Collaboration Tools – web conferencing software

ddarko2012 asked:

www.nextgov.com As personnel representing hundreds of government and nongovernment agencies from around the world rush to the aid of earthquake-devastated Haiti, the Defense Information Systems Agency has launched a Web portal with multiple social networking tools to aid in coordinating their efforts. On Monday, Jean Demay, DISA’s technical manager for the agency’s Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the US Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane. After the earthquake hit on Tuesday, Demay said SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system. On Wednesday, DISA opened up its All Partners Access Network, supported by the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, to any organization supporting Haiti relief efforts. The information sharing project, developed with backing from both SOUTHCOM and the Defense Department’s European Command, has been in development for three years. It is designed to facilitate multilateral collaboration between federal and nongovernmental agencies. Demay said that since DISA set up a Haiti Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Community of Interest on APAN on Wednesday, almost 500 organizations and individuals have joined, including a range of Defense units and various nongovernmental organizations and relief groups. APAN provides a series of collaboration tools, including …

Gina

Grace X Kang asked:




Expect a bit of a trade off when it comes to the amount of structure built into your team collaboration tool and its ability to adapt to various group needs. When the tool structure is so complex and contains several hierarchical levels, users may find it overwhelming and confusing.

Non-Intuitive Team Collaboration Tools Present Challenges
Some online team collaboration tools are difficult to set up because they lack any intuitiveness. Even if the tools are chock filled with useful features, they will have no impact if users do not how to execute even the most basic actions. If the team collaboration tool is overly comprehensive, getting your members in a user “comfort zone” may be a huge challenge. A valuable tool possesses the ability to keep your entire team up-to-date about project progress. If the tool provides little, if any, intuitive process for recognizing task completion, one member might be waiting on another to be finished with a chore before proceeding, never realizing that task was previously completed.

Portal Structure Adds to Efficient Workflow
Decision makers need to choose online team collaboration tools that offer either portals or separate workspaces where individual projects can be accessed. This allows them to create message threads for communication within the separate projects and give them the option to subscribe to updates through RSS alerts and e-mail. This compartmentalizing also allows members that do not need to participate in every thread the ability to remain off of it, avoiding unnecessary information overload. Furthermore, the tool should new project members to be easily added to existing discussions.

Central Document Storage
Any documents relating to a specific project need to be located in a single place for easy access so users need not to navigate through streams of endless threads to find a particular piece of information. If this feature is not available with the online collaboration software you’re examining, the software winds up being just like e-mail (inefficient).

Wikis as Online Communication Tools
Recently, there’s been quite a lot of buzz about using wikis as online team communication tools. These easily editable web pages are excellent collaboration tools in certain scenarios. Their flexibility allows segregated groups to continually make contributions to an online shared body of knowledge- the most well known example is Wikipedia. They provide an exceptional model for people who need to develop specific software documentation, FAQ (frequently asked questions), human resource information and policy presentations as a collective body. However, they can be quite cumbersome to use for organizing and posting the essentials needed for team collaboration. An alternative to using simple wikis is to use a wiki based team collaboration software that allows you to create wikis, in addition to providing task, document and project management tools.

Ray

Matt Mansfield asked:




OK, time for me to have a “grandpa story moment”.

Remember the days when we all worked in one office? Bob and Mary and you all came in around nine and worked in your cubicles with easy access to one another. If you had a question, you could just get up and ask it of one of them and if you needed to meet, you would hop into a conference room and draw pictures on the white board. Ah, sweet memories!

Today, Bob, Mary and you still work in one office, but the three of you are never there at the same time. You are all off meeting with clients, managing vendors and working late nights at home to get it all done. You never have time to see each other because you are busy with your tasks and just trying to find a time for you all to get together is a task in itself.

You need to coordinate your activities just as you did in the old days. You need to ask each other questions and get the replies quickly. You need to whiteboard ideas and brainstorm solutions.

But how can you get this all done if you’re never in one place at the same time?! How can you effectively collaborate?!

The answer is easy: online small business software.

Need to ask questions and get quick replies? Use a collaborative space such as Teamwork PM.

Need to coordinate your tasks and assure you are all on the same page? Use project management software such as Clarizen.

Need to whiteboard and brainstorm even though you cannot be in the same room, or even online, at the same time? Use a mind mapping tool such as Comapping.

These are just a few examples of great online collaboration tools, but there’s an even bigger message about small business software online for you to take away from this article.

Another “grandpa story moment” (last one, I promise!):

Bob, Mary and you used to work on separate computers. Sharing files meant copying to a disk and then walking it over to the other person.