search terms to obtain all the tweets related to that presentation.

The point I am trying to make is all this information (discussions or comments among people and the tweets on the presentation) can be more useful when it is shared at one spot so that users can connect instantly and know feedback in a structured way. In this manner, professionals giving presentations and the audience can be well-informed about the latest updates and feedback.

The importance of Twitter definitely cannot be ignored. Many tweets can actually be a value addition for one’s professional work.

I am hoping to add more value to the way we interact online. Keeping this in mind, I would surely like to know any suggestions from your side for my new idea!