Original Question:

Organizations are increasingly transcending country boarders and physical space limitations. What are some effective strategies to motivate dispersed team members in a virtual setting? What are some emerging trends that deal with this challenge in your field? Provide an example

Answer:

Even a telephone meeting conversation can miss some of the information. It is important that the first meeting be face to face meeting. One problem with the face to face meeting at my organization, is that there are so many meetings and time is limited because that have to go to other meetings. Even on the tri-campus area the travel to each meeting can take about 5 to 10 minutes and many of these meetings end continuing the following day or weeks, just to resolve issues or conduct any planning.  There is not enough cross-sectional teams that are allowed to solve the issues and problems of the organization, because there is too much micro-management going on.

The times I do see more virtual settings and video conference, because the outside organizations use these approaches and we do not use the same approaches with outside organizations, we cannot operate or participate effectively like on full size emergency field exercises. I have been involved with many of the organization that come and set up these virtual settings and have worked out very well  during an disaster operation where 17 areas of the city was heavily flooded and several areas of the county was also flooded. The emerging trends is that more technology is being used by to help transmit more detail information the to emergency operations center and emergency manager, so decision makers can make more inform decisions. The use of Ham radio operators, Skype, messenger and video drones help give a more inform picture of the disaster.