The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams
- Staying Motivated ... Mike outlines 8 strategies for staying motivated when working away from a traditional office: (1) go to the coffee shop to work, (4) timebox, (5) take a nap, and (7) be flexible, among others. WebWorkerDaily
- C vs C vs C ... What exactly is required when people work together? "Unfortunately, much of what we call collaboration really isn’t. If we are not collaborating, then what are we doing? Well, we could be communicating, cooperating, and coordinating .... Last week, I over heard a manager ask his employee (A) to “work” with employee B. But what did this manager actually mean and should it be left to the interpretation of employee A to decide? Did the manager mean for Employee A to communicate, coordinate, cooperate or collaborate with Employee B? Did the manager assume collaboration but the employee heard communicate?" Collaborage
- Three Tests of Effective Collaboration ... (1) is it working for us? (the collective test), (2) is it working for me? (the individual test), and (3) does it feel fair? (the perception test). Bioteams
The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams
- IBM Updates ... IBM announced a plethora of updates, including IBM Applications on Demand (hosting services for Notes, Sametime and Quickr, available immediately), 64-bit support for Domino 8.0.1, a new UI for Web Access, new Quickr connectors ("New Quickr connectors for Lotus Notes 8 and Microsoft Outlook are currently planned to be available in the first quarter of 2008. They will allow team members to save attachments into team workspaces; replace attachments with shared links; and use the collaborative content services of Lotus Quickr directly in Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook without having to hop between applications."), browser-based forms ("Customers can now extend business processes outside the firewall by offering their customers the ability to create, fill out, sign and submit forms data via a web browser without downloading additional software."), and revised licensing terms for WebSphere Portal. IBM (see also Ed Brill)
- Lotus Symphony ... IBM announced Lotus Symphony, a suite of office productivity tools. "There are three core applications that make up the Lotus Symphony tools: Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets and Lotus Symphony Presentations. These intuitive software tools, which support Windows and Linux desktops, are designed to handle the majority of office productivity tasks that workers typically perform. Lotus Symphony supports multiple file formats including Microsoft Office and Open Document Format (ODF), and also can output content in PDF format." Available immediately, at no charge. IBM
- Novell Teaming + Conferencing Dates ... Novell Teaming + Conferencing will be available on October 20. "A substantial portion of the technology in Novell Teaming and Novell Teaming + Conferencing is included in the ICEcore open source project, and various components from other open source software projects are also included. This open approach offers a distinct advantage over proprietary solutions such as Microsoft* SharePoint* and those from other vendors who develop their products in isolation, hoping customers will be satisfied with the proprietary code. With ICEcore, customers and partners are allowed to innovate with Novell, as they wish. New capabilities are produced more quickly, resulting in a more complete and cost-effective team productivity solution. Novell is an ongoing contributor to the ICEcore project." Novell
- ProjectLounge PLcases ... ProjectLounge released PLcases for Lawyers, a hosted collaboration service for law firms. "Based on Lotus IBM QuickPlace Quickr with ProjectLounge enhancements, PLcases enables legal teams to work together more efficiently in a cost neutral way with our custom billing solution. Security is a very strong feature of PLcases. With the optional Project Management functionality, lawyers can share information among their team, including clients, opposing lawyers and experts. Similarly, Document Management functionality can be enabled so that documentation of any nature, such as discovery documents, pleadings and court or contract papers. These can be stored, circulated and authored in a secure environment." PRWeb
Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual
- Be Clear on Next Actions ... Ethan on the need to write clear next action reminders: "Looking back, it’s not hard to see what the problem was: unclear writing. I simply wasn’t being descriptive enough. Yet for the longest time I didn’t see this. The actions were “understandable enough” with a bit of work. That “bit of work”, of course, is the silent killer of GTD. Anytime you are putting in work to decipher your system, your energy and productivity are being slowly siphoned away." The solution: write the next action as if it were being delegated to someone else. 43folders
- Todoist ... Stowe raves about the utility of Todoist for managing his work. The integration with Firefox and Gmail is particularly helpful. "I would like to see these apps integrated, honestly. The Gmail integration of Todoist makes it almost seem like Google has finally implemented task management, which is likely at some point, anyway." Stowe Boyd
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