Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams Report (March 5, 2008)

The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Jon explores how knowledge worker experience work and people today: via the computer screen. What's the implication of this to our humanity? "There’s a very real issue here that is helping to create the emerging dynamics – the more that work activities are encoded and embedded into integrated systems, the more the human will and spirit needs to surface, assert itself. This polarity is, I think, here to stay and is behind much of the ongoing discussion of conversation, collaboration and social computing."

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Colligo announced Version 3.0 of its SharePoint clients, with either an Outlook add-in or a desktop client, as well as an SDK for Colligo and SharePoint. "The Contributor SDK contains a .NET API plus relevant technical information and specifications that enable developers to build custom applications and tools that programmatically access the Contributor Application Run-Time engine. The SDK currently makes a number of operations available: such as, creating new list items and documents; importing existing documents in to the Contributor store; getting collections of sites, lists, list items, and documents from the store; putting metadata of list items and documents in the store; updating the metadata of list items and documents; removing list items and documents from the store; and initiating synchronization of sites or individual lists. The SDK is targeted primarily at Colligo partners, such as systems integrators and VARs, with customers that require custom desktop implementations for SharePoint Products and Technologies."


• Microsoft added features to SharePoint, including better search and rich interactivity through Silverlight. "At the conference, Microsoft also will announce Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint. Silverlight is Microsoft's browser plug-in display technology for rich Internet applications. The blueprint includes sample applications combining Silverlight and SharePoint, detailed guidance and best practices, and rich data visualizations and interactivity."


• Siemens released the OpenScape Unified Communications server. "OpenScape UC Server software is the foundation for the company’s new unified communications suite and is a new product offering available for sale starting 30th April 2008. The OpenScape UC Server enables presence, administration, session control and other shared services for the current and planned family of OpenScape UC suite of applications, which are designed to enable easy growth and expansion. New modular capabilities are enabled by simply activating the desired license keys on a user-by-user basis." See also ComputerWorld ("there's a new video component") and Unified View ("will enable IT management to start planning customized UC implementation strategies").


• NewsGator announced that CME Credit Union is using its Social Sites tool. "CME used SharePoint Server 2007 to create a robust corporate intranet portal that provides all employees with collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs, a document management system, automated workflows, and centralized access to internal business application data. With this wealth of dynamic information, CME needed an effective way for employees to find information and to be notified when content was added or updated, and the Social Sites solution, with seamless SharePoint Server 2007 integration, enabled easy discovery of content and people within the portal. After implementing NewsGator’s Social Sites, employees can now quickly browse through the latest content headlines, view the most relevant/popular portal content and easily learn about authors’ expertise. Social Sites also offers sophisticated RSS feed subscriptions and management features that bring relevant, external news and information into the portal and allow CME employees to receive portal update notifications and important business application data on their mobile devices, desktops and e-mail clients."

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Mark's "Do It Tomorrow" time management system relies on the idea of recursive auditing. "The DIT system has the great advantage that it preserves the link between the amount of work coming in and the amount of work going out. This means that it is easy to see what the problem is if you are having trouble keeping up with your work - much more so than with any other time management system I am aware of."


• You can't be productive if you don't take care of yourself: (1) get enough sleep, (2) get 15-30 minutes of exercise each day, (3) use up all of your vacation days every year, and more. "Instead of over-eating, working too hard, not exercising enough, and skimping on your sleep, make personal choices that lead to increased productivity. Learn to rest, to laugh, to recreate, and treat your body right, or you'll live to regret it. The choices you make today will affect how you feel tomorrow."


• When you have such an incredible volume of things to do, clarity about what's most important is vital. Embassy Suites gets in on the action.


• When you experience failure, follow Michael's ideas to turn failure to your advantage: (1) acknowledge the failure, (2) take full responsibility, (3) mourn the failure, (4) learn from the experience, (5) change your behavior, and (6) enter whole-heartedly into the next project. "... failure is inevitable if you are going to tackle significant goals. You have to learn to make it work for you. In doing so, you are planting the seeds of your eventual success."

Other Noteworthy Insights

• Tim's now loving his Mac at home, and is wondering how to justify one at the office.


• Josh is dreaming about a curved iMac.


• Auto Warehousing Co. is revisiting its decision to go Mac. Workers and customers started to complain.


• The new book on collaboration, Collaboration 2.0 by David Coleman and Stewart Levine, is now out. It addresses the technology and people side of collaboration.