In PopG's opinion it is the universities in the developing world that are the logical leaders for development in initiating their own 24/7 collaborating for productivity "twinning" and for providing the Groove + PopG Internet platform for their own SME extending of local 24/7 collaborating for productivity through their university's education and training PopG methodology.

The natural cross-cultural co-ordinators of these initiatives are the UK VSO and US Peace Corps Returned Volunteers that team co-ordinate the remote support group of specialist according to each project, while the local "in country" Volunteers from the same agencies team co-ordinate the local sector/across-sector facilitator action group. Of course, local development agency workers could also coordinate the local group.

The local group is within the university for their own 24/7 collaborating for productivity "twinning" with other universities and the SMEs are attached and based in the universities for extending 24/7 collaborating for productivity SME "twinning" whose groups also includes local co-workers and other aid agency workers. These local in-country groups would drive the design of their particular project's quantitative and qualitative objectives, measure their level of success in meeting their objectives, and foster among all the team's members the motivation to achieve those objectives.

The VSO/Peace Corps Returned Volunteers via their computer are the Remote Co-ordinators (recruiting and co-ordinating the specialist around the world according to the specific sector/across-sector project requirement) to support the in country Local Co-ordinator and his/her group with their co-workers and other aid agencies workers.

The technology is first PopG Servers and second any laptop or Wireless Thin-Client laptop for the mobile environment and for the desktop environment a Wireless or any other type of Windows, Mac or Unix box. This technology is located in the host community (except for the remote support teams own computers), while connecting both the remote support group and local group to Groove and non-Groove PopG spaces and tools for 24/7 collaborating for productivity.

A secondary education example (higher education would co-ordinate there own support) that's co-ordinated by a Returned VSO Teaching Volunteer (This is not the complete education facilitating via PopG but merely a snapshot of several deployment team members):

1. Teams of remote teachers with a 24/7 opportunity to peer-coach local teachers.

2. Teams of students in the remote teachers class with a 24/7 opportunity to peer-coach the local teachers students.

3. Families of the students in the remote teachers class with a 24/7 opportunity to peer-coach the local students families.

An SME example that's co-ordinated by a Returned VSO SME volunteer:

An SME printing business is using Groove + PopG's 24/7 collaborating for productivity technology and is asked by this Return SME Volunteer if they would be interested in using their Groove + PopG to "twin" for nation building. The business is offered to let's say "twin" with a developing world company responsible for printing all the educational materials for their Education Ministry.

The consultancy type knowledge provided to the local print company by the remote company via PopG could be paid for by SME development funds. These consultancy knowledge payments to remote SMEs that have been "twinned" with developing country SMEs would evolve into the developing country's SME paying the consultancy tab or to a volunteer "twinning". Of course, this SME model could start from day one as a volunteer model by following the Swedish International Development Agency's south-north partnership for mutual learning and capacity building that's fostered by Sida's over 1,500 "twinning" partners in Sweden that are connected to Sida's overseas development work. This volunteer SME model is discussed in the previous blog. PopG suggests that developed country donors will very much appreciate this focus on PopG's "teaching them how to fish" for a real self-reliance approach in substance rather than just being metaphoric.

The key to this "twinning" model is Andy's PopCollaborating space sharing, screen sharing and mouse sharing technology that is built on top of PopG, which allows remote support teams of let's say teachers, students and their families to be in California connected via their computers to local teams of teachers, students and their families that are in a developing country. The remote presentations, remote training and remote help-support by the remote teams in California are using procedures and techniques that would be no different than the procedures and techniques would be if those in a developing country were in California in the same room as the remote support team.

PopG's collaborating for productivity is also a 21st century IT and Internet deployment technology and methodology for the developing world's higher education institutions and from the universities in these countries a 24/7 collaborating for productivity type of SME (Small and Medium Enterprize) extension programme reaching beyond the universities. The SMEs would include all other levels of education as well as small and medium size businesses, plus government and non-government non-profit enterprize projects.

This higher education and SME extension programme is for collaborating within specific project sectors, as well as for collaborating across-sectors when there are common across-sector issues such as governance and financial sustainability. The developing country's entire education system and this SME methodology are Internet supported via PopTeambuilders from the desktops of "twinning" (matching) higher education institutions and their teacher training centers, their graduate schools, their research centers, their administrators, their educators and their students, plus the "twinning" of SMEs within this PopG university extension context of SMEs.

Local "in country" SME Centers could facilitate the "twinning" of this SME extension methodology from each "in-country" university into 24/7 collaborating for productivity for primary and secondary education, government, business, environment, agriculture, health, and other community projects. This SME concept is adding the 24/7 collaborating for productivity "twinning" technology to the Swedish International Development Agency's south-north partnership for mutual learning and capacity building that's fostered by its over 1,500 "twinning" partners in Sweden that are connected to Sida's overseas development work. Sida's says: "The aspiration is to make learning possible, not merely for individuals but for the entire organisation, in order to create sustainable effects. One way to achieve these effects is to ensure that contacts between the organisations take place at different levels in the hierarchy, in parallel and simultaneously." The PopG thought prompted here is that in addition to today's focus on lifelong education for the individual we could initiate a life long collaborating for productivity twinning for sustainable effects in the developing world.

PopG provides all the features that require servers such as streaming videos, conferencing, large databases of knowledge files, plus all the collaborating for productivity features provided by a Groove shared space, which remain unaltered on PopG. Hence, all members of an organization and all those outside of the organization (that have permission) can access the explicit and implicit database file repositories of that organization’s knowledge. Yet, only those members within a shared space that have permission can pull files from the repositories into the shared space, work in the space online and offline collaboratively with other shared space members on these files and when completed post the files back to the databases. Here, the tacit knowledge sharing by the members of the space brings the localized and dynamic power to this collaborating for productivity.

As a Groove Business Partner (Groove) GToolBox has developed both (Excel within Groove) GXL and (Groove) Gbase for those requiring database files within Groove. As GToolBox says: there is a large world of Excel spreadsheet users, there is even a larger one of database users. These can range from simple Dbase files to SQL or Oracle. GBase brings this data live into Groove where it can be shared and collaborative edited. GBase has full functionality with scrollable displays, totals, search and even data mining across multiple files. To allow multiple files from the database to be shared in one space, or to have data from multiple spaces deposited in one database for consolidated record keeping - makes data and knowledge scalable to any volume.

Groove + PopG technology support is provided remotely via PopCollaborating space sharing, screen sharing and mouse sharing technology on top of PopG by a team of Groove business partners and tool developers located around the world. This PopCollaborating support is a significant improvement over the e-mail support offered by most.

Ehrmann and Collins mention in their paper "Can Distance Enhance Quality?", with a link to this paper in a previous blog, a key learning and capacity building challenge to successful collaboration: "those [higher education institutions] that do emphasize collaboration, how many are adding to skills specific to collaboration online, e.g., how to cope with tension among online collaborators from different parts of the country or the world, collaborators who do not initially know one another's assumptions, cultures or personality quirks." As any Returned UK (VSO) Volunteer Service Overseas and US Peace Corps Volunteer will tell you: "learning and capacity building must travel in both directions."

Comments from VSO returned volunteers on the VSO Website:

Seeing people in a range of normal, everyday activities reinforce bonds of common humanity.
The kids I taught had exactly the same hopes, dreams and ambitions as Western kids... they behaved exactly the same way as teenagers in the UK, often bolshy and
temperamental.

Exposure to other cultures can have a great impact on personal values, development and priorities in life. It forces you to question your own values, behaviour and cultural norms.
We are too hung up on choice in the West. We are so busy making choices that we don't have the time to make the most of what we have.

It generates greater appreciation and awareness of our own opportunities and privileges.
I've changed personally. If I'm ever having a hard time I always think back to Namibia and thank my bloody lucky stars I was born in the UK and have all the educational, medical and material advantages afforded by living in the West.

Learning from other cultures encourages embracing new ways of living, different attitudes and priorities. It also creates personal potential to create change and make a difference.
My worldview has totally changed. I've become more critical of Western policy and practice towards developing countries...

The close of this section of the VSO Website said: "Most importantly of all, living and working in a developing country appears to shatter the feelings of false superiority that seem to hang like a cloud over our perceptions of the developing world. It creates a more equal relationship."

Universities initiatives via the Internet for their local residential students and their overseas remote students, as well as the World Bank's Internet initiatives for "Distance Education", "Education for all", "Knowledge Sharing" and developing countries "Gateway" are all being limited by 20th century Internet technology. The 20th century Internet that contains collaboration within e-mail and threaded discussions. So let's move the world to the Groove + PopG's 21st century Internet ASAP - the 21st century collaborative Internet that also includes the "best features" of the 20th century Internet all in every shared space.

What do you get beyond e-mail and threaded discussions with Groove and PopG?

1. The collaborating for productivity supremacy of Groove + PopG is its teamwork platform that offers the full collection of over 30 Groove + PopG technology tools for a team's methodology tabs. All the tabs are designed by the team, in one or more team constructed spaces. In addition Groove + PopG permits users to bundle as many technology tools and methodology tabs into the same-shared space as the team requires.

2. This brings the power of a collaborating for productivity team into play by having at hand and at all times the most useful tool and tab needed, with the latest version of what's in every tab whether entered online or if entered offline it's fully synced to the rest of the team online without human intervention just seconds after the "updater" goes online. The updated tabs and files are always flagged by a yellow marker for every team member except the "updater", so the question "where is" or "who has" the latest version never needs to be asked.

3. Furthermore, the combining of Groove + PopG asynchronous and synchronous technologies, plus Outlook eMail integration, instant messaging and chat in every shared space is also a unique collaborating feature.

4. As a closer PopG then offers its exclusive PopCollaborating space sharing, screen sharing and mouse sharing technology built on top of PopG for remote presentations, remote training, remote support-coaching and remote real-time collaborating within MindManager (front-end brainstorming and project dimension), TeamDirection Projects (project management), Co-Present through firewalls, Word, PowerPoint, GXL (Excel within Groove), plus their Mac, Sun's StarOffice and other Unix equivalents.

Two leaders in the distance education field Stephen C. Ehrmann and Mauri Collins argue that: "There are at least two major reasons to go beyond student-faculty e-mail and threaded discussions for collaboration." This is from their article "Can Distance Enhance Quality?", which was published in the magazine Educational Technology (September 2001).http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/Collab_Distance.html

1.First, in education as (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) argued when formulating the well known "Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education," interaction among students is a powerful catalyst for improving learning outcomes.

2. Second, in business and other organisations collaborative skill is itself an important yet often vestigial outcome of higher education. For example, Boyatsis (1982) summarized research that showed that a major difference in the competences of excellent managers and those of average managers in the same roles was that the superior performers were skilled in the creation of coalitions. PopG suggests "creation of coalitions" could also be named collaborating for productivity, which is an Internet technology and methodology offered by Groove + PopG (PopGroove).