How GTIA (Global Technology Industry Association) Uses GroupMap for Group Brainstorming and Collaboration

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How do you bring together global technology leaders to collaborate, innovate, and drive industry change—without meetings becoming inefficient or overwhelming? This is a challenge Chris Phillips, Senior Director of Industry Advisory Councils at GTIA, faces daily. His mission: to create structured, engaging discussions that result in meaningful action. And that’s where GroupMap made all the difference.

Introduction to the Global Technology Industry Association

Chris Phillips is a seasoned professional in the technology industry, currently serving as the Senior Director, Industry Advisory Councils, at the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA). In this role, he is instrumental in fostering engagement within the GTIA community, overseeing programs such as the Member Champions. This initiative brings together highly engaged members who collaborate to enhance member involvement and provide valuable resources to the industry. Chris’s dedication to advancing the technology sector is evident through his efforts to build programs that promote education and resource sharing among professionals.

With a career spanning project management, business development, and community engagement, Chris understands the complexities of leading discussions across diverse stakeholders. His expertise allows him to design and facilitate impactful industry conversations—ones that turn ideas into action.

GTIA, formerly known as CompTIA, is a globally recognized leader in the IT industry, dedicated to empowering IT channel professionals, including managed service providers (MSPs), solution providers, vendors, and distributors. With a strong foundation in education, certification, and industry collaboration, GTIA continues CompTIA’s legacy of fostering innovation, security, and growth within the technology sector.

As a vendor-neutral, non-profit membership organization, GTIA provides trusted resources, research, and networking opportunities to help businesses navigate an evolving IT landscape. By facilitating industry best practices, cybersecurity, and professional development, GTIA ensures its members have the tools and knowledge to thrive in a rapidly changing digital world.

Their Client Story

With technology leaders and experts from all over the world, Chris had a challenge as to how to get everyone on the same page during meetings, without it being an over complicated and unwieldy process.

As Chris explains, “That’s where GroupMap came in, and honestly, it’s been a total game-changer.”

One of the key factors with time pressures was how quickly and effectively a group of leaders could come together and brainstorm with clarity and ease. As Chris explains ”GroupMap is super easy to use, and its customizable templates made brainstorming, prioritizing, and refining ideas is a breeze.”

The first example included having remote meetings where representatives across different timezones could come together to discuss, deliberate and decide in a collaborative manner.

Chris elaborates: “During our quarterly virtual meetings, council members used it to capture insights, vote on initiatives, and build consensus-all in real time. The best part? It visually organizes everyone’s contributions, so no one’s ideas get lost in the shuffle. It really helped make sure every voice was heard, which is so important for fostering engagement and inclusivity.”

By ensuring each person’s ideas could be easily seen, prioritized, discussed in depth and then to create engagement and discussion led to improved group decision making.

But besides industry consultation meetings, the use case for GroupMap extended into other aspects of GTIA’s organization. As Chris continues to explain: “It didn’t stop there. GroupMap wasn’t just used for the advisory councils-it’s been a hit across multiple groups at GTIA. Whether it was structuring discussions, tackling industry challenges, or coming up with actionable solutions, GroupMap became the go-to tool for our member leadership groups.”

While meetings can sometimes be seen as a waste of time, uneventful, and lacklustre, being able to create actions and outcomes is what can transform mundane team huddles into impactful events.

“For an organization like GTIA, where collaboration and innovation are at the heart of what we do, GroupMap has been invaluable. It’s helped us bridge the gap between global members and made it easy for everyone to contribute meaningfully. If you’re looking for a tool that can bring people together and get things done, GroupMap is it!”

We are most honoured that GroupMap has been an invaluable tool for an organisation like GTIA, where collaboration and innovation are core.  It has bridged the gap between global members, streamlined discussions, and empowered teams to generate meaningful outcomes. As Chris Phillips highlighted, GroupMap isn’t just a tool—it’s a solution for organizations looking to enhance engagement, structure conversations, and drive real results.

Want to run more structured and results-driven meetings?
Start using GroupMap today to capture ideas, prioritize discussions, and drive clear decisions.

Online Brainstorming Tools for Engaging Workshops – Talk versus Tech.

Technology versus Talk- The right balance for effective brainstorming meetings

Is using technology in group activities a conversation killer or can it improve the quality and speed of exchange? Online workshop and business planning tools that allow social collaboration in the workplace remove manual collation but does that now mean we have to operate in a cone of silence? Using sticky notes may be simple and “fun”, but are highly inefficient and manual.

We sometimes hear that a workshop that is full of noise and energy with, it’s of people talking and sharing ideas is fantastic. “This is working so well. Everybody is talking! This is great!” Of course, the extroverts love it… it’s their chance to pulpit their views and declare their thoughts. Yet this type of behaviour can be detrimental to the whole process. Meanwhile, the more thoughtful and observational introverts, the technicians, and the thinkers are given the task of being scribe.

Bringing in technology is often seen as a danger. “We can’t do that…nobody will talk. Nobody will learn and nobody will get a chance to voice their opinions.”  These statements suggest that the art of silence, contemplation, and reflection is a non-productive exercise. Say that to nearly 40% of the population (including business) who are introverts and world leaders like Gandhi, Churchill, and Bill Gates who proclaim their need for solitude. The creative process is often nook based, bean bagged, and chin tapping (as opposed to chin-wagging). In fact, they let their fingers do the talking.

We are often inspired by others externally but learn and reflect internally. Of course, sitting together in complete silence seems just as unnatural. Many of us lie somewhere within this spectrum and draw our inspiration from both what’s around us and what’s inside us.

” Creating a successful workshop is a balanced mix of chatter and capture. 
So what’s the right mix?”
 

GroupMap has been used in collaborative meetings ranging from workforce issues, improving education, innovation in government, and delivering better business outcomes. Here are 3-time box formats that we have seen work well based on the challenge you face.

The challenge: Complex problems, no right answers
Example question: What’s the world coming to?
The format: Great keynote, lots of pre-reading and preparation, individual lightning speeches, debating and open floor discussion, small group sharing, and capturing of ideas and concerns.
How can technology help: Capture diversity of opinions, look for common issues or concerns. It removes the ego and provides an open and low-risk environment for people to put in their views which creates great fodder for planning and considering perspectives.
Chatter: 50%
Capture: 50%

The challenge: Common problems, lots of “right” answers
Example: What should we focus on in the next 12 months?
The format: Open forum workshops, short keynote, creativity-based activities, small group idea generation, showcasing results, group prioritisation based on audience generated responses.
How can technology help: Fast capturing of issues, peer stimulated idea sharing, group filtering, and consensual decision making.
Chatter: 70%
Capture: 30%

The challenge: Common problems, a few “right” answers
Examples: Who are our stakeholders in this project?
The format: Focus is on whole group inquiry and confirmation, getting buy-in and action. Brainstorm execution strategies and have small groups discuss and capture potential barriers and solutions.
How can technology help: Used to quickly capture the current landscape and then prioritize key action points based on agreed strategies.
Chatter: 30%
Capture :70%

Do you agree with this mix? What’s your experience and how has technology helped you facilitate better group activities?

Group facilitation technology was never designed to takeover conversation, and it should never be the focal point. It’s part of the reason why we say we are creating conversation maps! If anything it helps to draw the conversation in and focus it on key issues. Once the initial novelty of technology settles, the focus should always be on what the group produces online brainstorming tools or group response tools.