Guide to Online Collaboration Services

Use web collaboration tools to unite individual employees within virtual teams

By Matt Alderton, Writer, Editor and Media Consultant, Logolepsy Custom Content and Communications

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Turn e-mails into web collaboration tools

E-mail is perhaps the most basic of web collaboration tools and many online collaboration services are finding unique ways to kick it up a notch.

I recommend: To make your e-mail interactive, consider online collaboration software such as Wrike, which allows you to organize tasks and manage projects from within your inbox. Go a step further and choose e-mail applications such as @Mail Groupware or BlueTie, which include sharable electronic group calendars for scheduling events, meetings and milestones.

Build wikis with collaborative software

More than collaborative software, wikis are part of a growing class of online collaboration tools known as collaborative media that allow users to create, manage and manipulate information.

I recommend: If you’re interested in wiki-type collaboration, look to web collaboration tools such as Near-Time, an enterprise wiki system, and Clearspace, which lets you create and share wiki-style documents. Hosted wiki systems like PBwiki and StikiPad are also good options.

Use enterprise groupware software to chat in real time

Collaborative software includes simple communication applications, including those that support instant messaging and online chat.

I recommend: Enterprise IM software like FaceTime, Openfire and Bantu is groupware software that’s ideal for improving and increasing collaborative communication.

Employ collaborative software for conferencing

A step above chat rooms and IMs is online conferencing; some online collaboration software supports voice conference, some support data conferencing and still other programs support video conferencing.

I recommend: Popular online collaboration software from WebEx, GoToMeeting and Yugma allows remote users to hold collaborative staff meetings online via interactive webinars and videoconferences.

Share documents and applications via online collaboration software

Some web collaboration tools, such as application sharing programs, allow multiple users to simultaneously access, edit and distribute project-related documents.

I recommend: Web collaboration tools like ThinkFree, Google Docs, DocumenTree and ProjectShare lend themselves to sharing, distributing and editing a variety of collaborative business documents.

Start and finish projects with full-featured web collaboration tools

At their best, online collaboration services function as animated project management systems, enabling employees to schedule, track and complete milestones within a project from start to finish as it is being executed.

I recommend: Three of the most popular online project management environments are Central Desktop, HyperOffice and Basecamp, which offer many popular enterprise groupware features via hosted intranets, including task management, group calendars and online conferencing.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  The most difficult thing about online collaboration services is convincing employees to use them. Persuade your team to embrace web collaboration tools by training them to use them, and by providing incentives for doing so.
• •  In order to be effective, collaborative software must be implemented within a collaborative culture. Turning your company from a competitive business into a collaborative one may take more than online tools, though; it will take offline teambuilding and training, too.
• •  Online collaboration services can engage not only employees, but also consumers. Use them to interact with customers in order to build brand loyalty and awareness.
• •  Beware of what psychologists call 'virtual distance,' as relying too heavily on online collaboration services can actually disengage employees from one another, when the point is to engage them.