Collaboration — Collaboration | GigaOM

Collaboration

Remote work advocates have plenty of scientific ammunition to convince skeptics as study after study has shown telecommuters get more done. But what’s true on average doesn’t hold for every case, new research suggests. For stultifying tasks (and, unsurprisingly, slackers), the office may be best. Read More »

A round-up of advice from veteran remote workers to those who work from home turns up a rarely cited truth: Your productivity problems may have more to do with what you do than how you do it. Now you just have to admit it. Read More »

 
 

If you want to use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to go paperless, these apps have many basic business needs covered, helping you take notes, scan documents, sign contracts, send faxes, convert business cards to Address Book contacts and even process payments. Read More »

Make sure your passion for work is productive

Having a healthy passion for work and life in balance can be a big productivity booster. But too often, that passion for work can veer too far into workaholic tendencies, especially for web workers. Here are a few tips to make sure your passion is productive. Read More »

What’s wrong with email today? That’s the question posed to me recently on Twitter, and considering that I use email as a primary method of communication, I was happy to think of a few ways to help tame the inbox. Read More »

I think that many of us need to think differently about our work if we want to be productive over the long term. Here are a few things to think about if you want to be able to get more done by enjoying what you do. Read More »

Many have discussed email etiquette, but for the average web worker, the notion of politesse can seem counterproductive. Here, then, are five golden rules for respectful, productive digital communication, whether you’re using email, IM, video chat, phone, or other communications tools. Read More »

The key to remaining productive is to not let the many distractions in your work day sidetrack you from your primary job. Here are a few tips for taking charge of your day and kicking a few of the most common distractions to the curb. Read More »

Your to-do list has taken on a life of its own, and after several failed attempts at taming it, you’re now looking for a way to peacefully co-exist. Fortunately, new apps and devices are being created almost daily to help us improve our productivity and collaboration. Read More »

Some gadgets help us be more productive, some are just cool, and some are both. Here are a few media gadgets that can help you organize and streamline your work, while at the same time letting you have a little fun with technology. Read More »

Today, I stumbled across a new prospect for email management, SaneBox, which can automatically prioritize and sort email into folders. Could this new hopeful mean the end of email insanity, as it claims? Time will tell, but it looks very promising. Read More »

3 keys to dispersed team success

It’s one thing to work in a team with one or two off-site members. But what about entirely dispersed teams, where none of the members are located in the same office? Team leaders need to consider the interplay of three crucial factors: frequency, transparency, and variability. Read More »

More Must Reads

It will probably come as no surprise to WebWorkerDaily readers that a recent survey found that 70 percent of information workers don’t believe status meetings help them accomplish work tasks. Additionally, almost 40 percent of respondents feel that such meetings are a waste of time. Read More »

Microsoft has now launched Office 365, its suite of collaboration and office tools that aims to take on Google Apps for Business. But with a product that costs more than Google’s offering and is coming much later to market, will Office 365 be a success? Read More »

Web content curation is nothing new. What is new, however, is that there are a growing number of tools that allow you to do your own curation for your own purposes. How can curation help keep your remote team on the same page? Read More »

Many of us are drowning in email, and Chris Anderson, curator of the TED conferences, thinks it’s time to address that by creating an “email charter” to reduce the amount of unnecessary email sent and to make the email we do send easier to process. Read More »

The daily email deluge is the scourge of productivity, but how can you stem the tide? Over at Six Pixels of Separation, Twist Image president Mitch Joel suggests that you should tell people in your emails how to work with you. Read More »

Side projects can be businesses or just-for-fun efforts that we do in our nonworking hours. While there are some risks with taking side projects, I strongly believe that most of the time they benefit both the individual and the employer. Read More »

If you work on your own and get creatively blocked, you’re equally on your own to try and unstick yourself and get productive again. Programmer, designer, copywriter — whatever your field of work, it’s the same dilemma: How do you prod your unresponsive brain to deliver … Read More »

Being able to work online has its benefits, such as having the flexibility to work nontraditional hours with clients from countries around the world, but it’s also easy to get distracted. Fortunately, there are several tools available to help improve concentration and productivity. Read More »

One of my key requirements for the task management apps that I use is that I can access my to-do list anywhere. That’s why I was keen to test SmallTask, an app for Mac and iOS that has built-in support for popular file sync service Dropbox. Read More »

I make extensive use of smart folders and tags to sort my email into logical groups that I can easily process all at once. The key is to use rules and filters that automatically sort my email without any additional intervention from me. Read More »

The use of the iPad by mobile workers is on the rise, and that brings with it both boons and challenges for productivity. Here’s how you and your remote staff can stay on top of iPad usage, lest iPad usage controls you and your organization instead. Read More »

“Untethered,” for most of us, isn’t technical jargon, but rather the ability to work unrestrained, able to jump from one activity to the next without cumbersome tools slowing us down. But to become untethered, we must be willing to move away from old ways of working. Read More »

As part of my recent productivity kick I’ve been thinking about to-do lists. Better task management allows us to get more accomplished while not spending too long managing the process. Here are some suggestions to help you focus on completing tasks rather than managing a list. Read More »

Coworking is a great way for freelancers to work in an office setting without having to sign up for office life, but it can also be a useful for remote teams. Some companies are now supporting remote staff with a coworking stipend. Here’s why. Read More »

How much more you could get done if you had just an extra hour a day? While I can’t magically transport you to Bajor, where they have 26 hour days, I can share a few tips that will help you to take control of your schedule. Read More »

The reality is that truly productive teams tend to be close-knit. There’s a strong sense of rapport between the team members. Let’s face it, in a productive team, it’s the teamwork — willingness to problem-solve together — that often ensures the productivity. And teamwork depends on … Read More »

I’m a huge fan of anything that can make me more productive, so I’m always looking for ways to accomplish more while not killing myself doing it. It’s easier to excel if you can do more than your peers while still having time to recharge. Read More »

Every day, it seems, there are dozens of new applications available to help with different aspects of web working. It got me thinking. What is it we really need as web workers these days, and is anyone working to find solutions to those problems? Read More »

Keeping up with Twitter, Facebook and all the posts and comments written about your company can be overwhelming. Postling is a centralized dashboard for organizing, managing and tracking all your social media efforts, so that you can engage with your entire online community from one location. Read More »

URLHistory’s one of those simple but amazingly useful little Windows apps that does one thing really well: it monitors your clipboard looking for copied URLs, and stores them for use later. If you frequently end up pasting URLs into a text file, URLHistory’s for you. Read More »

Can making email into a game make you more productive, encourage you to develop better habits and make email more fun? That’s the idea behind Baydin’s The Email Game, which applies gameplay mechanics to the process of working through your inbox. Read More »

If you’re working with a distributed team, you should be regularly gauging and improving your effectiveness. Here are a few questions to help you quickly zone in on problem areas with your virtual workforce, as well as some suggested solutions to help you correct them. Read More »

On days where our tools, skills and energy come together, our output seems to flow seamlessly. On other days, though, no matter how many tools we use or how many cups of coffee we consume, something seems to be blocking us from getting anything done. Read More »

While there are definitely benefits to having the freedom of working from home, one downside for me has been the development of several bad habits. Breaking those bad habits is a real challenge, which in my case I knew would require a complete system reset. Read More »

I don’t know about you, but I often get to the end of the day and wonder where the 40 bucks I had in my wallet disappeared to. At LeWeb, I came across Toshl, an expense-tracking app that I might actually use because it’s so simple. Read More »

I’ve been working on site one day a week, and I’ve noticed something that differentiates the way I operate compared to my “in-office” colleagues: I see my time differently than they do. And, to be honest, I think it makes me more productive than they are. Read More »

Undergoing continued health treatment while you’re working full-time remains a challenge — especially for the freelancer or contractor. The good news is that balancing work and ongoing health treatment isn’t impossible. These are a few of the techniques I’ve used to make it easier. Read More »

Looking to plan your budget for next year? Deciding where to spend is a tricky decision. If you’re a remote worker, or managing a remote team, then it could be even harder. What kind of investment will pay back the most in terms of productivity? Read More »

“Action days” — days where you and some friends agree to check in with one another hourly to keep tabs on each others’ progress — are a great way to motivate yourself and keep yourself accountable. Here are some suggestions as to how you could use … Read More »

I’m working in my pajamas. Getting dressed makes me feel more “put together,” so it’s something I aspire to on most days; today’s not one of those days, and I’m OK with it. Here’s why, along with a few more advantages of being a web worker. Read More »

Many of the things that masquerade as helpful in getting work done can, in fact, make jobs harder and draw things out.. Here’s a list of three things that have led me down the garden path when it comes to being genuinely productive. Read More »

The past few months have been filled with dilemmas; I’ve found myself struggling to find solutions to them on occasion. While figuring out how to move forward with something can be frustrating, there are a few strategies I’ve stumbled on to help me get unstuck. Read More »

If you’d like to work from home but your company doesn’t allow it, why not become the prime mover in a program to see if working from home can’t help boost productivity? It’s easier than ever to make the argument to the decision-makers in your organization. Read More »

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