There are many companies offering varieties of collaboration tools for people to use. Sharepoint, Action Base, Cisco Webex (one of the few that offers on-demand, full-spectrum RMC applications), Expert Choice, Wikis, and IBM Lotus Notes all provide different tools and ways to collaborate using particular types of media, and interacting with that media. Some of them can be used in conjunction with other tools. Each one emphasizes different strengths and needs of rich media collaboration, a few of which we will sample here.
Rich media collaboration is now a technological reality that can integrate voice, video, and web content for a fully interactive experience that optimally enhances a worker’s productivity and decision-making ability.

• Although capable of extending to broader platforms, Sharepoint is usually associated with what is known as web content management and document management systems.
• Action Base primarily a project and process management application that integrates a company’s use of Microsoft Office into a more visible taskflow for all participants. Combined with the web and videoconferencing, this is a powerful tool that enables speedy visibility of decision-relevant information.
• Wikis, while first used to collaborate on and for a single website or page, have turned into some companies’ only collaborative software, sometimes even used for full project management.
• Cisco, a pioneer in providing an integrated system architecture that enables device-independent real-time virtual collaboration, provides truly integrated B2B video collaboration with products like Cisco Webex, Unified Communications, and its Telepresence solution (the highest form of virtual collaboration today, often employed by large enterprises).
• Additionally, it is likely that new tablet devices such as iPads will further change the collaboration game.

Rich media collaboration solutions are providing IT departments, project managers, and even CEOs the ability to support a new video landscape: media-rich, contextual, interactive with web content and the experience of telepresence, and giving employees the interactive experience they need regardless of location and increasingly on the mobile devices so commonly used now. Freedom of choice in device and location. Opening up more context to users, with availability and preferences. Secure collaboration both inside and outside the firewalls. Even flexibility of infrastructure deployment between on-premise deployment and cloud-based hosting models. The strengthened productivity, reduced costs, and improved relationships between external partners and internal teams have been made possible by rich media collaboration and its emerging technologies — technologies which will only continue to improve in the future.

SWOT

SWOT Analysis stands for the four categories it aims to define and interpret: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Created by business teacher Albert Humphrey in the 1960′s, SWOT aims to identify both internal factors of the company’s current success and the external factors affecting a company’s current success. Strengths looks at what is already working, and how to retain that success. Weaknesses examines what things puts the company at a disadvantage, and whether those can be mitigated, reduced, or eliminated altogether. Opportunities focuses on improvement of either how capital such as labor or assets are used, especially focusing on processes, process flow and information flow throughout the company, possibly bringing some Lean Six Sigma ideas to bear on those things. Threats simply looks at threats, both from within and without (e.g., competitors, market forces, etc.). A good analyst would certainly use this method to get a present-tense picture of what the strategy is, and what it could be.

MOST

Specifically designed for looking at medium-to-large-sized enterprises, the technique called MOST comprises the simple categories of mission, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Each component is to be defined and evaluated in order — mission before objectives, and so on. Conversely, an evaluation and inspection of the tactics, moving backwards from there, will lead to why the mission is what it is. The proverbial wisdom behind MOST is that too many companies try to tackle strategy internally, using inductive methods to isolate broken or questionable parts of what the company is doing. MOST implies that a holistic, top-down management approach can free a company from the internal analysis traps and keep a true reflective strategy in view.

STEER

Having grown out of an older model called PEST, the cutting-edge STEER method was invented to acknowledge and address a wider array of environmental and ecological concerns that have emerged for businesses thus far in the 21st century. STEER covers the following factors: sociocultural, technological, economic, ecological, and industry regulations. The degree to which, and scope in which, each of these factors affects a company will obviously depend on the goods or services they produce, their geographic and geopolitical position, and how many departments or companies (such as the case of a conglomerate) are in view for the project. Combined with, or used in conjunction with the above methods, a good analyst will have a way to cover newly emerging factors facing businesses today.

Situated in the geographical Horn of Africa with neighbors such as Ethopia, Kenya, and Yemen, the country of Somalia is home to what is called an Afro-Asiatic family of languages, one of which is an East Cushitic language (e.g., from the ancient land of Cush) referred to as Somali. Its pronunciation is similar to Arabic, although in 1972 when it became the official language of Somalia itself, it was transliterated from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet in its written form. A dialect known as Northern Somali forms the basis for standard Somali, with which most Somali speakers are familiar. Benadir (Coastal Somali) is spoken all along the coast of the country, including in Mogadishu and in the hinterlands, with a few variations that are not part of the standard Somali language. Some dialects in the southern regions, known as Digil and Mirifle are incomprehensible to most other Somalians because they have no pharyngeal sounds.

So what makes this language special and unique to its people? And how hard is it to learn?

A rich and beautiful language, Somali is known for its poetic nature. In fact, Somali-speaking people are characteristically known as a nation of poets, for the oral communication so common among messengers stretches from today’s practices all the way back to ancient times. This particular language is interesting in that its poetry is used to communicate both simple and profound messages on all occasions and topics, whether in life or death; war or peace. Even though Somali nowadays is written in a Latin alphabet, phonemes such as kh, q, c and x can be difficult to sound, as there are many ways to pronounce them based on their placement and usage. Strict and concentrated listening is required to achieve accuracy and fluency. Likewise, interacting with a native or near-native Somali speaker accelerates one’s learning curve, as opposed to learning it from just speaking it by yourself or from a software program. So where is this language going in Somali communities around the world?

It is increasingly clear that there is a vital need for fluency and expertise in the Somali language for government and civilian workers in the Horn of Africa, Somali communities around the world, and in US itself. Marketing Daily, an online language research and news company, recently found in a study that Somali is the second-most requested language in both Columbus, Ohio and Memphis, Tennessee.  Ten years from now, Somali Americans will be experiencing 2nd generation growth, with their young adults raised in the U.S. graduating high school and finishing college. Given that the majority of Somalis have cultural practices quite different from many Americans, maintaining their preferred lifestyles within and among multicultural America will continue to be a subject of interest and debate. Fortunately, many communities are providing the support and stepping stones that both Somalis and their English-speaking neighbors need to flourish side by side.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, released under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.

Egyptian Arabic, or what is commonly referred to as Egyptian colloquial or standard Egyptian Arabic, is the native language of some 52 million Egyptians. It occurs in several regional dialects for the remaining 24 million Egyptians, as well as other immigrant communities spanning the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Australia.  Interestingly, it has become a lingua franca (otherwise known as a bridge language) in other regions of the Arabic-speaking world, due to the rise and proliferation of the film industry there since the early 20th century.   This has made it easier for Arab natives to understand the language, and also use it as a vehicular bridge to learning other Arab dialects.  Additionally, certain Egyptian teachers and academic professors were instrumental in setting up the pioneering language schools throughout the Arabian Peninsula, which since then have grown into the main thoroughfare through which Egyptians — especially the youth — learn the language.  So what makes it so difficult to speak or master, and what are some common problems in trying to learn it?

For most language learners, Egyptian Arabic requires not only making a complete phonetic change in the way sounds are made to form the words compared to their native tongue, but the characters themselves are written from right to left instead of left to right.  Words that must be memorized (in order to grasp more and different contexts) might have no immediate bearing on one’s life, and so might require a good deal of repetition.  Most of the words and phrases bear no resemblance to anything in English, so there is no way to ‘learn by derivative’, so to speak.  For these and other technical reasons, it takes time to build that active vocabulary that is so crucial to real-life Arabic conversations. Among experts that help people become fully fluent, much is saved in terms of time, money, and frustration by putting vocabulary development as the top priority for the learner. And, if one is not learning the language in Egypt itself, finding someone with whom to practice the course of natural Arabic conversation can be difficult. Most learners who do not do this end up quitting, or never mastering the language at all. So what is happening with this language today, and are more people trying to learn it?
Grasping the Egyptian Arabic language, and the meaning of such usages is vital to understanding Egypt’s culture and mastering the different usages of the language.
Due to revolutions, regime changes, and geopolitical events happening around the world today — particularly the events in Egypt in 2011 — many of the world’s leading nations are looking to equip government officials with a working fluency of Egyptian Arabic.  For example, in just the past couple of years The University of Texas at Austin has seen a huge increase in people applying for language studies in their well-known undergrad and grad programs for Arabic languages. In the United States, for example, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Justice Department are experiencing a shortage of Egyptian-Arabic-speaking officials, and will be looking to alleviate that shortage as soon as possible.

Both philosophies that make up Lean Six Sigma — Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma — have been around for almost three decades. Lean Manufacturing focuses on the definition of, interpretation of, and elimination of waste in such a way that the quality of a product or service can actually be improved and thus add value to the customer. The concept comes to us from the Toyota Motor company, which they devised in the 1970’s.  Since then it has taken on various definitions, each one finer and more specific than the next, that are now applied in Lean Manufacturing systems worldwide.
Over the years, lead practitioners in the field have combined these two powerful systems into one, resulting in what we now know as Lean Six System, a comprehensive way of reducing waste, maintaining quality, and accelerating production.
In contrast, Six Sigma is a management system that arose in 1986 out of Motorola’s mobile phone manufacturing facility, wherein they realized — and now everyone acknowledges — that spending the time and money to produce a more quality product actually results in decreased production costs.  The prevailing thinking at the time was that ‘quality’, or any change made for the sake of quality, was too expensive. Before Lean Manufacturing is applied, Six Sigma says: continuous improvement of production processes must be permanently established, products and outcomes must be measured, the entire organization must commit to a shared understanding of what constitutes quality (to the point where it can be applied everywhere), and the data used to justify and implement any changes has to be verifiable. Over the years, lead practitioners in the field have combined these two powerful systems into one, resulting in what we now know as Lean Six Sigma, a comprehensive way of reducing waste, maintaining quality, and accelerating production.

Among others, organizations such as Allied Signal, General Electric, and the US Army have attested to the benefits of Lean Six Sigma. Where implemented year-over-year, there is typically a bottom-line cost savings of 5% to 20% per annually. Lead-times in manufacturing production are drastically reduced. The shared language regarding quality improvement as it applies to the business is spread throughout the culture and chain of command, resulting in faster integration of new product lines, and a significant reduction in process errors and product defects creeping in. To the satisfaction of the Six-Sigma-only camp (who traditionally shy away from Lean Manufacturing), the documentation requirements render all benefits and savings entirely traceable, so that management can find that golden egg, where a change made is tied directly to profit/loss. And lastly, whereas the training and instruction for Lean Six Sigma was once undeveloped and untried in the business world, after many years of field-tested experience, companies are today offering highly trained professionals and consultants.  These experts are able to govern and navigate you through any complexity encountered in implementing Lean Six Sigma, all with an eye and focus on ensuring self-maintenance afterwards. Economic situations of nations, states, and cities are indicating the necessity of finding a way to improve things in a non-traditional way. Lean Six Sigma in a simplified nutshell? Analyze and restructure what you do (according to Lean Six Sigma principles), and you’ll not only produce better-quality products, but also produce them in better time, and with less resources and assets needed than before.

A telepresence system — a special subset of videoconferencing technology — is a high-end videoconferencing system and service, historically employed by enterprise-level corporate offices. Conference rooms employing telepresence often use state-of-the art room designs, video cameras, displays, sound systems and processors, coupled with high capacity bandwidth transmissions. Familiar, comfortable furniture arrangements are used across destinations, and user interaction with the technology can and does vary with the particular manufacturer (Cisco and AT&T, for example) and the configuration of the system. So how does telepresence create the illusion that remote participants are in the same place as the others, and what are the benefits?
The old solution: Bring the the experts to the problem. The new solution? Use telepresence to bring the problem to the experts.
Designed by a closed configuration of significant display video monitors, concealed cameras are strategically placed in order to create immediate eye contact, life-size body movement, non-verbal cues, and the usual and expected visual cues of peripheral vision. The more real a person perceives the interaction, the more they will be focused on the message, and remain engaged for longer periods of time without suffering fatigue. Since telepresence has become a mainstream technology, surveys have consistently shown that employees prefer a more natural, human experience, as opposed to traditional videoconferencing, where the medium of interaction still interferes with their experience. So what are the cost benefits?

The four main pain points that companies face to which telepresence provides a solution are:

• travel expenses
• carbon footprint
• the balance between the personal life and work life of a high-travelling employee
• the negative effect that travel can have on an employee’s productivity

Certainly a company’s budget, and the amount of bandwidth available for video, both play a major role in considering which manufacturer to use, which configuration, and how many rooms will work for the company’s needs. At one time, telepresence systems were specification dependent, forcing the company to use certain PC or desktop platforms in order to take advantage of the technology. Recently, certain key telepresence manufacturers have been able to reduce the costs of, and improve the interoperability of, those systems. This change has allowed for market expansion from upper management only to all levels of management within an organization. Cisco’s TelePresence Callway, for example, is a hosted service that allows small businesses to lease both the equipment and the connection for $99 a month, or at $149 a month if they want higher resolution service. So how can you know if and when a telepresence system right for you?

Even moreso now than in the past few years, telepresence systems have saved companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in man-hours, travel expenses, and opportunity costs from communication delays and bottlenecks that arise from traditional videoconferencing systems. Key manufacturers are offering more scalable, interoperable products at lower prices. Many industries will soon require immersive videoconferencing as a necessity for improving and streamlining their project management and task management. Have your accounting department and top management look at the cost-benefit ratio of implementing telepresence, and check with the IT department to see if the current bandwidth will support the data load that the implemented system will need. The time when only Fortune 500 companies could afford telepresence is coming to an end, and small and mid-sized businesses have a chance to take a look at what is possible for them with this unique form of highly valuable collaboration and communication.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

In the 21st century, Afghanistan has become a country of international political significance. Its main languages are Pashto and Dari, the result of ages of fluctuating migration to and from Pakistan, its largest southwestern neighbor. Although one of the poorest countries in the world due to internal civil unrest, Afghanistan’s vast natural resources, fast-growing trade with the U.S., repatriation of refugees that re-enter the farming industry, and increasingly strategic efforts to defeat the insurgencies make it a potentially profitable and key region in the world today. But what about the people that make up this grand story? Who are the people of Afghanistan, and where do they come from?

Afghanistan sits at an important geo-strategic location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Divided up into nine ethnic regions comprising nine geographical territories, each province is named by the settled ethnicity within that region. The country’s population consists mostly of Iranic peoples, particularly the Pashtuns (42%) and the Tajiks (27%). Following the Tajiks are the Hazara (9% to 18%), Uzbek, Almaq, Turkmen, and Baluch.

While Pashtuns can be found living all across a wide swath that cuts through the middle of the country, their homeland lies south of the Hindu Kush, a mountain range that runs from the central Afghanistan to northern Pakistan. Religiously they are considered Sunni Muslim, and culturally speaking they practice a code of communal ethics called Pashtunwali. Most uneducated Pashtuns work as farmers, while some intellectuals and educated officials work for the government in Kabul. The current Karzai administration is comprised mostly of Pashtuns.

As the second largest ethnic group, the Tajiks live in valleys north of Kabul and in Badakhshan. A Persian-speaking people of Iranic origin, they speak mostly Dari and can be found working as artisans, farmers, and merchants. Unlike Tajiks living elsewhere in the world, those living in Afghanistan do not organize themselves by tribes, preferring instead to refer themselves by the province or region from which they come. Primarily mountaineer farmers and herders, whole families will make short-range seasonal migrations to the mountains to harvest grain and melons. The fruits and nuts they produce are some of the finest in the region.

The third largest group are the Hazara, whose religious orientation is mostly Shia Muslim. Much of their culture is Persianized — even their language is largely Persian with a large mixture of Mongol words. Recent advances in the technique of genetic genealogy have revealed in the Hazara a particular lineage of the Y-chromosome characteristic of the Mongolian people, something not found anywhere else in the world. Migration is a traditional way of life for the Hazara, and contrary to popular opinion, these migrations are prompted more by economic forces and the weather than the country’s internal wars. Many of the Hazara native to Afghanistan reside in Pakistan, and some young Hazara intellectuals are often taking the opportunity to study abroad in developed countries.

A rich religious heritage in ethnically diverse communities that goes back centuries. Vast natural resources that industries need to make international business profitable for everyone. A newly formed government led by men whose forefathers and ancestors were the same farmers and shepherds that still roam the land today. Whatever becomes of Afghanistan, one thing is for sure: its people will retain their identity and the practices and ideals that make them who they are today.

Images courtesy of the ISAF, released under a CC BY 2.0 license.

Begin by Knowing Nothing. Begin with the stance that you know less than the group knows; even about group process. This is very hard for both new consultants who have to prove themselves or experienced consultants who want to show off their expertise.

• One conversation at a time
• 5 minutes (after 5 minutes anyone can call for an open issue)
• Offer specific recommendations
• Manage your biases (Is your bias showing/Is my bias showing—on index cards)
• (If it is a group that is making recommendations to decision makers) Everyone has an equal ability to “influence” the decision

• Provide the participants with a set of the rules printed or written on index cards so they can use them when they feel they need to. Usually by the second day, the participants are doing more of the management of their behavior than we are. These cards allow individuals to confront each other safely and with humor.