An important but often unacknowledged issue surrounding collaborative business is that while companies will focus on choosing tools, prescribing acceptable network policies and measuring ROI, the easiest way to get staff to collaborate is to make it fun. But what makes collaboration fun? Read more »
While it has been widely reported that teens no longer use email, it seems that attitudes to email are changing in workplace, too. According to a new GigaOM Pro report, workers don’t consider that email will continue to be such a critical tool in the future. Read more »
There’s an array of technology that can help keep a remote team connected. But once you’ve got all the tech channels in place to share information seamlessly, you still may be missing one key ingredient for the smooth flow of ideas: the lubricating effects of gossip. Read more »
Microsoft today accused Google of lying about its Google Apps for Government offering being certified for use by federal agencies, which is just the latest salvo in an ongoing war to be the premier provider in the lucrative market for cloud-based collaboration tools. Read more »
There are many commercial desktop OCR applications available, but if you only need OCR functionality occasionally, there are many online solutions that can be much more cost effective. Here are three free online OCR services that all deliver reasonable results, given high quality input images: Read more »
Remote working may be on the rise, but there are still assumptions made about a distributed workplace that prevent some employers from adopting it. Here’s a list of five big reasons companies won’t pull the trigger on remote working, and why those fears are mostly unfounded. Read more »
I need the extra security of RAID while on the road, so I checked out OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini, a portable RAID storage solution that’s compatible with Mac or PC systems, with eSATA, Firewire 400 and 800, and USB 1.1 and 2.0 connections Read more »
GitHub, the popular code repository, is bringing developers together for CodeConf today in San Francisco. GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath said that the event was designed to be collaborative, not unlike the site itself. Read more »
DropDAV is a service that enables you to use Dropbox with WebDAV. It was developed to work with the iWork suite for iPad, but it will work with any WebDAV client, so you can also use it to sync OmniFocus through your Dropbox account, for example. Read more »
If you don’t like having to switch to the Google Docs website to monitor your account to see whether any new documents have been shared with you, check out Google Docs Notifier, a simple Widows taskbar utility that displays unread Docs. Read more »
One of the biggest obstacles for a distributed workforce is the lack of personal connection; the effects of the initial disconnect can have a lasting impact. Here are some of the challenges of working remotely, along with ways to address them. Read more »
In the networked, geographically dispersed workplace of the future, the mental traits of World of Warcraft (WoW) enthusiasts — being bottom-line oriented, tolerant of diversity, comfortable with constant change, happy to learn, and intensely interested in innovation — may be hugely beneficial. Read more »
When I last looked at online planning tool Ganttic last year, I was pleased with its functionality, but less impressed with the app’s user interface, which made it tricky to get to grips with. Since then, however, Ganttic has been redesigned with a greatly streamlined interface Read more »
Independent online workers appear to be doing relatively well, according to a report from Elance, which shows earnings increasing for online workers in 40 out of 50 states. And that’s true even for those workers are located in places where other job hunters seeking are struggling. Read more »
Yahoo’s release of Twitter usage presents some interesting pointers for organizations, implying that greater benefits are available to companies using Twitter to actively engage with their own team members: companies that stop seeing Twitter as an outward-focused medium, and customers as a separate audience from staff. Read more »
Most remote teams rely on several solutions to fulfill their collaboration needs: email, project management, database management and meetings, to name a few. HyperOffice offers distributed teams the benefit of all essential business tools in a single collaboration suite, as well as providing mobile capabilities. Read more »
A well-run meeting generally takes a fair amount of work, particularly if it’s to be conducted at distance. yaM (yet another meeting) is a collaborative online tools that aims to streamline the process and make meetings more efficient by replacing emailed agendas and notes. 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 »
Glass, an app that allows users to share notes about any website, has announced it’s now out of private beta. Since I wrote about initial launch of the tool, there has been a major redesign, and the invite wall has been dropped. Read more »
Sharing code can be one of the toughest parts of managing a big project: a lot of collaboration tools have a way to share written content and images but they don’t handle code particularly well. But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. Read more »
BoxCryptor, an on-the-fly encryption tool for Windows that works well with cloud sync services like Dropbox has moved into a beta release and received a few updates in the process. The big news is that the product now uses 256-bit AES for encryption, rather than RC4. Read more »
I spoke with Gist founder T.A. McCann about what he calls the “New Workstyle.” It reflects the culture he has tried to create at Gist; a culture that encourages an entrepreneurial spirit, and recognizes the need “not to do things as they’ve been done before.” Read more »
It’s interesting to talk with brick-and-mortar business owners who haven’t yet considered the possibilities of working remotely. The conversation quickly moves to ways to streamline work, increase the talent pool available to the company, and unique and exciting ways to promote the business online. Read more »
Google’s ongoing effort to turn Google Docs into a formidable competitor with Microsoft Office continues with a new feature that allows users to hold discussions in real-time while working on shared documents. The new feature lets users of its productivity service discuss shared documents in real-time Read more »
This week, I’ll be attending SXSW; I’ve been thinking about ways to make sure that I get the most out of it. Here are my tips to make sure that you get as much value as possible for the time and expense associated with conference attendance. Read more »
Tadagraph is a new microblog-based collaboration tool. Like Yammer and present.ly, the idea behind Tadagraph is that by posting Twitter-like status updates, you can keep everyone up-to-date. Tadagraph goes a little further, though: It introduces special hashtags that can identify updates as to-dos, notes and more. Read more »
Broadly speaking, people like people. Perhaps that’s why the culture of collaboration has taken such a strong hold in many organizations. Of course, social media and interactions aren’t just catchy marketing concepts; they’re also good news for businesses that want to enthuse and inspire staff. Read more »
It can be hard to feel connected and on the same page with employees and team members, especially when working remotely. By finding ways to relate to the people on your team, you can improve communications, build better connections and create an even stronger organization. Read more »
There is a way to get a an easy to use collaboration platform in place quickly using simple blogging tools. The approach outlined here lets you get to work with your team, without waiting on corporate IT to set up something on the internal network. Read more »
Online document service Crocodoc, which Thursday wrote about last year, is rolling out some new features that should make it easier to collaborate on and mark up highly-formatted documents, including PDFs, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, and PNG and JPEG images. Read more »
In the race for greater productivity, team leaders eagerly latch onto the latest tool or productivity philosophy. It’s only natural: we’re keen to try new ways of getting things done. But in doing so, have we inadvertently become slaves to the machine? Read more »
The enterprise collaboration space has entered an exciting new phase of collaboration. New software and applications are coming to market, as are new concepts for how to work and communicate in the knowledge age. From consumer-grade apps like those from Box.net and Huddle to software from long-established players like Microsoft and Oracle, these tools are taking collaboration technology past the traditional IT decision-making process and changing the way we approach the workday. Additional companies in this report include Skype, Huddle, Jive, Moxie and Yammer. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The right collaborative writing tool can make document creation easier, but there are certain characteristics that make a world of difference in a collaborative writing environment — especially if you’re working in a larger organization. Here’s a list of the features that you should be looking for. Read more »
Glasscubes, a virtual collaborative workspace provider, seems to be flying under the radar, but not for a lack of innovation. The company recently announced some new features and a shift in overall direction. I spoke with its founder to get some insight into what’s happening. Read more »
While millions of people interact daily in public-facing social media channels, there are a growing number of internal social media solutions for the enterprise, becoming modern-day intranets. But do these systems work? And why might trying to bring social tools inside your gated corporate walls fail? Read more »
All collaborative groups experience conflict. Dealing with that conflict is difficult enough in teams working face-to-face, but remote teams experience additional challenges, such as communicating primarily over email and working in different time zones. What can we do to minimize sources of conflict? Read more »
What remote teams actually experience is known as “swift trust”, which happens when you don’t have the time or means to build trust through multiple interactions. While this type of trust cultivates easily, it’s also very fragile. How can you establish trust using communication tools? Read more »
The tricky part in having remote employees is making sure that they feel like they are an integral part of team and not second-class citizens. Here are a few ways to make sure that your virtual team members feel loved, instead of neglected: Read more »
Working in teams with members spread out across various time zones around the world can be a challenge. Even when your team is located in the same building, sharing and collaborating on documents and content can be tricky if you aren’t using the right tools. Read more »
MemberHub provides a place for group members to connect and communicate, as well as tools for managing those members. Its core features are focused on sharing information and working collaboratively within groups, whether working online or via email. Its new version improves tools for managing larger groups. Read more »
