Have you ever wanted to ask a burning question at a meeting without identifying yourself? Now you can.
LiveSift.com is a leader in, what shall we call it? "Meetingware." Over the past year it’s been going quietly viral all over the state and beyond. In the process, it has changed the way meetings work.
Considering that meetings are often the way people do creative thinking and come up with new ideas, this could really be something for tech in Hawaii.
Using LiveSift, a user can participate in a meeting with any computer or smart device. He can pose questions, rate the answers, answer questions from speakers and get a report on what was exchanged. This makes meetings more energetic and productive.
How does it work? The moderator gives users a code to join and interact in the LiveSift session for that meeting, creating not just a two-way street, but also a bustling intersection of community thought process.
The user is anonymous, and his questions, ratings and votes are anonymous. This makes him more adventurous and bold than he would be were he identified, and thus changes him from spectator to participant.
The Internet is real-time, and it takes only seconds to get user questions and display their answers in graphic form. Users know their answers are being included, and that encourages them to participate.
To run LiveSift, you need a person at a computer to start the meeting session and select the questions to display from those that have come in. There are usually more questions than the speakers can answer, but that shows the vitality of the meeting.
As database and graphics software, LiveSift can interpret the evaluation data before displaying it. This makes the interaction all the more powerful and the graphic displays all the more comprehensible.
LiveSift goes to a whole new level if the meeting is webcast or broadcast by audio or video, since in that case the thought community is extended to all the users who can see or hear it, wherever they may be.
Gov.-elect David Ige did this when he went live in our studio and took questions in a "Statewide Conversation." He allowed the users to rate his answers live, and their ratings, all the way from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree," showed up on the screen while he spoke. This was all simultaneous, and amazing.
Ige was also creative enough to pose his own questions to users and take their answers through LiveSift. It was so good it will have to happen again.
With this functionality, LiveSift opens new doors to the science of meetings. It was developed to give us better meeting outcomes, but it can also teach us about the social dynamics of meetings themselves.
LiveSift was designed to move meetings along and raise the level of discussion. Beyond that, it has the effect of bringing users closer to speakers, and of giving all users a democratic footing. This improves the user experience.
LiveSift’s principals are Alex Bergo and his wife, Viil Lid, both with Ph.D.s from the University of Hawaii. Alex focuses on artificial intelligence and collaboration; Viil focuses on platforms and data. They are in Blue Startups and the XRLUH accelerator. They released their beta in April, and are now working on advanced features and talking with specialists in global sales.
ThinkTech uses LiveSift regularly. So do Hawaii Business Magazine and the Hawaii Venture Capital Association. Many other users are listed on LiveSift’s Facebook page. Once you’ve used LiveSift, you won’t want to go back to open mic or paper Q&A again.
New possibilities are irresistible. LiveSift could be used for corporate meetings and focus groups and for academic, government and nonprofit gatherings. Educators, officials, legislators and leaders can respond to questions and concerns and exchange ideas with constituents. Could this lead to new ways to do business, education and government?
What role could LiveSift play in improving the voter experience on candidates and legislative and policy issues? This in turn raises the question of whether a more direct democracy can be developed here or elsewhere, and whether LiveSift could be involved.
The era of LiveSift is only beginning. Using LiveSift itself, we can learn more about human interaction and about how to apply LiveSift to other scenarios.
LiveSift is a natural for Hawaii. We are a laboratory for networking and collaboration. The need for better meetings through better meetingware is clear. Sure there are cultural and language challenges, but there’s no reason why LiveSift can’t go for the global.
Jay Fidell, a longtime business lawyer, founded ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company that reports on Hawaii’s tech and energy sectors of the economy. Reach him at fidell@lava.net.
