What: LA Times article about President Obama conducting a virtual town hall meeting to reach out and connect to Americans
Posts it is related to: What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually
Bottom line: President Obama continues to be innovative in embracing technology to engage his constituency, the people of America. Last week, he hosted a virtual town hall meeting that drew more than 104,000 questions and 3.6 million votes to narrow down the questions the President would answer. For me, this is a wonderful example of how leaders could begin to engage their remote constituents or workers. In addition, the President now has valuable data (based on the questions and the votes) about what is on the minds of a certain section of America. He can use this to sharpen his focus during the upcoming speeches and radio addresses and, thus, connect even better with the people. The article’s author raised the question of whether the virtual event was truly engaging the public, or it was only creating an illusion of doing so. I believe this is a critical question because it brings into focus a leader’s authenticity. An authentic leader who wants to connect with his constituents will not simply engage in a single participatory event. Moreover, that leader will use technology and other means to connect to the people and follow-up. This all-rounded effort will make it apparent to the constituents whether the leader is trying to create an illusion or whether the leader is genuinely interested in engaging the public.

There was one new Google product I learned about from the article. The White House used Google Moderator to enable people to pose questions and vote on them. I tried it out at http://moderator.appspot.com/ and it seems like a neat product. Read about it here.

What: NY Times article about stars using ghostwriters to Twitter for them
Posts it is related to: Fostering Ambient Awareness in Virtual Teams
Bottom line: Fans of celebrities, politicians, and even famous speakers/writers may not be aware that the constant updates that they are following on Twitter may actually be written by one or more ghostwriters. It looks like some Twitterers seem to be missing the point that technology such as Twitter is meant to be a vehicle for bypassing traditional media and speaking directly to their followers. The basketball star Shaquille O’Neal does not seem to be liking the practice of employing ghostwriters to tweet for you. The article quotes him as saying: “If I am going to speak, it will come from me…It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.” But some stars see (e.g., Britney Spears) themselves as a brand and argue that if businesses can employ writers to promote their brand on Twitter, then why can’t they? I believe that employing ghostwriters raises questions about a leader’s or a star’s authenticity. If leaders or stars want writers to keep their fans updated about what they are up to or what they have spoken, I think it is absolutely fine as long as the writers don’t pretend to be the voice of the leader or the star. When leaders or stars take advantage of the anonymity offered by technology to have someone else speak with their voice, they are deceiving followers who may be thinking that they are hearing directly from their leader or star.

What: Network World article on a Society for Information Management (SIM) study that found that virtual team skills are emerging as critical for successful information technology (IT) careers
Posts it is related to: Are “Casual” Virtual Team Participants Endangering Virtual Teams
Bottom line: A recent SIM study on skills needed by IT professionals suggests that project management and business skills are critical for successful IT careers. The study also found customer facing skills, systems analysis and design, and testing as additional critical skills. According to the study, emerging skills for successful IT careers include working with virtual teams, working globally, business process re-engineering, managing third-party vendors, change management, and project risk management.