Communication is essential to both relationships and to business success. A Harvard Business Review study found that employees in the modern workplace now spend around 80 percent of their time on activities that require collaboration with other workers. The modern workplace is well on its way to a total digital transformation, especially as the need to effectively manage the growing number of remote employees becomes a priority.
However, all too many businesses suffer from disparate, disjointed in-house applications. Your company relies heavily upon key systems and applications for productivity and communication. Is your current network of platforms and software as efficient, effective and reliable as it could be? Communication platforms and software can be indispensable in facilitating better collaboration and connection in-house as well as with clients and partners. Your portal, intranet, learning management and website can also benefit from these solutions.
Here are a list of collaboration and communication platforms and software that can be used to connect and integrate your most essential business components. Dropbox is one of the most efficient and user-friendly cloud sharing solutions. Teams can use Dropbox to better manage shared files, reducing the need for email and improving the collaboration between employees.
Integrate with your intranet solution so team members can easily insert their content into a team workspace with just one click. Content can then be uploaded into Dropbox and visually displayed. A content search function is also included. Google Workspace. Google Workspace's formerly G Suite secure collaboration and productivity apps for businesses. You also have a centralised administration interface that makes setup and management of users fast and easy.
Microsoft is a productivity software for organisations and individuals. With Microsoft you have one integrated solution including Teams, OneDrive cloud storage, and Office apps with advanced security options. Connect it with your content management platform to easily browse, edit and save stored documents directly from Microsoft Office.
For example, the OneDrive Connector allows you to easily access files and documents stored in OneDrive within your intranet or portal solution. Open, comment on, adjust and save documents within the browser using Office integration. This platform facilitates much more effective collaboration. SharePoint is another tool available with It is a web-based collaborative platform or an on-premise software for your employees. Connect this with your intranet to map SharePoint content to folders to allow for manual or automatic synchronisation.
You can also centrally publish documents and SharePoint pages as well as images to your intranet. It allows you to collaborate with other people within a dedicated online workspace where you can have conversations and share documents.
It offers messaging, voice and video calls between people or groups of people. Channels - group chat rooms - can be set up around specific topics such as work projects and can be private or public. This is a cost effective communication platform to communicate with individuals located in a different country. Zoom Meetings is a video conferencing platform used to host meetings. Mia works from the office, where she has her own space so she can stay focused on work.
On the other hand, Rick works from home, where daily responsibilities can come in the way of work. So, if his toddler barges in with an urgent request for attention, he might have to slightly delay sending the message. This element of the digital collaboration cycle relates to the social influence participants are under. This influence comes in the form of attitudes, opinions, and behavior expressed by peers, supervisors, customers, and other people. Mia used to use email for these types of tasks, but switched to Pumble after a colleague said she found it easier, quicker, and more secure.
Rick usually prefers face-to-face communication, but in this case, he believes that typing out information to prevent misunderstandings is more convenient. There are different characteristics according to which we can categorize collaboration technologies. These include whether they occur in real-time, where they are hosted, and what their function is.
Specifically, we make a distinction between technologies that operate with and without the existence of time lag.
Here we have two main types: synchronous and asynchronous technology. Synchronous technology takes place in real-time. There is no perceived delay between the moment of sending and the moment of receiving the message. For example, video conference tools are pieces of synchronous technology. When it comes to asynchronous technology , there is a time lag between the moment one person sends the message and the moment the receiver interprets it.
One example of this type of technology is email. Here we have a list of different hosting types, categorized depending on the infrastructure used to host the collaborative technology. These are the tools installed, managed, and maintained on physical servers located on your premises. As such, it is common that in-office collaboration tools can only be used — in the office, or within the company premises. When collaboration software data is stored on a web server, we have a case of web-hosted technology.
Within this type, there are additional hosting options, such as shared, managed, dedicated hosting, Virtual Private Servers, etc. When the collaborative tool is stored on the cloud , it can be shared over the Internet, which significantly increases the ease of access. This type of technology is especially convenient for remote teams, as it can be accessed from any device with an Internet connection. The following resource will provide you with all you need to know about The channels of communication you are likely to use at work.
In this segment, we will list notable types of collaboration technology, according to their function — what they were made to do. Online workspaces group together multiple tools, such as email and chat, discussion boards, video conferencing tools, etc. They are effective in improving collaboration because they centralize and put into one place different tools necessary for daily work tasks. A team chat app allows you to exchange text messages and online files in real-time.
This way, conversations stay relevant and up-to-date. Needing only an Internet connection on your phone or computer, a team chat app is a simple and effective way to increase the rates of productive collaboration among team members. Pumble — a free team chat app with unlimited users and message history.
Process management software allows users to plan, manage, and monitor the performance of various processes in the business environment.
Additionally, this type of software is used to automate routine tasks, and to facilitate the flow of information across departments and employees. Nintex — a process management and process automation tool. Project management software has the ability to enable planning, organizing, and managing resource tools, as well as to develop resource estimates. This type of software provides effective ways to keep track of and deliver projects on time.
Trello — a web-based, Kanban-style, list-making application. File sharing tools allow you to transfer files of various kinds, such as software, documents, videos, audio files, etc. You can distribute these files to all team members, use settings that limit access to select team members. Google Drive — a file storage and synchronization service.
Knowledge management tools are a range of software used to collect, store, and access information. These are systems that companies use to share information, both internally and externally. Confluence — a web-based corporate wiki. A shared calendar tool saves time by facilitating the organization of appointments and meetings without the need to consult all participants. The event organizer can check when the intended participants are available, and pick a time interval accordingly.
Google Calendar — a time managing and calendar-scheduling tool. An online whiteboard is an online analogue to the classic whiteboard. When using this tool, team members can communicate via text and visual information, including drawings and graphics. Miro — a free online whiteboard tool. These tools offer a way of communicating in real-time, using video and audio.
Also, video conferencing tools allow a number of people from multiple locations to take part in the conference. This way, people get to have some of the benefits of in-person meetings, without having to share the same physical space. Zoom — a video conferencing platform that supports meetings, chat, phone, webinars, and online events.
In this segment, we will use the example of Pumble , a team chat app, to showcase features of collaboration technology designed specifically to enhance collaboration among team members. For example, public channels in a team chat app can be used to communicate knowledge and share relevant updates with all company employees.
On the other hand, you can manually select and add people to private communication channels , if you want to have a confidential conversation with them.
The following screenshot shows a conversation taking place in a private channel of Pumble. This means that only members manually added by people with appropriate authorization can access it.
This link will take you to a blog post where you can find some useful and creative ideas for channels for your team chat app. This feature allows you to mention team members , so they know a message is directed at them. Team members get a notification of where and by whom they were mentioned. Most software allows you to mention one, a few, or all members in a particular channel. Here, Stella first mentions Jessica and John, asking them if they agree on the proposed target audience and budget.
These mentions send notifications to Jessica and John, and we can see that they respond to the question within minutes. Also known as groupware, these pieces of technology trim the costs and time associated with facilitating group work, from designating roles and responsibilities to routing in-situ documents to checking and approving project parts.
While there are dozens after dozens of choices for collaborative enterprise technology in the marketplace, the majority of tools are defined by the following core features:. Organizational psychology research has shown there are three fundamental elements to successful group work regardless of setting:.
Permissiveness, or openness, centers on how fluidly a team shares ideas, asks questions and seeks new insights and opinions. Finally, familiarity is the sense of intimacy and camaraderie shared by the group in relations to its work. The higher a team scores in proximity, permissiveness and familiarity, the more efficient their group work. Telecommunications allows groups to collaborate even when not in close physical proximity via voice, video and data-based technology.
This means coordination and activity at times and in locations that otherwise would be difficult, if not impossible. Travel expenditures are reduced and the pool of subject-matter experts widens, strengthening overall work. These tools expand the shared project management functions and capacities of teams, allowing members to track and organize project tasks as well as locate important network files, make informational updates and message anyone with access to the on-site software.
Software-as-a-service SaaS is the next iteration of on-premise software. SaaS combines the team-enhancing communications of traditional proximity and two-way voice, video and data collaboration tools with the project management features of proprietary software, unlocking true collaborative technology for the office. While each focuses on simplifying a particular aspect of group work — such as calendar sharing, meeting conferencing and document updating — together, these classifications of collaborative software technology open the door for borderless team project management.
Communication tools also tend to be unstructured. Two core features define them:. Depending on the software used, conferencing technology allows for everyone to access, make changes and work on the unified screen all at once or for a single presenter to control screen movements and functions, such as during a presentation. Coordination technology rounds out the three main types of collaborative software. Arguably the most holistic of collaborative tools, coordination software is designed to integrate both teamwork and taskwork functions.
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