Discovery Fuel’s Online Collaboration Tools And Virtual Assistance

Are you going broke sending people all over the planet in a struggling economy? Then, something to consider is using the latest in online collaboration tools (see the ‘cool-tool’ links below) for bringing your teams together virtually to get work done – from where ever they are on the planet. (Also see our Virtual Assistance solutions called ‘Virtual Help Squad’ at VirtualHelpSquad.com)

collaborationleadstosuccessVirtual Teams Become Workplace Norm

Discovery Fuel’s ONLINE Colabs provide collaborative solutions, including facilitated workshops and guided group design sessions. We utilize the latest web-based tools and technologies (such as Adobe Connect) empowering your group to meet, converse, share, plan, and work together on ‘virtually’ any project in both real-time and asynchronously – from anywhere in the world.

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Virtual Teams and Tools

One of our specialties is transforming new ventures and distant relationships into strategic partnerships and sustainable innovations, all while cutting your costs and shrinking your environmental footprint! Our unique ‘Colab’ methodology has taken the best concepts from face-to-face facilitated collaboration processes and leap-frogged them into an unprecedented ‘virtual’ environment that allows your teams to meet tangible objectives in less time, with more effectiveness, and with less money out of your pocket.

What Is a “Virtual” CoLab?

It’s how we help you innovate  . . .

Our unique CoLab methodology works at any stage of company or project development, whether you’re a start-up or a mature company, from vision to strategy. All done collaboratively online in a web-based environment! This allows you to accomplish more in less time, at a fraction of typical “real world” costs.

A creative, collaborative, extremely productive ONLINE process which aids:

  • Group Discovery
  • colab-01Team Development
  • Project Planning
  • Product Design
  • Company Strategy

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We will help you:

  • Improve collaboration
  • Identify company vision
  • Align core values
  • Set strategic goals
  • Build group action plans
  • Generate individual accountability
  • Design processes that accelerate solution
  • Achieve marketable results

Colabs help build company capacity for generating social innovation.

Hmmmmm – What does this mean?

Well, not everybody has the expertise to manage group meetings or coordinate design efforts on their own. Colab services guide (facilitate) you in developing highly creative solutions to complex technical or organizational problems. Colabs focus on developing effective design environments and facilitated processes that direct your team, classroom, or company toward creative ways to solve problems. All the while, leveraging your existing talent in an effort to maximize innovation throughout your entire company. The bottom line? Better decisions, resulting in more profits with a sustainable and distinct advantage over your competition.

Use the Power of Online Tool Technologies

online_collaboration_tools-collaborative_2008_learningtrends_map-20081125b485

There is a growing trend toward staying home to save a buck, be with family more, reduce pollution from travel, and cut company expenses, WITHOUT loosing productivity. Just take a look at this article about collaboration, which I posted on our D.F. blog. Note the companies listed that are making big stuff happen using online collaboration. Truly, the wave of the future is here now and its simplifying our lives, while still allowing us to get lots done – collaboratively. The article’s data suggests that more is getting produced and sold in dramatically less time by working online. Geeeeez, it’s almost scary. It enough to make you wonder what in the world have we created with this whole internet thing. Well, I tell you this much: I for one am very excited about it. How about you?

CLICK on the above dynamic mind map to see the latest in online tool recommendations via a world-wide collaboration process. All tools listed are required to be: (1) used for live collaboration, (2) team-work oriented tools, (3) must be free or low-cost solutions

As you may know by now, Discovery Fuel has ‘discovered’ some very interesting approaches to collaborating. That is, bringing people together to get things done more effectively, more creatively, and (God forbid!) actually more happily. Now, we are moving some of these concepts into the virtual space and applying tools that can fulfill your custom needs.

Even for us, choosing tools is a daunting task. No actually, it’s completely overwhelming! Did you know that there are over 3,000 collaboration tools online right now? And new ones are showing up almost every day! For example, check out this awesome tools list we found that’s being managed by a UK research institute. Everything you’ll ever need to become an online collaboration tools guru is here, with many of the tools being free. But here at Discovery Fuel, we are only interested in a tool if it fits certain human behavior patterns for getting together and collaborating. We are more interested in their ability to support ‘interaction’ than to manage ‘information’ (although that’s important too). So, we have some principles that we abide by when choosing tools. This helps us (and you!) to narrow down the rapidly growing conglomerate of tools . We pick out KISS (Keep It Stupid Simple) tools, knowing that behind anything that seems simple there is usually a ton of complexity behind it.

Below are a couple tools that will help you to get our point. Click on the links and try ‘em out. But the tools themselves are not enough. So, we are combining various tools like these into ‘group process suites’ that will help you to move through the design of virtually anything – from values to brainstorming to strategy to project management. First, check out one of the main tools we use to facilitate our clients online design collaborations – it’s called Group Mind Express. Want more … ?

Check out these ‘cool-tool’ open source resources for online collaboration …

Make online meetings easy and successful

Believe me, there is lots to consider when you decide to use online collaboration, and we’re here to help ease your struggles. What we offer is unique in the marketplace and way beyond just a tools offering. Because we’re not just about tools. We’re more about designing whole-system solutions that allow you to collaborate more effectively and generate sustainable, innovative results.

So contact Discovery Fuel today, and prepare for your next online team meeting, online design collaboration, virtual strategic planning, or green conference event ! !

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This Week on The Blog
Posted on June 30, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle

Our Truths Are Based On Internal Beliefs That Are Too Often Wrong

Articles By Vic Leadership Ecology Learning Evolution

Here’ an important message to our leaders and decision makers:

Assume that your truths and beliefs are an Illusion.

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Consider how our brain works …
Watch what happens to your belief system as you stare at this image.

1-Follow the moving pink dot: What do you see?
2-Look at the middle black cross. Now what do you see?
3-Now star for a few seconds at the black cross. What happens?

This should be proof enough that we don’t always see what we think we see.


If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain only one color, pink. However if you stare at the black ” +” in the centre, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black ” + ” in the centre of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see only a single green dot rotating. It’s amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot , and the pink ones really don’t disappear.


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Posted on May 28, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle

A Practical Theory On Leadership – ‘The Shirtless Dancing Guy’

Articles By Vic Collaborative Design Leadership Ecology Learning Communities Learning Evolution

I got this video off of Charles Lemos’ site and was referred to it by Ben Roberts’ Facebook conversation. Derek Sivers gave this presentation at the TED Conference this week and got a standing ovation. It’s pretty brilliant in its takeaway. The video below is a healthy perspective on the collective’s role in leadership, especially the ‘first follower’.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Here’s the transcript, with bold notes made by Charles. Thanks to Charles and Derik.

If you’ve learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let’s watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:

A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple, it’s almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!

Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it’s not about the leader anymore – it’s about them, plural. Notice he’s calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.

The 2nd follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.

A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.

Now here come 2 more, then 3 more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a movement!

As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry. Over the next minute you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.

And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made! Let’s recap what we learned:

If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.

Be public. Be easy to follow!

But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it?

Leadership is over-glorified.

Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:

It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.

There is no movement without the first follower.

We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.

The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.

Be a follower, join a movement. That’s how change happens.

Articles By Vic Leadership Ecology Learning Evolution Sustainable Innovation Uncategorized

Is There an Ecological Unconscious?

I find that this subject is one of the more revealing issues of our time. A place that requires us to reshape our understanding and meaning of ‘environment’. Read this great article on the link between our human psyche and the Earth.

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By DANIEL B. SMITH
Published: January 27, 2010

The terms in which ecopsychology pursues this admittedly ambitious goal are steeped in the field’s countercultural beginnings. Ecopsychology emerged in the early 1960s, just as the modern environmental movement was gathering strength, when a group of Boston-area graduate students gathered to discuss what they saw as the isolation and malaise infecting modern life. It had another brief period of efflorescence, particularly on the West Coast and among practitioners of alternative therapies, in the early ’90s, when Theodore Roszak, a professor of history (he coined the word “counterculture”) published a manifesto, “The Voice of the Earth,” in which he criticized modern psychology for neglecting the primal bond between man and nature. “Mainstream Western psychology has limited the definition of mental health to the interpersonal context of an urban-industrial society,” he later wrote. “All that lies beyond the citified psyche has seemed of no human relevance — or perhaps too frightening to think about.” Ecopsychology’s eclectic following, which includes therapists, researchers, ecologists and activists, still reflects these earlier foundations. So does its rhetoric. Practitioners are as apt, if not more apt, to cite Native American folk tales as they are empirical data to make their points.

Yet even as it remains committed to its origins, ecopsychology has begun in recent years to enter mainstream academic circles. more …

Articles By Vic Learning Communities Sustainable Innovation Uncategorized

Unsustainable Everything

I love it when somebody is able to synthesize the incoming data into a meaningful message. Watch this video and understand how the world economy works … I mean is ‘not’ working. Sustainability should go to another level of understanding for you after you watch this 4 minute clip.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Articles By Vic Collaborative Design Leadership Ecology Uncategorized

The Notion of Right and Wrong … is Wrong

The primary principle of innovation is this. It is being able to consider and change our ‘notions’; our so-called facts of our experiences; our factual claims; into something new that goes beyond our own individual reality. The statement of this work is at the foundation of collaboration and discovery. He speaks of science and the evolution of values. Excellent.

Watch this video …

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww&feature=related[/youtube]
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