What if....

You could hold a focus group that people could attend from all over the country?

You could have in-person meetings with your colleagues, even when they are in different locations?

You could have a brainstorming session that resulted in a "demo" product or description right on-site?

There has been technology trying to enable these items for a number of years. In Minnesota, our state provides an ITV system to all counties, public 2- to 4-year colleges, and many other local community centers. We are working with the Dept. of Human Services next week to host an ITV workshop on our waiver review project with counties that have already been reviewed; we will use the session to ask them how counties are using results and whether there are other aspects of services we should be evaluating.

Another client, Austin Public Schools, uses a web meeting format; they joked at a recent in-person meeting that soon they will never have to leave their desks. However, they shortly began to tell us where all the local restaurants are, and it sounds like there will be plenty of incentives for a long time to get together in person over food including the Tendermaid where we had lunch.

One complaint about each of these formats is that they can be awkward for new users. A recent article in the New York Times suggests a different format: games. The article describes several courses that are currently being "hosted" in an environment on the game Second Life. It will be interesting how people, particularly young adults, savvy with this format demand more and more of the flexibility it allows to be integrated in their work environment.