Adapted from “The Live e-Learning Cookbook: Recipes for Success,” by Jim Hollahan, Al Gordon, Yatman Lai and Kathleen Barclay, Ph.D. Click here to order

Every year, members of the Council on Foundations meet to review, deliberate, and select workshop sessions for the council’s annual conference. In the aftermath of 9/11, however, the Council canceled the meeting scheduled to begin September 12 in Chicago. Faced with looming marketing deadlines for finalizing the annual conference program, the council replaced its three-day face-to-face meeting with a series of two-hour collaborative online meeting sessions.

From personal to virtual interaction

The Council is a Washington, D.C.-based association of grant-making foundations and corporate giving programs with more than 2,000 members worldwide. Its planning committee, composed of 50 volunteers from Council member foundations, is divided into three subcommittees. A steering committee of subcommittee chairs and volunteer board leaders coordinates the work of the subgroups.

The first step for setting up web conferences was deciding how the committee and its various components could accomplish their work without a face-to-face meeting. Elements of the strategy included:

• Conducting a series of Web-based conference calls across a four-week period. Each of the committee’s three subcommittees would meet on three separate two-hour occasions.
  
  
• Adapting the subcommittee work processes and workflow to reflect the significant differences between distance and face-to-face collaboration. Most significantly, the web conferencing tools included a polling function that was used extensively and saved time by alerting members to agreement on a proposal.
  
  
• Modifying the agendas and working documents to better suit collaborative online meeting debate and decision-making.

Mission accomplished
In total, there were 15 online committee work session conference calls: 27 hours across three weeks. The time required for committee work was significantly reduced. On average, each committee member spent approximately 4 hours in pre- and post-meeting preparation and 12 hours attending online meetings. Meeting chairs spent an additional four to six hours planning and rehearsing their facilitation of subcommittee meetings.

Overall, volunteer time was reduced from three to two days--without overnight stays and travel--and the committee met its deadline.

Author Jim Hollahan is president of Essential Solutions, Inc., Silver Spring, MD © Copyright 2003 Jim Hollahan. To purchase “The Live e-Learning Cookbook” click here.

8178 Lark Brown Rd, Suite 301, Elkridge, MD 21075
Phone: 443-259-0630 | Fax: 866-652-3127 | Toll Free: 800-274-9390
info@commpartners.com | www.commpartners.com