Collaboration Tools – web conferencing software

Grace X Kang asked:




1. TweetDeck – TweetDeck allows you to pull up several Twitter search columns and search for several different phrases at once. If you’re a social media writer, you already understand the importance of Twitter for business marketing- this handy tool allows you to keep up with the entire Twitterverse from just one platform.

2. Google News – I used to search for collaboration news (as I work for a collaboration software company) by typing “Collaboration software” into the Google homepage. Bad idea. My results included advertisements, spam sites and any webpage that ever mentioned the phrase. Now, I use Google News each morning to check up on NEWS that’s important to me, and let Google do the spam and irrelevant search result filtering FOR me.

3. Facebook- Facebook recently reached its 300 million active members mark, there are currently 65 million Facebook users accessing the social platform from their mobile devices and more than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook worldwide each day. Need I say more? Facebook. Use it.

4. Blog – Blogging has evolved into a crucial corporate tool, as good company blogs keep customers or readers informed, updated and loyal to your business.

5. Digg- Digg brings the top breaking news of the web to you, so you don’t have to scour the Internet for hours on end, searching for interesting articles/sites relevant to your company. You can also publish your own articles to Digg! It is called the “Digg Effect” – write an informative and engaging article, Digg it and watch it go viral!

6. Delicious- At first I was skeptical about the importance of social bookmarking. Although it’s used by many for social networking, I simply find Delicious useful in bookmarking the sites which I find relevant to my company’s industry. Unlike bookmarking onto Firefox or Internet Explorer, you can access your Delicious bookmarks from any web browser, on any computer.

7. Google Analytics – Google Analytics will let you see who is following your website or blog, what pages they are viewing the most and how long they are spending on your site each time they visit. This proves useful in evaluating your articles and deciding whether or not you are effectively engaging readers’ interests.

8. A Good Collaboration Solution- I’ll throw in a plug here. As a social media writer, it’s imperative to stay organized and on top of things. I’m sure you’ve felt overwhelmed by the numerous web tools, social media sites and applications you need to log into each day. Using a collaboration software lets you condense all your important documents, articles, logins, bookmarks, projects and social media marketing campaigns into one online workspace. Don’t opt for just any free online tool, however- good collaboration tools should be intuitive, professional and affordable.

If you haven’t been doing so already as you read the article, bookmark each of these sites into your Delicious Bookmarks Folder or Firefox Toolbar now! And bookmark this article while you’re at it- you never know when you might need to share these tips with your coworkers or friends.

Sherry

Grace X Kang asked:




Today’s working environment is all about connectivity. It doesn’t matter what the organization, the concept of team collaboration involving staff, clients, partners and others has become a “must do” activity for the success of everyone involved. Dependence upon e-mail communication for project management can lead to serious workflow pauses, possible loss of data and increased project completion times.

So What’s The Solution?

Savvy time management experts will recommend the use of secure online workspaces protected by password only access extranets for team collaboration online, which will provide work flow activity in a more effective and efficient way. If you happen to be working on a global landscape, there are three specific areas you need to examine before purchasing the team collaboration system.

• How difficult is the learning curve? There are tons of team collaboration tools loaded and stuffed with what may possibly be features added for only marketing purposes. More often than not, these added features affect only the buzz about a particular tool rather than actually aiding and abetting in greater, measurable communication efficiency. Complicated collaboration software can make it extremely difficult for getting your users happily on board with the system.

• Keep it simple. Everyday working people find themselves busy enough with their choice at hand that they don’t have the time to dedicate trying to get up to speed with team collaboration tools that essentially are over bloated communication systems. You will find that your clients will be especially frustrated in the event that you compel them to spend a great deal of time adopting too complex system in order to simply more quickly. Stay away from team collaboration tools that do not provide you with a simple intuitive process for operation.

• Online training is an essential feature. A good team collaboration tool provider will offer its clients online training and is easily accessible at any time. The project portals should be intuitively simple and never overwhelming to new users. Collaboration tools that are way too difficult to understand will present a challenge because you will be spending an inordinate amount of time training current employees, dedicating a good deal of time with new employees, as well as trying to cajole and convince customers and partners to use it. All the while, your project productivity will take a hit. You should never be spending that many hours training your team simply how to interact with your team collaboration system. The tool provider should offer you training documents and screen capture videos that can be accessed by new users on their own time.

These three things should be the first things you look for before proceeding to take an in-depth look at any group collaboration system.

Louise

Grace X Kang asked:




Have you ever noticed a bit of resistance from users when introducing new team collaboration tools that they were never consulted about? The simple way to avoid this resistance is to involve your team members in the decision-making process. This simple move will go a long way toward your team members “buying into” the software choice.

Ask for Member Opinions

Welcome opinions from prospective project members about their choices for online collaboration tools. In fact, steer clear from inserting your own opinion during discussions about what is available, allowing members to develop a “pain point” list of tasks they wished addressed by a potential online team collaboration tool. You’ll likely find requests for different project activity management features, as well as document library access, team blogging, using wikis and much more. You will also find employee input provides you with invaluable information about what the major users of the prospective system are need to streamline their daily chores. Users of software often have deep, brilliant insights about their needs that decision makers do not.

Choosing the Appropriate Online Team Collaboration Tool

Creating greater acceptance and participation in the software system you purchase begins by involving users from the start. There are varying degrees of quality associated with different online team collaboration tools. Even though one may have a ton more features than another, that alone does not make it a superior product. Many manufacturers of online team collaboration tools unfortunately infuse unnecessary features that actually make use of the product confusing, and cause the need for long training hours just to gain a basic grasp of system operations. Overly complicated and complex tools do more to develop user resistance rather than welcomed participation.

Prioritize your Software Needs

Depending upon the type and depth of your project needs, you will find disparate member “groups” presenting a “must have” priority list for software features. However, once the system is launched, it’s common that these “absolutely must have” features are used only occasionally. Therefore, during the information gathering process prior to purchase, it’s important you develop priorities for the “necessary” functions and features so you aren’t making a trade-off between features and intuitive usability. You will learn from seasoned users of online team collaboration tools is that a simple, intuitive interface is the most ideal and helpful for team adoption.

How You Get Your Team Onboard

There are only two methods you can employ to help generate user acceptance of a new online team collaboration tool – 1) Provide a system that makes their every work day easier and more enjoyable; 2) Order them to use it. Obviously, encouraging voluntary acceptance and use of the new tool is the preferred method. This can only be accomplished if the tool produces tangible and valuable services for each user.

Allison

Andrea Kalli asked:




Whether your need is to have a central communication place for your department or to manage ongoing projects, virtual teams are becoming more of a normal way of doing business today with the advent of the means to communicate with each other, their managers, and the clients they serve. Instead of going to the expense and inconvenience of having an office with employees who have to be covered with unemployment insurance, disability, taxes, and the million and one things that having a traditional office entails, a virtual set-up is more cost efficient and serves the purpose just as well.

Not only are the virtual teams a great convenience for employers but they are increasing as an alternative method of working for employees as well. Many more people are finding the convenience of working from home today than ever before. They are saving money when it comes to sitters, commuting costs, and many other aspects that a typical job can entail.

While virtual teams may be in different parts of the country, team collaboration tools will allow communication no matter the distance between the members of the team. If team members need to have an online conference, communication, or the exchange of business data of a secure nature, the collaboration software can make this happen.

When you are in doubt as to whether your time is being spent wisely by your employees, the collaboration software can keep track of this, which is managements way of knowing what their employees are doing. Virtual teams need to be able to use this software to stay in touch with each other so the clients are taken care of professionally. If they need to contact a client the software will allow this as well.

In order for these virtual teams to work they need to have the real time communication that allows them to communicate with each other, their superiors, and their clients. The access they need to up to date information is extremely important when dealing with clients and is an absolute must when speaking with them about the business that is being taken care of for them. The use of outdated data is one thing you definitely do not want to happen. When they need to share files, audio and video the means are available when using this software.

Collaboration tools are one of the most effective ways of allowing virtual teams to do their job in the easiest way possible. The savings this resource instigates when it comes to the relocation or travel of employees to remote areas of the world has been well worth the wait. The sharing of information across time zones and the ability to collaborate with others to arrive at the solutions needed is one of the most effective methods ever created.

The needs that allow the collaboration of these teams are very simple. The ability to communicate in real time, the ability to share audio and video, files and photos, manage project objectives, assets, and jobs. The most significant need is the team members have to be able to do their job so their work completes the teams objective.

Team collaboration tools are so much safer than the older way of communicating via email and IM. The use of these methods left them wide open for hacking by those who might gain from the information they could get from companies. The security of collaboration software is much more effective than the previous methods. Resources can be shared without the fear of it falling in the wrong hands and the use of collaboration software is a much easier way to communicate no matter what part of the world the workers are located.

When team members use the collaboration tools of which there are many, the ease with which they can rearrange the items in the pages they are working on is as easy as the work one does in office or word documents. The process is not hard and it is catching on very quickly. The customization of these tools can be made to fit your company’s needs in no time.

The insertion of tables and images and any other work is put in as easily as adding them to your office documents. It just could not be much simpler to use the collaboration tools to fit the needs of your company and capture any information that you specify. Rest assured the web-based team collaboration tools are safe. They are password protected so the business data is secure.

Just a few of the more popular team collaboration tools are:

Basecamp, Backpack, Central Desktop, Zoho Office, HyperOffice, Smartsheet, Google Docs, Office Live, and SharePoint.

Joan

collaboration4you asked:

www.ibm.com Carl Tyler of Epilio uses collaboration software to keep his small business growing. By operating as a virtual office with employees working remotely, the company can increase customer service, raise productivity, and lower travel costs. For a small business, the overall costs savings and green benefits can be significant. Epilio: OK. Weve grown to nine employees. Were actually virtually located. Were spread across the country and our customers are located in different regions of the world. So having a central location for such a small company actually didnt make sense to us. So, using IBM technologies were actually able to be a virtual company, working remotely when we need to. By actually being able to work remotely, we can handle more customer issues in a single day, versus seeing one customer in a two-day period. So by avoiding the costs of the flight, were not only obviously helping the planet, were also helping ourselves, and the customer, save money.

Kurt

osiris2561 asked:

Why is collaboration software so important? That’s what turns two people (or more) who work in different locations into a team. With collaboration software, you can meet face-to-face, view files on a common screen, coordinate tasks, manage documents, discuss topics, you can even edit the same document simultaneously – and on the fly. In-office employees can cost a company two to five times their salary – a virtual assistant charges only for the time they’re working, and you have virtually (no pun intended) no overhead. In this tough economy, it’s a very smart move – but don’t forget the collaboration software.

Rhonda

EGAFutura asked:

Mindjet provides a visual mind mapping software which enables users to tie together, visually map and dynamically interact with all the information, documents, people and activities that make up any kind of work effort simple or complex, in real-time or shared over time. Mindmapping, Mind mapping, Mindmap, Mind map, Mind Mapping Software, Mind Map Software, Visual thinking, Concept mapping, Knowledge Sharing, Mindjet, mindmanager,Collaboration tools, Collaboration Software

Gregory

collaboration4you asked:

www.ibm.com John Gallagher explains how City University (London) uses collaboration software to improve the handling of assessments. Students are able to use calendar, activity, and profie tools to deliver materials back in a timely fashion. John Gallagher City University One of the core activities that we are looking to improve is the handling of assessments. Were looking for academics to say group assessments via the collaboration tools. Well publish an assessment topic to a group of students, set deadlines in their personal calendars, and give them group activities to do. The students can use the profiles database to assess the capabilities of their peers in the assessment group. They are then able to deliver the assessment back to the academic in a timely fashion and we can forward it on to backend services like a plagiarism check.

Hazel