The energizing process of innovating

When I started 14falcons to develop Teamput, I could not have predicted how much the experience would feel like a roller coaster ride with periods of intense joy and controlled terror along the way.   

My vision since the beginning has been to create a cloud-based web app that really feels like face-to-face sticky-note brainstorming. I want teleconference participants to feel like they are creating a collection of sticky notes on a table and then posting them on a shared wall in a meeting room.  There are some web-enabled sticky-note applications out there, but they just have a shared wall without the table. The table matters. It's what makes Teamput live up to its vision.

Here's what you can do with Teamput.

• Create notes and checklists and upload images on private and shared canvases.
• Invite others to share any number of your canvases.
• Place two canvases (private or shared) side by side. With two shared canvases you can have a few people collaborating separately and sharing with the larger team.  
• Move individual items, or groups, from canvas to canvas.
• Duplicate items (handy if you have a canvas with standard checklists and images).
• Save a shared canvas as a private canvas so you can keep working independently.

Building each of these capabilities involved multiple forks in the road. How should it work? What should it look like? Is it intuitive? Will this feature break something else that we've already created?  We did break some things along the way. Certainty often turned to doubt. Some decisions were reversed and then flipped back again, but we never considered quitting. We were driven by our simple vision that served as our compass — to create a cloud-based web app that really feels like face-to-face sticky-note brainstorming. 

We're still working on a few things to make sure Teamput is as good-looking as it is easy to use. Then we'll create video tutorials on how to use Teamput to generate useful ideas to address a range of different challenges and opportunities.  As an educator, this is one of the most exciting tasks in front of me!

I'll let you know when it's ready.  We're getting really close.

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We've blown the doors off Teamput!

As a T-Bird professor with deep industry roots, I've witnessed too many lost opportunities when team members and other stakeholders feel like they don't have opportunities for real input.  Inclusive ideation and decision making are not just ideals. They are performance-enabling imperatives with ethical foundations.

My vision has been to Web enable inclusive ideation and decision making among remotely located individuals — to make it feel just like face-to-face ideation (think brainstorming) with sticky notes, pictures and checklists. 

In order to do this right, we had to make it truly simple so it will be used. We also needed to create a capability for private ideation since real innovation always starts from the seed of an individual's idea. But even Albert Einstein needed input from others to make his ideas blossom, so we needed to create an easy way for individuals to share their ideas with a team. Einstein would have loved Teamput!

As I mentioned in a recent post, Fletcher Fowler and Phil Renaud created an ingenious approach to pass notes, checklists, and photos through a door from private to shared ideation canvases.  This weekend they blew the doors off Teamput!  Now we've enabled fluid movement of ideas back and forth from private and shared team canvases!  Watch the video for an example of how this works.

With Teamput, remote team member ideation couldn't be easier or more effective.  Use Teamput during a teleconference or Skype session to truly engage team members and realize the full benefits of both individual and team ideation.  

We will be launching Teamput (http://teamput.com) in May with incredibly attractive introductory pricing!

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A breakthough from the Teamput developers!

Fletcher Fowler

Phil Renaud

The toughest part of developing Teamput has been creating the capability to move sticky notes and checklists back and forth between side-by-side canvases. Without this capability, Teamput would be just another sticky note app.  

Fletcher Fowler and Phil Renaud created this capability just yesterday! I knew they could do it, but I had no idea it would be such an elegant and just-plain cool solution!  They've created a door (the shaded oval) from one canvas to the next. Just drag your idea to the door, take your finger off the mouse button, and voilà - your idea appears on the next canvas.

This solution creates some new possibilities for harnessing the collective intelligence of teams.  

Teamput is being developed to solve the widespread global problem of remote team members NOT fully engaging in idea generation.  

• During a teleconference, you can collect your private thoughts and take turns dragging one thought at a time  over to a shared canvas.  This engages our visual senses and gives everyone a voice. Imagine truly engaging teleconferences!
• You can have two shared canvases, side-by-side, one with a smaller breakout team and one that is shared by all meeting members. This enables sub-group brainstorming during a team meeting. Imagine the possibilities for idea generation and training! 
• You can have two private canvases side-by-side and drag commonly used ideas and checklists from one canvas to another. It's a great way to prepare a canvas to share during a meeting.  Reuse good ideas and effective approaches to avoid reinventing the wheel!

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Meet Alex and Learn about Teamput

Alex has always been eager to contribute.  Now he's an incredibly bright and creative engineer.  

Watch the video to learn more about Alex and Teamput.

 

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Conference calls are often a waste of time!

Multitasked participants zone out.

Most say little or nothing. Some say too much.

People have to interrupt to contribute.

Teamput Development - Day 19 - Great Progress

Developing Teamput has involved several leaps of faith.

• Faith in Teamput's ability to positively change the lives of those who use it
• Faith that Teamput will multiply and accelerate the exchange of ideas during teleconferences
• Faith that Teamput will allow team members to better prepare for meetings and retain more useful records of the information and knowledge they created and exchanged
• Faith in the developers (Fletcher and Phil) who are masterfully translating a vision into the reality of Teamput
• Faith that Teamput will work as well on an iPad as it does on a computer
• Faith that Teamput will enable more focused attention and sanity in an increasingly multitasked world

Today Phil Renaud, JavaScript developer and designer extraordinaire, showed me some new Teamput capabilities that blew me away!  My leaps of faith are being realized. Teamput is going to change lives and improve the way teams work together. People will be working as a team, not just on a team. That's what inclusion is meant to be. This is the difference Teamput will enable.

A good day for the Teamput development team.

More great days to come!

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Teamput - Development Day 10 - The Ying and Yang of Function and Design

Design and function are the ying and yang of developing a web app. Agile development keeps things moving along with some pressure to not let any story (a feature or function based on "As a user I should be able to....") remain open for more than one week. This creates some pressure to focus more on function than form. But with the right team working together, you can achieve both.

We are committed to balancing the ying of function (e.g. being able to register)  with the yang of aesthetics and simplicity.  So our ying-and-yang story for registering as a user becomes "As a user I should be able to register with an aesthetically pleasing interface and simple process."   We embed aesthetics and simplicity  into every function of Teamput!

Thanks to Fletcher and Phil, our development process is moving quickly while balancing the ying of great functionality with the yang of beauty and simplicity.  You'll better understand this when you see and use Teamput in April!

If you want to egage Fletcher and Phil for your projects, here's how to reach them. Fletcher Fowler, Zamboni Dev
Send an email to Fletcher at fletch@zambonidev.com Phil Renaud
Send an email to Phil at phil@riotindustries.com

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What if we could put inclusion on autopilot?

Diversity and inclusion, when properly applied, make a positive difference in organizations. Unfortunately, many well intended organizations check the inclusion box by including diverse team members on teams. This is not inclusion. 

Inclusion is about making sure that we include the diverse and complementary ideas and talents of our team members. 

We can include diverse  members on a team without actively seeking their ideas or talent. It's possible to have the right people on the team but not work as a team.

Real inclusion is easier said than done, especially when we have remote team members.

Here are some common inclusion killers.

• The boss talking first.  Have you ever been in a meeting or on a teleconference when the boss says "Here's my idea about how we should proceed. Now I'd like to hear your ideas." The likely result is either hear-a-pin-drop silence or comments about how difficult it would be to add anything to the brilliance of the proposed approach.

• Cultural and personality differences.  Have you ever wondered why certain people don't speak up, especially during teleconferences? This question was written in English. If English is your second or third language, it may have taken you a little longer than some to read and interpret. The same thing happens during conversations. Those who are most comfortable with the language being used tend to do most of the talking. If you are a bit introverted, you are less likely to speak up than an extrovert. Individuals from certain cultures also tend to listen more and speak less.

Just because individuals aren't saying something doesn't mean they have nothing to offer. Far from it. Hierarchy, language, personality, and a range of cultural differences can get in the way.

When we don't hear from people, we lose the opportunity to have valuable input to shape decisions. If people don't share potential problems or risks, bad things can happen.

If there were a way to ensure that all team members share their ideas during face-to-face meetings and teleconferences, would you want to know about it?

In April, we will have the solution. It's called Teamput. Click on the Teamput logo to learn more.

 

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Teamput Development - Day 6- Agile

Today, Fletcher, Phil and I had a quick 15 minute Skype session. This is part of the agile development process. Frequent check-ins to monitor progress  ensure that any tradeoffs in scope, schedule and budget are discussed as they need to happen instead of after a great deal of work has already begun.

There's something to be said for knowing that you'll be checking in with the client every day to light a fire. Today we reviewed the first steps of a registration module. By this time next week, I'll be playing with a canvas. More on that and what this product will be able to do for you will unfold in the coming weeks!

This web app will revolutionize the way remote team members work together.  Don't forget to sign up for the Teamput newsletter!

Teamput Development: Day 4 - A New Logo

Phil Renaud's design skills really shined this weekend.  Here is Teamput's new logo. I really like it hope you do too!

As I mentioned in the Day 1 post, Phil is a talented designer and JavaScript developer.  If you are a fan of Apple products, you have a sense of what good design looks and feels like and how it affects the overall experience. Something I just learned today is that Phil is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. From my home in Arizona, Halifax is about halfway to Ireland.

Phil Renaud

In addition to getting the logo done, Fletcher and Phil assigned points to each of the story items, or features.  The points indicate the difficulty level and how much time each of the features will take to develop. I'm learning a lot about agile techniques and will be adding a full session on agile to the Managing Projects course that starts at Thunderbird later in March.

The pace is going to really pick up this week. I'll keep you posted on the journey.

Interested in being among the first to use Teamput?  Let me know by clicking here.

Teamput Development - Day 1 - A World of Wonder

Fletcher Fowler and Bill Youngdahl

Yesterday marked Day 1 of the development of my collaborative web app called Teamput. In the picture, you see my Developer-in-Chief, Fletcher Fowler. He is a gifted Ruby-on-Rails web application developer. Fletcher is partnering with Phil Renaud, an amazing designer and Javascript developer.  Fletcher works out of CO+Hoots, a collaborative, co-working space for entrepreneurs in downtown Phoenix.  Phil is in Canada. They are both very business-minded, technically talented and insanely creative. The stars aligned to guide me to Fletcher and Phil.

This application is one of those ideas that I've carried in my pocket for several years but lacked the conviction and courage to implement. As I began building my conviction, I learned that it was a bit crazy to expect others to share or even fully comprehend my passion. After all, an unimplemented idea has zero value and the gap between an idea and a product can look a lot like an abyss.

Don't expect others to share your passion. There's a reason why it's called your passion. Without it there is no implementation, and without implementation there is no value.

The product will be called Teamput. It will be the most straightforward approach available for collecting your thoughts and sharing them with remote team members during meetings, or any time!  It's my attempt to put a dent in the universe, to move people from just being on a team to working as a team.

Tanya Moushi

As I arrived at CO+Hoots a few minutes early, I had a chance to meet Tanya Moushi. She and Tricky Burns co-founded GreaterThan Coffee housed withing CO+Hoots. Tanya described the business as her first "bricks-and-mortar start-up." We shared enthusiasm for books by Seth Godin and by Jason Fried and David Hansson of 37signals. Tanya's energy and optimism lifted me and I began believing even more strongly in how Teamput will be able to improve the decisions and productivity of teams. Tanya has a look of real happiness that comes from achievement coupled with the certainty that this is not her last venture.  Thanks, Tanya, for welcoming me to my world of new possibilities with a dose of human energy and a great cup of coffee.

For the next hour, Fletcher, Phil and I loaded a tracking system with 30 "As a user, I should be able to (ISBAT) ...." entries. Fletcher and Phil employ an agile development approach. This means they will get a very basic version working very soon, and we will use this stripped down version to prioritize the incremental introduction of the ISBAT items. My financial constraints will help drive the list of features to only those truly needed. This will make for a much better user experience. Less is truly more, so long as less is enough.

So there it is, the start of a new journey.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Rafa Carmona - Robotics Master Teacher and Motivator

Rafa Carmona and Future Robotics Engineers

My 11-year old son, Erik, has a school project that required him to interview people who have positions that Erik would like to have some day. For me at 11, it would have been forest ranger. Erik wants to be a robotics engineer. Unfortunately, I don't know any robotics engineers so I turned to LinkedIn and posted a request for help to the Thunderbird alumni group. Tim Devereux (MBA, 2008) responded almost immediately with a suggestion to reach out to one of his friends, Rafa Carmona, in Spain.

Rafa agreed to have a Skype session with Erik on Saturday since the time difference would have made it tricky for a school day discussion. Erik was eager to ask his 10 prepared interview questions to have the answers required for his report and began peppering Rafa with questions.  Rafa slowed him down. He introduced his children who are about Erik's age.  He walked Erik through Robocamp's web site and showed Erik streaming videos of his (Rafa's) favorite Lego Mindstorms robots (Rafa co-founded Robocamp, http://www.robocamp.es). He also encouraged Erik and his boys to swap Skype addresses. His boys share a passion for robotics.

And yes, they did get to most of the 10 questions.

It's Monday morning. Since the Skype session, Erik and I made a trip to the Lego store. He's been programming a Mindstorms robot, testing it, making adjustments, retesting and so on. To him, it's passionate play. Rafa knows that the key to learning is doing. Erik's class assignment is secondary to the passionate and playful learning that is teaching him the logic of programming and the underlying mechanics needed to move, turn, and shoot little plastic balls.  And Erik has some new Skype buddies in Spain. Later the same day, they already began chatting. They will be swapping programming tips and practicing or, in Erik's case, learning one another's language. Erik is already planting the seeds for a trip to Spain to visit his robotics friends.

What can we learn from Rafa?

Master teachers create opportunities for passionate doing. When the doing is limited by knowledge, new knowledge will be pulled by motivated learners.

To keep the passion going, master teachers create passion conduits that connect individuals to a broader learning community, one new relationship at a time. 

When we look at how people become passionate learners, one can't help but question our teaching approaches from K-12 to higher education and executive development. We need teachers like Rafa who boldly bypass traditional teaching scripts to inspire a desire for learning by creating opportunities for action. We also need really good on-demand (just enough, just in time) online modules to provide theory and best practices that quench our desire to achieve better results. And finally, we need communities of connected passionate learners. 

Overcoming the entrenched roles of educators is the primary challenge . We sorely need more practitioner educators like Rafa Carmona who motivate learners to learn by taking passionate and focused action. We need to point the way to communities of learners and sources of theory and best practices.   We need to break "courses" into much more discrete learning blocks that can be consumed as needed rather than overloading and scattering learning focus to the wind.

What do you think. Are we at the beginning of a revolution, or will the entrenched system of education prove to be an unmovable force?