Trina Hoefling Untethered

I just got back from a Sun Microsystem demonstration  co-sponsored with the Colorado Gaming Association. We were there to explore Sun’s tools that bring gaming and virtual worlds to corporate training. The audience was sprinkled with techs and programmers, though was targeted to corporate trainers. Since I write, train and coach people in virtual work and collaborating across boundaries, I definitely wanted to be there with the thought leaders on the technical application side of the world.

I noticed something in the room that was palpable.

The capabilities demonstrated were solid, impressive, and the presentation (and presenter) good. Yet, en masse- the audience fell into a couple camps with a pretty wide berth between them. The passionate and wonderful geeks who shared vocabulary, and the rest of the room. Mike, our passionate leader, made a good effort to translate to the nontechnical folk in the room, but it didn’t work. The tools work great and are at the beginning of what will fast unfold in the open source world of Java, but the talking about the tool…

The trainers in the room were lost when the technical vocabulary overwhelmed. Connected, interested, giving up a night with their families committed to bringing collaborative virtual training to their organizations, but definitely not tracking the vocabulary. The programmers get it. Use it. Adapt it.

I loved the conversation and watched the respect and genuine attempts to bridge the gap, but they really do speak 2 different languages. They can connect, but it’s with effort.

At least that’s what I noticed. What can we do to better translate so that business really can build the kind of affordable and triumphant virtual team work and training environments that are available? I know at GroupONE Solutions we are  moving more of our collaboration and virtual team training to Just-In-Time modules that can be team train or self-paced, synch or asynch. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but customers have still been  committed to classroom training. As more teams become virtual and geographically dispersed, as travel budgets stay tight, and as onboarding happens through rolling entry…. the time has come for virtual training to be another equally viable option.

It seems to me it’s also time to up the design and engagement quality of much self-paced online instruction. The tools are here, including Sun’s Project Darkstar and Project Sun and others. But will nontechnical users easily migrate into the virtual world? Didn’t see it in that room tonight. It’s too bad, because it’s easier to use than ever.

What do you think? Do you agree that there remains a digital divide within the computer-savvy population? Developers and nondevelopers? Geoffrey Moore nailed it when he wrote Crossing the Chasm. There is a huge gap between early adopters and early majority users who are progressive but more cautious.

What I saw tonight, though, was a little different. I saw an invitation to dialogue and partner, on both sides. But at least some of the nontechnical audience members who most want and need simple and engaging virtual training solutions got lost in the vocabulary.

I got lost in the vocabulary, and I’m more familiar with the virtual world and collaborative software space.

What do you think? How do we bridge that gap? I ask because I’m curious, because I know a whole lot of people in that room want to find ways to work together, and because, honestly, I want to make sure any content conversion I do with GroupONE’s virtual work training and other solutions meets the needs of all who need it.

It’s exciting stuff… if only it weren’t so hard to teach us old dogs new tricks….

A competency whose time has not only come, but with an imperative unprecedented. Not only do teams need to collaborate, so do entire industries – sectors – nations, not to mention small businesses.

As a teacher, practitioner, and facilitator of collaboration, I vibrate with excitement while shivering in worry.

We can do this. We are smart when we bother to be. The Cabinet being created and huddling in Chicago, preparing to break into fast action in DC is being compared to Lincoln’s Team of Rivals (a brilliant read by historian Doris Kearns) while hands wring or clap that the team has a ring of retro 90’s Clinton days. That’s not my worry, and here’s why….

First, whether it’s for the US Cabinet or hiring the best branding team, if you want the best and brightest, you find them. If you’re seeking smart experience with aligned commitment to the objective, you find them and hire them. If it provokes the media and pundits, reassure them by reminding them of what you know…. that you are setting not only the agenda, but the tone of the team dynamic. That people can rise above their own agenda for the greater good, and be better people with a wiser agenda in the end as well. In other words, people can collaborate better than they ever have, and for reasons bigger than WIIFM.

So now you have smart, experienced, committed, competent people embarking on a path that has never been travelled. You are forging a path together, smart and, I hope, humble enough to know that there is no time or room for isolationist action, polarizing politics, ego grabs, or stubborn insistence on holding on to one opinion when many are being offered for consideration. This is an invitation for not only critical advisers to the President, but for all of us in our own work and challenges and lives.

We are being invited into a higher order of caring and commitment and responsibility to be part of the solution, not the problem. We are being asked to stop standing by and waiting for someone else to do something for us.

I know – from over a quarter century of professional work facilitating collaboration and from twice that of living my life – that the end result of authentic joining together to think and act is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. I have success story after success story, and a few disappointments and abject failures ready to give testimony to the Power of Collaboration.

We can do this. The Administration can do this. The Nation can do this. Possibly, if we really commit to this, we can beat all forecasts and odds and, even successful examples from history. Miracles happen every day when minds join, wisdom speaks, and hearts align. Actions follow.

Extreme opinions do not need to derail this overriding commitment to building a pathway back to the United States as global leader and prosperous nation. America is burying labels that don’t allow for crossing borders. We must collaborate across the distance of difference, beliefs, habits, perspectives.

So I don’t worry about too many Clinton administrators or the size of the challenge before us. My life exudes the power of collaboration even while I am severely impacted by the current global financial crisis.

Rather, I worry that fear will short circuit patience, and that strong opinion unexamined will hide the best integral solutions. I ask that I, you, and American leaders actively explore together the best routes to build our future together the fastest without disregarding risk, most innovative after reasonable examination, and as fairly as possible.

HIRING: A team of rivals committed to lead with a visionary executive fully committed to the United States being a healthy and contributing global citizen. Lots of room for strength and power and savvy and brilliance and advocacy. Much need for inquiry and What If’s and wisdom unfolding integral and synergistic solutions.

In other words, dialogue and collaboration that is so important it cannot fail.

Are you ready to be a full collaborator – beyond your labor-management views? your socio-economic perspective? Your “job status”? your comfort zone? Your zebras-are-better-than walruses bias?

Am I? Yup!!! I’m all in….