Collaboration Tools – web conferencing software

Shanie Matthews asked:




As the first days of 2010 quickly slide by, it is hard to believe that we are already ten years into the new millennium. It just seems like yesterday when my husband and I were riding up the 20-person funitel lift at Squaw Valley, in Lake Tahoe, California for the New Year’s count down. Some of our friends thought we were crazy for being anywhere near a mechanical device for fear of the Y2K computer scare. It’s a shared joke now.

For me, 2009 was amazingly inspirational and trying at the same time. Much was learned. Some of the biggest lessons had to do with collaboration. So, in light of the first decade of the 2000 millennium winding itself down and a fresh way to communicate the time period (twenty – ten), I thought it would be only fitting if I share five of my favorite cooperation tools.

1. Laying the foundation.
In the beginning of a project it is important to establish three aspects of the business that will be created. Writing out the Mission Statement, Code of Ethics and Core Values is a positive step in avoiding confusion later. It also helps everyone that is involved be accountable for their role and actions in the organization.

2. Have open communication that supports growth.
A collaboration is a group effort. A fantastic part about working together is the different ideas that will be presented by the various personalities involved. In so saying, it is then a vital aspect of collaboration that members voice concerns, ideas and opinions…as long as it is done in a respectful manner that inspires positive productivity. Complaining just to complain or belittling someone’s thoughts is not only a waste of time, but it also slows done the voice of inspiration. Constructive criticism brings greatness.

3. Take advantage of today’s technology.
It is so amazing the price, efficiency and easy-ability of keeping in touch now-a-days. Working together no longer requires living in the same town, huge phone bills, or the loss of trees for volumes worth of paperwork. Technology truly is a gift to global collaboration.

4. Work from a values-based business perspective.
If you work from a place of good, people are drawn to your efforts. A great example of this is Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Giving should be a part of all businesses created, because, really, if it wasn’t for the people–whether client or associate–a company would be nothing.

5. Include environmental thinking.
The more people that I collaborate with, the more environmental-friendly personalities I come in contact with. It is truly inspirational. And it reminds me that it is not too expensive, out there or unrealistic to create businesses that are completely and totally green. In fact, collaboration assists us in helping Mother Earth. Our collective genius as a globe has the solutions. The great part of working together is that we as a group can change those aspects of life that must evolve. We can hold ourselves accountable in not only how we treat each other, but also in how we protect the planet.

May we move through 2010 with the ability to advance our thinking and activate the lessons from the past.

Robin

InsightUSA asked:

There is no such thing as the status quo in the collaboration world where new technologies are introduced all the time. An Insight collaboration specialist provides a closer look at some of the advancements in the unified communications space, focusing on social network integration, video portal, video phones and converged mobility.

Benjamin

James Mathew Smith asked:




Business collaboration software opened new doors for businesses engaged with building partnerships and expansions. Today, both small and big organizations make sure to take benefit of the different advantages which web-based collaboration tools promises to offer them.

Project Management

When it is about task and project management, the online business collaboration software emerges as an exception. It plays a significant role in pledging work progress and success. It serves to be a great means to manage the work collaboration trouble-free.

Access Information at Any Time from Anywhere

Business collaboration software tools prove to a useful means to access data and information. Nowadays, these tools have developed to be an essential means to carry forward business activities for clients, business owners and stock holders. It ensures easy access to information from any location all around the world. In addition to this, work discussion and communication can also be freely carried on a real-time basis.

Decision Making

With the use of collaboration tools, decision making no longer looks difficult. As every member of a corporation or a team gets to communicate whenever required, getting hold of concerns and solving issues is completed with much more ease and confidence.

Connecting Work Stations Ensuring Better Productivity

Benefits of business collaboration software are manifold. It is the tool which has been associated with the diverse aspects of work. While working on any single project, such a tool will be useful in involving multiple users from different work stations and at different time intervals as well.

A Collaborative Process

Collaboration between the business and the technical people is essential to the success of any start-up business. With the use of the software, users will be able to collaborate with the clients and the internal team easily like never before. This also lets you to execute the business projects effectively.

Project Tracking

Project tracking is considered a clear benefit with such software. Tracking projects is obviously easier and manageable. It offers efficient performance measurements and the timely cautions to avoid poor performance.

Assessment

In terms of assessing the work done by the entire team, the depth analysis and a clear explanation, business collaboration software can’t be second to none. Moreover, the software also offers companies with up-to-dated information, reports and data that everyone in the team can discuss and view upon.

Facilitating Better Exchange of Ideas

It allows effective exchange and sharing of ideas on a continuous basis, especially in times of implementing much more improved business processes, which are intended for achieving the work objectives more successfully.

Conclusion:

With this software, you will be a position to easily track down and execute more time on your projects. For a small business, a software of this kind can be able to work together well with clients, partners and others.

Collaboration tools involve features which make the process of collaboration much easier. These involve features like project management, files, address book, applications, discussions etc.

Overall, this software aims at increasing the business productivity and efficiency for both small and large businesses. This reduces the liability and the risk through the communication management.

Andre

TheIBMCIOStudy asked:

www.ibm.com Mobile phone provider Nokia’s SVP and CIO John Clarke describes how a focus on collaboration tools among employees benefits workplace productivity. The initiative helps reduce costs, while elevating corporate social responsibility. John Clarke SVP & CIO, Nokia: I’ve been involved in Nokia in our Way of Working—our WOW—our mode of operation and thinking about how we get things done as a company. Being fairly new at that time to the company, I was more than fascinated by understanding how people work, how teams work, how employees work together. What we quickly identified was that its important that employees collaborate collectively. We are a global company. We have designers and engineers all over the globe, all of them with great insight. It was difficult to bring them together, to collectively engage. The innovation here was to quickly incorporate and deploy telepresence, the way of bringing in high-level, studio-quality facilities to let them easily talk to each other, to exchange information. Youd have designers, for example, working on a device. Theyd like to talk about the screen or the keyboard layout. [Wed] give them such facilities that they could look at the detail, but they could be in California, in London, and in Tokyo. The innovation was to give them that facility. It had multiple benefits. For one, the designers loved it because they could meet without any need for flying or travel. The facility was so good it felt like being face-to-face. It …

Darlene

FormidableTech asked:

The Filemobile Media Factory platform is integrated with FORscene, providing sophisticated frame accurate video logging, shot selection, editing, review and collaboration tools that set it far above any of its competitors. This combination provides sophisticated editing and collaboration tools, together with the ability to build community, share media and interact with others in an aggregated Academic Media Community. Quick content creation and repurposing of video over the web has reached a new level of quality control. FORscene is distributed by Formidable Technologies Inc. Read more: www.filemobile.com

Javier

Adrian Gates asked:




Hosted Exchange gives you all of the benefits of an Enterprise level messaging solution for your small or large business with lower costs and complexity.

Exchange Hosting Features: Hosted Exchange, Managed Exchange- Hosted Exchange Overview; Exchange 2007 Features and Benefits; Outlook Web Access; Mobile Messaging.

Hosted Exchange gives you the freedom to work. Location, time zone are no longer barriers. An increase in productivity follows.

Key Features:

o Your data is available online and is secure. This removes the risk of losing important e-mail stored on your local drives.
o Create mailboxes just by few clicks: The administrator can create an e-mail box just by few clicks. Assigning distribution groups is very simple.
o Unified messaging.
o Follow tasks and manage team projects.
o Collaboration tools.
o Manage tasks on the go from anywhere.
o Access your private and shared calendars.
o Access e-mails/tasks/calendar anytime: Since you e-mails/tasks/calendar is stored at a centralized location, you can access them from anywhere.
o Wireless Synchronization: You can read and reply to an e-mail schedule appointments and meeting from your wireless device and the changes gets synchronized with the central server. This way you can make changes from your wireless device and continue to track it from your desktop when you are back in the office.
o You can track availability of meeting rooms and participants schedule with Smart Scheduling.
o Backups ensure that you don’t loose your e-mails. We have a 14 day back policy. This will ensure that you never loose any of your important e-mails.
o 24/7 support by Experienced Microsoft Certified Professionals: We have experience certified Microsoft Certified Professionals who are on standby to assist you, should you need any assistance.
o Outlook Web Access: This is a web based version of Outlook 2007 that coupled with Exchange; gets you the best of both the worlds – easy navigation and enterprise level communication engine.

Ronald

Indu Priya K asked:




Do you want to impress your client? Does project management cost you more than development? change it. There are many theories of project management. Some of them are rigid, some are fluid. Now I will tell you 5 most important steps to be followed in getting your projects done smoothly. These methods are most suitable for small business owners, entrepreneurs and virtual assistants.

First you need to identify that time, people, materials are the 3 resources to be managed in order complete a project in a definite scope of quality, cost and time. Managing a project becomes difficult if you fail to follow it in a strategic way. We need to properly utilize Time, People, Materials in order to complete the project in estimated time, cost and quality.

Ok, let me explain the 5-step strategy for a successful project management.

When you are ready to start a project, take time to brainstorm solution options for your project. Put them on a paper.

Plan your project: Depending on the resources and time availability, prepare a plan.

Divide and Rule: Divide the number of weeks of project duration into days. Divide the number of days into hours. Divide and assign tasks within the allocated hours.

Start Executing: Start executing the plan. Executing the plan is the most important step. See that you execute the plan as you planned.

Track the status: Track the status on a daily basis. Communicate with your employees on daily basis regarding the status updates. If anything goes wrong while executing the plan, re-plan for the pending tasks so as to complete the project in time.

Use advanced collaboration tools: Use advanced collaboration tools to implement the project management successfully. Collaboration tools save your time and money in executing your projects. I personally recommend a Collaboration Software called Collaber. I use this project management software to share files, documents and chat with my clients.

Phillip

Rama Krishna asked:




Present day business systems are quickly growing out of its primeval philosophies. To succeed and establish a unique brand identity you should be able to draft cutting edge business strategies within strict time confines.

Business collaboration helps you to seamlessly integrate business communication across the globe. Using collaboration solutions you can collaborate key business processes from anywhere across the globe anytime. Multiple users can securely access to a single project from different locations, can effectively interact with related persons and draft time driven business strategies. Business tasks can be automated. You can safely manage meetings, training sessions, presentations, budgeting, task management, resource management, etc, from remote locations. Business documents can be transferred in time. By involving more key persons into the decision making process you will be able to draft successful business policies easily.

You can effectively collaborate key business issues using secure business collaboration solutions, also known as collaboration software or groupware. Business collaboration tools offer a comprehensive collaborative environment, which helps you to easily quickly automate key business functions. By enabling effective information sharing, business collaboration software enables you to integrate different aspects of a single project to manage business processes in a hassle free manner.

There are a host of vendors offering business collaboration solutions for different kinds of business; small, medium-scale and large sized. Pick the right kind of solution that best suites your specific requirements. Choose the solution which can be easily integrated with your present system. Also check out tools and facilities offered and make sure they meet your needs.

Here are few common features you will find in an online business collaboration solution:

Secure business email service Instant chat (with or without voice support) Scheduling calendar Task tracker and task manager Document management tools Team management tools Web publishing, etc.

Nancy

Rama Krishna asked:




What is a Collaboration Suite ? How is it benefit to businesses?

Collaboration suite is an integrated package of tools offering a virtual platform to effectively collaborate business issues across the globe. Collaboration tools help you to communicate, collaborate, organize and share business data securely and thereby maximize business interactions.

An online collaboration suite serves as a secure central database to store and manage business data. You can tap into one single virtual platform and quickly safely access up-to-date business information.

Without physical presence in office, using an online collaboration suite you can collaborate with managers, employees, customers or vendors on demand. Distance is no longer an issue. You can share schedules, hold virtual meetings, organize training sessions, conduct discursions, supervise employee performance, plan sales and market campaigns, provide appraisals, share business files in real-time, and thereby maximize teamwork.

What to Look for in an Online Collaboration Suite :

Few features you may find in an online collaboration suite include – audio/video support, secure email, instant messaging, document manager, file manager, task manager, contact manager, reminder, calendar, virtual drive, notepad, web publishing, group discussion tools, online administration, and multi language support.

Are you buying the right Collaboration Suite?

With numerous collaboration solutions flooding the market, how can you find the perfect collaboration suite for your individual business?

Here are few tips to help you: