Three Internet tools for online meetings

By Svitlana and Volodymyr Salamatov

Our ICA-Ukraine team got an exciting request this October from a ToP facilitation team in the US to demonstrate - in English - our approach to doing a 90-minute consensus workshop, live on the computer screen.

What a challenge! We said: “Da” (yes) - even though our 1st language is Russian. At ICA-Ukraine, our networks of facilitators and subscribers are used to seeing us on their computer screen in Russian, of course. Facilitating a 90-minute workshop in English was a really good challenge for our team to work in another language and to try out our hosting and facilitation skills. 

We did the workshop in early November with some very experienced facilitators. We used three tools:
Google Hangouts for video conferencing
Linoit.com for visual brainstorming on a cloud based sticky-wall
YouTube for live as well as delayed broadcasts to our list of 15,000 subscribers at the Ukraine Social Community. 

You can see Irina Fursman, our facilitator, beginning the workshop with the US team and our team in the Google Hangout thumbnail images below. We like to use Google Hangout because we love the face-to-face realism, and because is reliable and easy for both small and large groups (after a little practice, of course).  

Svitlana started the meeting with introductions and then Irina began the demonstration workshop with this focus question: “What are the keys to successful facilitation of a consensus style workshop?” We thought this might be a lively question so everyone could try out the tools from real and shared experience.  

Irina put the question on a cloud-based "sticky-wall” and sent everyone a link so they could go to the sticky-wall on their own computer screen and add their own sticky-notes at the session. Irina also demonstrated to everyone how they could pick up a sticky, start typing on it and then place it on the Sticky-Wall.

After 90 minutes, we completed the consensus workshop, answered questions including this one: “Why is it good to use this particular combination of three tools?” You can see Svitlana closing the workshop as we ended

All new Internet technologies seem to have strengths and also weaknesses for new users. Google Hangouts give small groups of up to 10 people (or in a special version 20) a strong sense of people actually being present on your computer screen - almost as if you were together in the same room.

Linoit.com Sticky-walls are easy to use and help communicate ideas through text, photos, links to online documents and video clips. YouTube makes it easy to broadcast meetings to many people - both live in many locations and for delayed broadcast in other time-zones.

On the other hand, getting to a Hangout can be tricky for beginners and for people using old technology - the same is true for Linoit Sticky-walls.

At YouTube, it is easy to watch and make comments, but it usually takes an extra person on our team to manage live feedback from viewers who make comments. It also takes something to schedule meeting invitations for large groups of meeting subscribers. 

If you are interested in learning more about ICA-Ukraine's mission, want to watch the demonstration or want to learn more about how we host and facilitate online for subscriber groups, send an e-mail to Svitlana Salamatov, ICA-Ukraine, at    svetasalamatova@gmail.com

  Svitlana and Volodymyr Salamatov are members of ICA-Ukraine