Being Effective

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• Being Effective
• Online
• presented at a workshop on 2 June 1999

Horace Mitchell European Telework Development
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Being effective Online

• Where are you starting from?
• Being effective online - what does mean?
• Four elements
• Good practice
• Next steps

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Where are you starting from?

• Your use of/view of email ?
• as a recipient
• as a personal communications tool
• Your use/view of the web ?
• as a passive user (searching etc)
• as an active user (publishing and sharing)
• Your use of/view of online discussion ?
• Your experience of online announcements ?

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Your experience ?

• Great - wonderful - positive - problem free ?
• OK, but . . . ?
• Mixed blessing . . . ?
• Pain in the fundament . . . ?

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• Optimum to aim for is OK, but . . .
• Most peoples experience is Mixed blessing
• For many (especially inside large organisations)
  it is Pain in the fundament
• . . . . . but why?

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Being effective Online what it means

• Personally
• being in control
• being an active user (web, email, discussion)
• understanding and using leverage
• understanding and avoiding pitfalls

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Being effective Online what it means

• For an organisation/team/project
• knowing why
• realisable goals
• building it into the way we work
• consensus as to practice, methods
• personal ownership by all

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Four elements of an effective online presence

• Effective website
• Effective outreach to people you want to reach
• (and effective handling of others!)
• Being in touch with what is happening relevant
  to your interests
• Effectively handling email
• (without it taking over)

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Effective websites 1 - your own

• Do you proudly point people to it?
• Can you add and change items readily and easily?
  Can everyone?
• Do you know who is using your part of it and how
  they are using it?
• Do you regularly get useful contacts and inputs
  as a direct result of it?
• Do you know who links (points) to it and are you
  routinely in contact with them?

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Effective websites 2 - others

• Do you use it? Do you point others towards it?
• Does it tell you what you want to know?
• Is it alive and changing/evolving?
• Does it provide ways to contact the owners?
• How is it contributing to the owners goals?
• Is it linked effectively with other relevant
  sites?
• Does it actively seek feedback from users?
• Can users contribute?

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Effective outreach Online

• Web site visits (hits, pages, download volume)
• Web site users (return visits, frequency, dwell)
• Feedback facility/facilities
• Community of interest facility/facilities
• Inward links - number, range, prominence
• Outward and collaborative links
• e-mailing announcement list(s) - own/others
• Active participation in relevant fora

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Effective outreach Online

• Very few websites score well on all aspects
• Most score very low on most aspects
• People in many organisations/initiatives are
  unaware of their own online presence
• Many have sites that communicate negative
  messages about the enterprise
• Little evidence that managers and staffs see
  online presence as relevant to their work and
  success
• Little sense of ownership by individuals

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• An effective online presence is not the same as
  conventional advertising and promotion
• It should engage the attention and involvement of
  a much wider spectrum of people in the
  organisation
• Needs to be useful inwards as well as outwards
• Internal active users are the most effective
  critical audience
• External/internal communities of interest are an
  essential ingredient

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Being in touch . . .
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Being in touch . . .

• We already have information overload
• The market is seeking to add to this -
  and succeeding!
• But
• Are we fully in touch with what we need to know?
• Are we using the technology effectively to sort
  the wheat from the chaff?
• Do we have/are we developing personal/team coping
  mechanisms or just managing through?

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Being in touch . . .

• Appropriate combination of technology, team
  mechanisms and personal networking/networks
• Technology can now do a lot, but it takes effort
  to make it work effectively for yourself/your
  team
• Team mechanisms means sharing the effort and
  optimising time and skills - needs focus and
  effort
• Personal networks provide personal leverage

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Being in touch . . .

• The effort to develop and maintain these coping
  mechanisms will be amply rewarded
• In the team it needs someone to take team
  responsibility - it wont just happen
• Results will be clearly visible - within the
  team, within the enterprise, to the teams
  customers and partners, and to the outside world
• Few organisations have really invested in this -
  and it works best in small teams!

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Handling the mail . . .

• Personal mechanisms
• mail filtering and sorting
• multiple addresses
• forum/list traffic
• Team mechanisms
• team addresses, eg accounts_at_some-co.co.fr
• topic addresses, eg account-queries_at_some-co.co.f
  r
• project address, eg y2k-team_at_ some-co.co.fr
• autoresponse, redirect
• online forms à database autoresponse

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• Example of team/topic address techniques
• mailto y2k-team_at_ some-co.co.fr
• received by several people
• head of team responsible for y2k activities (a)
• section leader responsible for customer relations
  (b)
• support person handling queries (c)
• support person assisting head of team (d)
• support person (c) reads all mail and answers
  most
• refers exceptions to section leader (b)
• others use filtering to store messages (not
  cluttering in-basket)
• all have access and audit trail
• if appropriate, messages archived for wider/later
  access, analysis etc

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Good practice (team/projects)

• Websites
• whole team is actively engaged
• each person owns some aspect/pages
• anyone who writes and reads own email can also
  write own web page
• Active communications
• effective use of lists and fora
• two way feedback through website
• Online fora
• discussion is actively post-moderated
• notices are pre-moderated

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Setting the standard

• New Methods of Work means
• mastery of current tools
• expertise in current good practice
• Effectiveness online will
• contribute to the success of team/enterprise
• make life easier for team manager and members
• energise external relationships
• The opportunity is there - to be world class
  and to be seen to be world class

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Follow up suggestions

• Appoint someone to lead an effectiveness online
  activity
• Appoint a team webmaster
• Establish goals and priorities
• Set up basic internal/external mechanisms
• Get help to ensure each individual is up to speed
  with the basics
• Arrange for regular critical/helpful
  confidential review using external expertise

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Being effective Online
This presentation, together with supporting
commentary and links, is online at
European Telework Online http//www.eto.org.uk (et
o-info_at_eto.org.uk)
Horace Mitchell horace_at_mta.I-way.co.uk