Your ability to use the internet greatly affects your performance as a leader.

There’s little doubt that the Internet has elvolved into an important part of our lives – providing instant communication capabilities and an almost bottomless source of valuable, up-to-date information on just about any topic.

In the recent general election, Malaysian saw how Opposition parties successfully used the internet to bypass the the mainstream media and reached the masses.

Toastmasters International has recently improved their web pages to include a lot of information and made communication with headquaters possible online.

The internet is indeed a powerful communication tool.

Yet , I still find some Toastmasters members, ironical to their enthusiastic quest to be better communicators, snub and shun the use of internet as an effective means of communication. In their mind , internet is only for the younger generations, for the computer savvy, and not for the serious guys. Anyone above 40 years old is not using the compouter, so they claimed. They give themselves a thousand and one reasons to feel good for being a computer illiterate.

Do'nt get me wrong. The purpose of this article is not to get you to start using the internet. The fact that you are reading my blog, you are already using the internet. So there is no need to preach to the converted. My intention is to share with you my experiences of using the internet in Toastmasters.

During this second term as Division Governor I have a effectively used the internet to communicate with a large group of members, some of whom are not too enthusiastic about using the internet at the begining.

1. Web page

I published a Division web page where I

• list all Division activities under the heading Division Calender. This calender of activities is continuously and promptly updated, so members are kept informed what is going on in the Division
• published thousand of photos on our activities ( they say pictues tell a thousand stories, it is true ! )
• set up a " stop press section " to publish what is most recent, be it annoucements, past events etc
• gave every club a link to their respective web pages, thereby giving them more exposure to publicise their club or to attract new members to their club.
  

2.Google group

• This is actually an interactive web page where I allow members announce forthcoming activities, express their views on certain topics etc without help from the web master. Yes anyone can read and writye on this page as long as they have been accetped as a member of the group.
• This is also where we accumulate the email contacts for all the members without the risks of spam mails.
• This is also how we stem out looped spam mails created by members. In the past when the announcements were made by emails, any alterations ,comments etc made by any members will triger a long string of "mails when he user chose attached past emails". Sometimes the emails were soo many that one lost track of which was the latest. On the orther hand when an annoucement is made on the group, everybody read the latest from there. There is no loger need for looped emails.
• I used googles group, there is also a host of other like the yahoo group etc

3. Skype

This is a free video conferencing program available from the web and I used it to communicate with specific group of Toastmasters on a regular basis .

There are several distinct advantages when using these programs

I classifed telephones, handphones, SMS etc as intrusive communication tool. They always ring at the wrong time and demand you to attend to them immediately.

When we use skype ,

• we know who is on line and messages is instant,
• larger file tranfer is possible
• we can choose vedio mode where we can see each other
• groups can be created in skype to allow group conference calls. I used this feature to dicuss with sub-commitees of certain groups of toastmasters on specific subjects. These web meeting can be scheduled, adhoc and on demand , as long as you can get the people on line.
• this mode of communication saves time, and above all its free.

In the past , certain District officers asked me to give them a missed call so that they can call be back. By doing so, they thought they have taken away the burden of the cost of the call and I will be encouraged to call them more readily. If these officers are on line in skype at specific time.... there is no need to do this. And they can actually shedule conference meetings to be at top of things all the time.

We have come to the time when the ability to use the internet greatly affects our performance as a leader. If you want to be an effective leader these days, you just have to learn how to use the internet, and don't stop only at emails.