"The Art of Online Facilitation" assignment

Rypple.com is an online program that is supposed to allow organizations stay on track, set goals (for themselves & each other), schedule 1:1 meetings, say thanks, etc.  To also give timely feedback to help employees succeed.

When I first saw the video demo I thought this was a great tool that would work great for our department as we struggle to find ways to give timely feedback to our staff.  This is a challenge mostly because with our shift work it can be weeks (or longer) before we see some of the staff.  So, if it is specific feedback about a specific call the opportunity has been lost if the feedback comes too late.

I also liked the idea of "kudos/thank you's" in a public way as I feel this is something that we can all improve on.

You can make groups that can only see what's in their group.  You can also have private or public conversations/goal setting/etc.

So, I signed up & invited the other people in our Professional Development Department.  This all seemed to go smooth & we've been posting a few test posts just to see how it all works.  Recently I tried to add some of the staff I am responsible for to test this out.  I've tried three times now to add them, and they are not recieving the email from Rypple inviting them to join.  I've contacted our IT department to see if it's getting caught in our spam filters, and the emails are not there (but previously I was able to invite people from my department the same way....so the spam filter shouldn't be affecting this).  I've also posted a question in Rypple's forum asking about this, and just received an answer today.  The answer I got made sense & I actually figured it out over the weekend (it's just too hard to explain if you are not familiar with Rypple!).  So now, I will need to add those "tester" staff members to try it out over the next few weeks.

One other thing about their reply (Even though it was almost 2 weeks after I posted my question)....they apologized for their delayed response, but actually asked me to explain my thought process for how I was trying to add people.  They stated that since it wasn't clear to me that I couldn't add people the way I was trying....it meant that this was their fault for their site not being very clear.  So, even though I wasn't very happy with such a delayed response from them....the fact that they actually want to understand my thought process to improve their website (of which I am only  using the free version) was nice to know.

Currently for feedback we always try to do it face to face, but realistically this isn't always possible...so email is usually how it works.  I don't think Rypple will change the feedback a lot, as they will have to sign in to view it....but I do think it will be better in some ways.  The feedback will remain on their "page" on Rypple for them to see each time they log in. 

Another reason I think it will be a good change is for setting up 1:1 meetings.  They can see on their profile what date the meeting is set up for & be able to prepare for it.  Right now we don't give them any time to prepare...we usually just decide that day that we will meet with them.  It's harder for them to bring up anything they want to discuss without preparing for it.
Also, if you have something to share with your entire group....you can write a post for them all to view.

A fun tool that Rypple has is "badges" or icons that you can use/attach to any comments you make about people (thank you's, feedback, etc).  Makes it a little more interesting than just straight forward posts.
Other than this, I don't think there are any other elements that are "retrieved" from older elements.

There are a few things that I can see the staff not enjoying about Rypple....the biggest one is that it's one more username/password that they have to remember and that they have to check regularly.  We already have so many work related usernames (payroll, company email, training site, etc).
It will take a little bit of time and learning for the staff to get comfortable using the site as well (because I'm still having trouble navigating the site!!).

I don't think that Rypple will completely dissolve the "old" way of providing feedback (i.e. emails or phone calls), but I think it will be a nice way for people to be able to review the goals set out for them and what feedback has been given in the past.  Right now there is no way for them to review this, as it is stored in our files in tour office.

We have always tried to make sure that we give our feedback face to face with our staff.  It is important for many reasons that can't be shown in an email or phone call.  Tone of voice, facial expression, reading their expressions based on the feedback, etc.  This is one of the things I want to make sure we don't lose if we start using Rypple for feedback.  It will be easier to just post the feedback/goals onto Rypple for the staff vs. actually setting up a 1:1 meeting with them.