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Collaboration Software -
Building an
Office Without Walls.
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by Mike Nielsen |
The rise of the internet has given businesses a new way to think
and function on both the individual level and as a whole. Today if
you are in a business that doesn’t have or use the internet, then
you are giving up valuable advertising and productivity. Whether or
not your company uses the internet we are all aware, to some degree,
the effect the internet has on advertising and promoting businesses
on a global scale. However, we may not fully understand what else
the internet can do. We may not realize that
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using
the internet to our advantage can also include increased productivity by
building a virtual office; one without walls. Okay, so how do we build
an office without walls then? In this article I will be discussing how
to basically build this kind of office and how it can help you be more
productive and organized.
What is an office without walls?
Now if you are sitting there picturing yourself sitting on the grass
outside holding hands with your fellow employees that isn’t what I meant
by building an office without walls. Of course you still have physical
walls but with use of the internet and collaboration software you can
create an environment in which the information you share and collaborate
on can be exchanged employee to employee so easily that it will seem as
though there are no “walls” to prevent you from being as effective as
you can be. |
So what is collaboration software?
Collaboration software is software that is used to collect the ideas and
documents from multiple people into one document without having the
group formally meet together to discuss their ideas. It can be done
individually without leaving the office. Collaboration software allows
you to exchange your calendars, spreadsheets, presentations, and other
documents with everyone in your, group, company, or whomever.
How does collaboration software work?
There are essentially two types of collaboration software. Most
collaboration software is centralized, which requires an IT
infrastructure to make it usable. Setting up an IT infrastructure can be
very expensive and time consuming. Collaboration software that is
centralized can be very beneficial for team collaboration but it
sometimes requires that all who wish to share the collaboration
documents have the same software set up on their computer. Some of the
collaboration that requires the use of an IT infrastructure includes the
following:
• Groove Network
• Microsoft Sharepoint
• Documentum
• Filenet
There is another type of collaboration
software which does not require the use of an IT infrastructure and
requires very little installation time. NextPage is one example of
collaboration software that doesn’t require an expensive IT
infrastructure. Another advantage that NextPage has is that you can
share documents with anyone; they don’t have to have the NextPage
software on their machine to view the documents that you send them. This
can be useful if you are preparing a document for a client where you
need the input and editions from your fellow co-workers but then want to
send the finished product to your client who isn’t using the same
software. He/she can still open up the document when they receive it and
you can easily track editions to the document using NextPage’s
collaboration software.
As you can see, using collaboration software can be very beneficial to
keeping documents you share in your office and with clients organized
and up-to-date. With the implementation of collaboration software, you
can create an office without walls and without bounds with regards to
productivity and organization. All that remains is for you to go get it,
and get it implemented!
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©
2005 Interactive Consulting. All rights reserved.
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