Among all the social-business networking sites, I find Ecademy and LinkedIn to be the best ones. Ecademy is my favorite since it has very nicely integrated offline networking in its system which results in creating trusted networks.
I experienced a very nice group-problem-solving technique called Virtual Tables during an offline networking event organized by Ecademy. I found it to be very effective. It can be extremely beneficial if practiced in a trusted network.
What you need:
- People who are interested in helping each other
- Ninety minutes (1 1/2 hour)
- Paper / Pen to take notes
This is how it works:
Group together
It works best in a group of six-seven participants. If there are many more members, they should arrange themselves in group of six participants. I feel that it works best when the group is of people from diversified field (different businesses, departments, etc.). I think (not yet tested) that it will work best if people with same kind of responsibilities participate together (all business owners, all managers, all programmers, etc.).
All participants sit around a table. Every participant has 12-15 minutes by turn.
Now its your turn
When your turn comes, you can table your problem. Generally people table their biggest concern, dilemma, situation, issue they are facing in few minutes. The other participants of your group come up with their own solutions, point-of-views and ideas to help you. Since different people come from different backgrounds and have different ways to solve a problem, it is amazing to see how many fantastic ideas pops up. These sessions are generally filled with why-i-did-not-think-of-this-before sighs. This collective brainstorming delivers a list of suggestions that are diverse in nature and gives a new approach to solve the same problem.
It is like having five consultants serving you for fifteen minutes with their subject matter knowledge and common sense with an honest intention coming from an absolutely independent chair to help you out!
Take notes & rotate
You should take notes of the ideas. I suggest you note down all the ideas and spend some time back home thinking over them and considering the solutions offered by different people on the table. For the time being, you shall rotate the strike and the next guy should now table his/her problem and you should become a part of the elite panel of consultants who will help bail him/her out!
An important note:
It is utmost importance to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the discussion. The purpose of the virtual tables is to help and get help. It may take time for members to trust each other, but once a trust network is formed, the effectiveness just multiplies and it keeps growing with the speed of trust.
So, go out and try this to discover a stress-free way of solving your problems (and others’ too)!
This is interesting. Very similar to the mastermind group. Young Presidents’ Orgnisation has a concept called Forum which does exactly this.