The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Andy outlines a case for using SightSpeed for video conferencing for executives and others that are on the go continually. “Let me take this a step further, for being a all star on the conference circuit means that you have to be both there and also at the other “there” virtually at the same time, and know how to do both with the same aplomb and dexterity. Video conferencing is a great to maintain continuity and build rapport. It allows you to have meetings face to face without going away, thus there’s no down time due to travel. Add in the ability to work the venue, find people face to face, socialize, meet in the hallways, press rooms, speakers lounges and in hotel lobbies, and have the bandwidth to do both and you have the winning combination. Unfortunately, bandwidth tends to SUCK at most hotels and venue if you don’t pick carefully, or the prices are so obscene that you won’t dare want to pay the freight. Once the business world that makes the decisions catch on to the concept of Pay As You Go High Quality Public Wireless, the true value of all this “virtual” face to face will be met.“

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Collanos released some new capabilities for Collanos Workspace 1.3, its peer-to-peer collaborative workspace solution. New features: more robust content updating, cross-workspace task management, and the integration of IM capabilities. Available immediately.
• Users of Google Calendar have been experiencing access difficulties during the past couple of weeks.
• Central Desktop released a security pack for its hosted collaboration service. “This new feature set addresses security requirements that Central Desktop’s customers have been asking for to help them comply with internal security requirements. The enterprise-grade security offering delivers state-of-the-art perimeter, network, server, application and data security to ensure greater data privacy and availability for customers. This applies to both SMBs and organizations that work within industries that require security compliance such as, healthcare and financial services as well as business teams within larger organizations that have more stringent requirements enforced by their IT departments (Corporate Governance, HIPAA, etc).” The Security Pack is an optional add-on for Company Plans. See also coverage at eWeek.

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Where you do your work can make you feel very stressed. In her new book, Diane Hatcher offers stress-reducing ideas. Eg, stop piling, create a system to ensure your desk doesn’t become a junk attractor, don’t just put things down wherever there is free space, throw out more things, and more.
• You’ll never have the perfect time to do what you want to do. So, learn to use 10 minutes well.
• Ismael held the first of his Extreme Productivity Seminars in San Francisco over the weekend. It appears to be a way of implementing David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach with a variety of tools (especially Salesforce.com) and disciplines that Ismael has embraced. “The Extreme Productivity System is a combination of processes and tools. It is still under development, but many of its components have been implemented using Salesforce.com, and used effectively for the past three years. As of today, I use it to manage over 200 independent projects, with more than 500 tasks related to them. In other words, it scales pretty well. One of my projects this year is to package it into a Salesforce.com application that could be downloaded from the AppExchange. In the meantime, I will refine it and share it through public seminars.” Oliver went, and said it was “truly excellent“.
• Tips on having an organized computer: think about top level folders, have a regular clean out, put dates in file names, and arrange things for yourself, not some “ideal system”.