The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Are virtual teams good or bad for organizations? There isn’t a simple answer, given the complexity of organizations, and the Leading Virtually team explores the external factors to the team that impact on the success of virtual teams: resources (are the right tools in place? is the time to do electronic collaboration available?), support (political support, decision maker support), and organizational goals (how the work of the virtual team aligns with organizational goals).
• IBM has outlined the five future trends that will drive unified communications: (1) the virtual workplace, (2) IM and other real-time tools will supplant email, (3) IM will become more embedded in business processes, (4) interoperability based on open standards will happen, and (5) new ways of holding “meetings” will emerge.
• One firm that was looking to get rid of Notes and replace it with SharePoint has revised its strategy based on a few months of working with both. Going forward, “Don’t try to get rid of Domino – just get rid of the Notes Client. My proposal to do this is actually fairly simple: (a) Web-enable all Notes Apps, (b) Put them into iframe web parts in your SharePoint environment, (c) Share CSS on both platforms, and (d) Use IIS as the HTTP stack on Domino, and AD as your authentication.“

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• CorasWorks announced the Data Integration Toolset for SharePoint 2007, for building business applications the leverage SharePoint and other business systems. “With the Toolset, organizations can build powerful business applications that integrate data from SharePoint Server 2007, the Business Data Catalog, database systems, enterprise applications and the web. The Toolset’s combination of flexible displays, enterprise mashups and data integration features empower architects and developers, enabling them to build scalable business applications on the SharePoint Server 2007 platform that had previously been too complex, expensive and time-consuming.“
• EntrophySoft announced new features for its SharePoint connectors, for linking content systems with SharePoint.
• Cisco is hosting the Unified Communications Summit 2008 on March 28 in Singapore. “The Cisco Unified Communications Summit will showcase the latest in collaboration, communication, mobility and unified messaging from Cisco and its partners, and industry analysts from Gartner. The conference will also allow attendees to experience technologies “live”, showing how easy it is to enable collaboration in the business environment. “
• Sybase announced a Lotus Notes to iPhone connector within iAnywhere, for the secure push of Notes email to iPhones. “Initially, the Information Anywhere Suite will only support e-mail for the iPhone. It synchs mail to the iPhone’s e-mail client. In addition, the software suite will allow users to look up co-workers in their corporate directory and their contacts via the browser on the phone.” Sybase reports that customers have been asking for this.
• TaskAnyone released a tool for assigning and tracking tasks. “With TaskAnyone, you create tasks for other people to do which are emailed to them – they don’t sign up or pay for the service. They get the email, and click links to accept, decline, update or complete that task. You see the status of all the tasks you’ve farmed out – and TaskAnyone reminds them until that accepted task is done.“

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Being productive and being busy are not the same things. “Busy-ness is impressive. It puts you in the heat of the action. It gives you an elevated sense of importance. You’re always late for social engagements, barely have enough time for family get-togethers, and hardly get a moment’s sleep. Emails get exchanged, meetings fill up your schedule, worldwide teleconferences become the norm–there’s even the occasional hope of revenue exceeding expenses. You’re like a rock star without the music.“