Connections eMagazine

Editor's note: With a hard-to-deny energy and commitment, Greater IBMer Debbe Kennedy has made her presence felt on The Greater IBM Connection. She's become a frequent forum contributor and "blogger" - and even hosted a well-attended "How to" Web conference on blogging. More recently, Debbe hosted a "Women's Jam" to share ideas with others around the globe (the subject of this report). And that's just the warm up. On 11 April 2008, she and another Greater IBMer, Shara Sokol, will co-host the network's first Greater IBM Women's Leadership Gathering. Don't miss it. (LHP)

By Debbe Kennedy, a Greater IBMer

From the first time I heard about the Greater IBM Connection for current and former IBMers, I knew it was destine to become something far more than most of us could imagine. This is why I got involved. What I didn't realize was how powerful a single Greater IBM connection, across the world, would spark a whole series of innovation that matters.

Several months ago, I bumped into Nigel Stonham, a Greater IBMer from Austria. We first made contact on a Xing forums and then on the Greater IBM Blog. One day, he shared his plans for a women's networking event in Mödling (Austria) to celebrate International Women's Day 2008. His excitement was hard to ignore. It made you want to be a part of it. He encouraged me to get involved. I asked, "How?" He wrote back igniting the spark: "Hold a women's jam," he wrote.

Last month, "A Women's Leadership Gathering: Bringing New Friends Together Across the World" opened its "virtual doors" for a day of conversation celebrating International Women's Day. The innovation wasn't what we did, it was how we did it. One hundred twenty-one women from twelve countries participated.

Drawing from Nancy Margulies In my closing remarks at the event, I told a story about how whenever I work in our Global Dialogue Center, I visualize myself in a space capsule to some destination in my "global neighborhood" to meet with others. That day together took this experience to a new level.

The groundbreaking 8-hour online "live" collaborative conversation was held at the Global Dialogue Center (GDC), a virtual gathering place I founded in 2004. Our center has highly interactive collaborative "rooms" with built-in computer audio (VoIP), which meant we could hold an international gathering of this duration and scope with minimal costs.

There were a lot of firsts. Few of us had ever met. For some, the virtual online gathering was an unknown, but an early poll showed that we were there to find out how a meeting in virtual space could be meaningful enough to keep us involved for a full day. Somehow it did hold us together hour after hour. Together we proved it can work!

We listened to one another's stories, asked questions, shared photos, and explored new ideas with three themed conversations. Each conversation was designed to build on the other.

• First, we delved into the missteps, milestones and miracles of our leadership journeys.
• Then, we zoomed in to take a closer at ourselves to see what we could learn from the big changes in our lives. Here we faced a few moments of shared truth.
• The final conversation led us to look outside ourselves to discover how putting our differences to work across the world as women could have far-reaching impact, accelerating change on many fronts in the communities where we live.

Thought-leaders from our Women in the Lead community at the Global Dialogue Center seeded the dialogues and set the example for storytelling and sharing to encourage other women. We had multiple ways for women to share. One highlight of our experiment was incorporating "live graphic illustration" of our conversation as it progressed, which was a gift from the well-known "godmother of graphic recording," Nancy Margulies, who helped us add this "live visual energy" to the virtual mix.

In-between the conversations, we invited everyone for virtual breaks for more informal visiting. We planned to make it easy for "coming and going" throughout the day. However, much to our surprise many women stayed logged on all day.

Since the event, I've grappled with how to express what happened in what seemed to be an almost magical experience. As emails come in from those who shared in the day, I realize that I wasn't alone in thinking the event was something very special. I'd like to share a portion of one email in particular, which came from Xuan, from China working on an Internship in Germany:

I am so glad to have celebrated this women's day with all of you in such a special way! I want to say, all of you brought me into a new world, full of vision and passion, wisdom and philanthropy. I remember the words, the cheers, the paintings, all and all, like it just happened a second ago. Wisdom and love, what else can be better??! ... this gathering will set my journey out, to discover more of the excitement of being a woman, learning, sharing and giving. I will also be very pleased if I can contribute to this lovely women's family more!!

Epilogue:

That initial spark of that begin with Nigel's inspiration continues to burn. The women's gathering in March made us confident that the experience could be leveraged to create a Greater IBM Connection Women's Leadership Gathering Series. Our first event is April 11 with a focus on Lessons in Leadership: Missteps, Milestones, and Miracles. Shara Sokol, president of s2 creative communications and Greater IBMer from New York, will co-host the series with me. Check the Greater IBM events calendar on Xing to learn more.