the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
5, No. 12, December 2005
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Being
There
By Jeff Govendo
Later
this month I’ll be one of several speakers at a knowledge management
symposium whose main theme is collaboration. Collaboration is a pretty
hot topic these days, particularly figuring out how best to do it
in the face of globalization. So I expect at least some of the presenters
will be talking about the newest technologies for enabling people
to come together to share ideas, despite their being separated by
great distances, multiple time zones, etc. No doubt over the course
of the day we’ll hear about the latest in videoconferencing,
teleconferencing, podcasting, webinars, portals, instant messaging,
distance learning, cell phoning, Blackberries, VOIP, blogs, wikis
and even good old e-mail.
The
world is getting smaller, and indeed technology is making collaboration
over distance and time more effective every day. More can be accomplished
by people in disparate locations than ever before.
How,
then, to explain a story on the front page of the November 30 Boston
Globe about the dedication of the brand new Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Complex at MIT? At over 400,000 sq. feet, it is now the university’s
largest research center, built from the ground up to promote collaboration
among neuroscientists, engineers and physicists, all under the same
roof.
The
center, according to the architects, is designed to maximize direct
interaction, both formally in modern laboratories and conference rooms,
and informally in spaces such as “tea rooms” and glass-walled
conservatories. The reason, says Dr. John Mazziotta, chairman of Neurology
at UCLA, is that regular interaction “has been proven in science
to produce insights that don’t happen through e-mail or on the
phone or when you have to walk across the campus.” (Never
mind across the Pacific!)
So,
what does all this mean? Here we are with brilliant new collaboration
technologies emerging almost every day, and MIT (MIT no less! The
very wellspring for many of these technologies.) has just spent $175
million on bricks and mortar to ensure that lots of smart people see
each other’s facial expressions and body language while sharing
ideas over tea (and lots of coffee too, I suspect).
My
take on this is quite simple: with increasing economic globalization
comes the need for newer and more effective ways to communicate easily
across time and space. The new technologies we read about and utilize
in conducting all manner of commerce have become essential; without
them we retreat back to our original borders, which, as Thomas
Friedman has so aptly explained in The World is Flat, is not an option
in the 21st century.
But
still, at this point in time, nothing beats Being There. In the
same space, same time, with people who can ignite each other’s
creativity and build off each other’s great ideas. Sound hopelessly
old-fashioned? Low-tech? Perhaps. But I’ve yet to see replicated
at a distance the magic that can happen among a group of men and women
sitting around a table in a casual setting, listening open-mindedly
and keying off each other’s verbal and, yes, non-verbal expressions
and ideas. Perhaps someday – maybe quite soon – but
not yet.
They
are expecting big things at the new MIT research center – lots
of breakthroughs in brain study with implications for better understanding
human behavior and disease. No doubt it will create plenty of buzz
within the health sciences community and the public at large.
Be
sure to catch it all on your i-Pod.
