ConnectMinds | Collective Insights | March 2022
Why do we insist on face-to-face meetings?
bright minds Everywhere,
Meeting you all in person is gradually becoming possible in all the places our groups are based - and we can’t stop smiling! You might ask why we are so ecstatic leaving our home office for the airport. Here’s why:
Zooming through the pandemic
MS Teams, Zoom, Webex and all the other tools that allow us to meet at a distance are highly useful in many situations. Useful, but hardly conducive of great interpersonal relationships. They have helped us to continue working effectively through lockdowns and isolation and they are great for maintaining contact when we are too far from each other to gather in the same room.
Meetings are not always about efficiency
But sometimes meetings are not merely about efficiency; sometimes we meet to exchange and work through complex ideas, process multidimensional questions and scenarios or dive deep into difficult challenges.
And this is exactly the type of discussions and collaboration ConnectMinds was born to facilitate.
For a full and frank comment on the importance of meeting in person again, click through and read our short article on why we insist on face-to-face meetings still being integral to ConnectMinds.
Insights from recent & info about upcoming events
In this edition, you can read about fellow ConnectMinds members, get the highlights from recent ConnectMinds learning events on among other things podcasts used for employee communication and check out some of the upcoming events in our Learning Calendar.
We look forward to continuing the conversations with you - and to seeing you both online and in person over the coming weeks.
Stay connected!
Your ConnectMinds Team
Meet a Bright Mind: Lil Sawyer
In each edition of Collective Insights, we talk to a member in the network about their work, challenges, priorities and opportunities - and about how they make use of the network. This month, ConnectMinds’ Lasse Philipsen talks to Lil Sawyer.
Lil Sawyer is Senior Digital Transformation Specialist at the SickKids Foundation at the Children’s Hospital in Toronto. She has been a member of the ConnectMinds network for a number of years and been a great contributor in the Employee Experience group in Toronto.
The butterfly and the snake
The COVID-19 crisis didn't just bring about a change in our work life; it brought transformation.
Lil tells us that, despite the enormous strain and challenges the pandemic has brought to every aspect of our lives, we should take a constructive approach; that we should use this shared experience and what it has taught us as a springboard for positive transformation.
Read about Lil's thoughts - and about where the snake and the butterfly fit in - in our conversation with her.
Insights from recent ConnectMinds events
Insights from ConnectMinds LIVE
on Podcasts used for employee- & internal communication.
Held at Frederiksberg Microbrewery in Copenhagen on 22. February.
We asked
What can podcasts be used for in organisations? Is it just another channel we think we should use in internal communications because it's oh so hip right now?
At this ConnectMinds LIVE event, we had a constructive discussion with podcast expert Seraina Silja Hürlimann and a number of practitioners.
Take aways
Check out our takeaways from that event in this short post.
Tips & Insights
Here a crowdsourced list of tips and insights from a (pre-pandemic) meeting in our NYC | Employee Experience group, where podcasts was on the agenda.
Useful resource
If you are thinking of launching a podcast, you can find inspiration at the Podcode website; founder Mark Steadman has vast experience and we at ConnectMinds are talking to Mark about how to put together our own podcast planned for launch later this year.
Insights from ConnectMinds ANYWHERE
Focus: How to leverage the full potential of our tools
On 24. February we hosted a ConnectMinds ANYWHERE session. It was a high level discussion exploring the types of tasks and processes, which are currently often carried out manually time after time, but which could be automated using the tools we already have. The obvious objective: to free up time that could be used for more creative and value-creating efforts.
There was unanimous agreement that this is fertile ground and that there is huge untapped potential. The conclusion was that we should be diving into the details of how to actually get started in earnest at upcoming meetings in the groups - so you can look forward to this.
Voices of participants
“Thanks for holding this session today. It was great to reconnect with the group and hear from people in other companies and industries. M365 seemed to be the platform that everyone was adopting and I very much appreciated hearing their takes on it.”
“Most of the time I feel we are far behind in the adoption of modern tools and having the proper principles or guidelines in place. Listening to the group and hearing similar accounts of the challenges each one faces helps to understand that these challenges are essentially global and we all have to work through these roadblocks.”
“I absolutely loved the format, discussions and the people on the call. I am looking forward to getting to know some of them better. I am hoping that we can truly help each other be better equipped to support our organizations through the next phase of our shared pandemic journey.”
“As a new member, this was the first session I have attended and found it enjoyable, insightful and valuable”.
Join future events
You and your colleagues can sign up for future learning events in the Events section on ConnectUs.
Upcoming Learning Events
ConnectMinds CURATOR
Online event | 23. March | 9am EST / 2pm BST / 3pm CET
CURATOR sessions celebrate interesting, innovative & inspiring work from across the network and talk to the bright minds behind the work about how they did it.
This is not an award ceremony or a “best practice catalogue”; we simply wish to bring examples of great work and smart solutions we spot at group sessions or through conversations with members to a wider audience. It’s a win-win format: we celebrate the hard work of those behind the success and other members will have an opportunity to talk to those who made it happen, leave with inspiring new ideas and alternative approaches. Watch brief CURATOR video; then sign you and your colleagues up for the event.
ConnectMinds ANYWHERE
Online event | 5. April | 9am EST / 2pm BST / 3pm CET
Focus: Measuring Impact - are you measuring what really matters?
Which insights are you gaining from your analytics data? Are they useful? And do they guide your decision making and work in any way?
If you are merely reporting the data and / or the “machine translations and recommendations”, you are far from alone. Defining sensible objectives and meaningful success criteria for the various channels and the communication that flows through them can be tricky.
In this ANYWHERE session, we will discuss how to identify what really matters when it comes to measurement and insights - and how to leverage all the data your tools generate. We will be joined by Cai Kjaer, CEO at SWOOP Analytics. SWOOP specialise in analytics for employee-focused digital workplace tools and has deep knowledge of how to turn the data into actionable insights. Read more about the session - and sign up for the event. (Your colleagues are welcome, too).
ON LOCATION Group meetings
The following groups will be meeting in March and April. (Click on the group for details)
Welcome (back) to the network
In the last few weeks, we have welcomed / welcomed back the following bright minds:
Anne Macleod at the Scottish Qualifications Authority (UK) rejoins the Scotland | Leading with a Digital Mindset Group
Chris Casteller and Jimmy Lee at CIBC (CA) rejoin the Toronto Employee Experience Group
Ernst Décsey at Unicef in Switzerland rejoins the Geneva Employee Experience Group and Sônia Freitas at Unicef in Denmark joins the Nordics Employee Experience Group
Lil Sawyer at the Sick Kids Foundation (CA) rejoins the Toronto Employee Experience Group
Margaret Cerilli at Putnam Investments (US) rejoins the Boston Employee Experience Group
Michele Smith at the MITRE Corporation (US) rejoins the Boston Employee Experience Group
Miri Makin at Interac Corp. (CA) rejoins the Toronto Employee Experience Group
Natasha Brainerd and Melinda Henderson at the Royal Bank of Canada (CA) rejoin the Toronto Employee Experience Group
Steve Schmidt at Qurate Retail Group (US) rejoins the Philadelphia Employee Experience Group
Tony Tsai at the CAA Central South Ontario (CA) rejoins the Toronto Employee Experience Group
More bright minds & brainpower wanted!
We are reigniting activities across the network and we welcome new members into the groups. If you know someone you think could benefit from joining us, tell them about the network and why you are a member yourself. We currently run a “Welcome Campaign": new members who join receive a number of complimentary add-ons - and it all comes with a “full satisfaction guarantee”.
More different minds and perspectives in the network equals more value for all of us!
For an all-round introduction of the network, the membership and what we do, visit the “Boost your Team” section:
Thank you
We appreciate having you in our network - more now than ever before - and look forward to many more fruitful discussions. Stay connected!