Small businesses who have attempted to create an internal Intranet know how daunting it is to set up and maintain. Google announced a new service today that makes it pretty easy. The service is called Google Apps Team Edition.
Company documents, spreadsheets, presentations and company calendar all are wrapped up in a tidy package for you. I tried it out. It took only about 5 minutes to create an account. By default the start page includes email and calendar with the ability to add/edit/share documents. Access can be limited to your company account holders or any/all can be made public.
Putting company information in a central location where it can be accessed by employees from wherever they are (work, home, travel) has the potential of enhancing the efficiency of a small business.
Take a look at my test site that I set up this morning.
You can create your own account at sites.google.com. Do you think this can be useful in your business?
February 28th, 2008 by Day Tooley
Posted in Communication, Collaboration | Enter a comment »
Unified messaging is finally official. Business communication will catch up.
My “non-technical” 13-year-old 7th grader was collaborating with classmates on her Mac the other night as she was doing her homework. Others were being contacted and added to the conversation. Emails and files were being exchanged. And, of course, some music was playing. These kids had their new school-issued iBooks for 2 weeks and were masters of them already.
Yesterday Bill Gates took the pulpit at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco to announce that Microsoft was committing to take the parents of these kids into “unified communications,” a term that refers to combining voice calls, e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing into one application.
Here’s the deal: In three years Microsoft believes there will be 100 million users of unified communications, which should provide companies with a 50 percent reduction in communications costs. It represents a $45 billion annual market opportunity (and that’s not counting the kids).
This is good news for businesses and for parents. In three years we can be buying stuff from Microsoft so that we can save some money on communication costs and understand what our kids already do today for free.
October 17th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in Collaboration, General | 1 Comment »
It's been more than a decade since AARP aggressively attempted to recruit me for membership. And nobody ever asks for my ID anymore to see if I qualify for the coveted Senior Discount. But this morning's Wall Street Journal article New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age led with the announcement that "Older people are sticky." That caught my eye.
Referrals and testimonials have been the mother's milk of doing business forever. The Internet has added powerful tools that many business people are using. My first one was LinkedIn. It continues to be a good way to keep connected to a sphere of people who can help one another in business. Young people continue to mob MySpace until they go to college and graduate to FaceBook, which is considered more adult. (OK, I have a FaceBook account too.)
Responsible adults now have some new places to hang out with their peers and share experience. These sites with names like Eons, ReZoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and BoomerTown, look like FaceBook — with wrinkles. All are free to join but require some time and involvement to be useful.
I took a look at Multiply which would appeal to those who want to be known in the community. Good choice for sharing with friends and family. But I really liked TeeBeeDee (their theme is "Sharing Experience to Thrive") as a place to connect based on personal interests. TeeBeeDee is new and has just received $4.8 million in venture capital.
Social networking in business is a 2-way street. While you can learn about others, others can also research and learn about you. For example, before we interview a potential employee, it is common to do a Google search on them as well as to look for their Internet footprints on the social networking sites.
Of course, you can share your networking experience on this blog as well by leaving a comment. What is working for you?
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Posted in @ EasyStreet, Collaboration, Networking, General | 2 Comments »
This is a recipe for a ripe primordial environment for addressing complex business issues quickly and creatively. I experienced it for the first time at the collaboration conference last Friday.
The organizing theme of an Open Space meeting is that people who care about the subject will come together. The initial meeting notice takes the form of an invitation, thus the people who attend have chosen to be there and are willing to contribute. Here are the principles:
- Whoever comes are the right people
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
- Whenever it starts is the right time
- When it’s over, it’s over
Harrison Owen conjured the Open Space experience at a conference in 1985. He went on to create the Wiki software as a collaboration environment (ever been to Wikipedia.com?)
Open Space claims to be appropriate in any situation where there is a real business issue to be solved, marked by
High levels of complexity, in terms of the issues to be resolved,
High levels of diversity in terms of the people needed to solve it,
High levels of conflict (potential or actual),
and there is a Decision time of yesterday.
If your business has these conditions, Open Space my contain seeds for greater success for you.
Yes, I found the conference useful.
June 12th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in Collaboration, General | 2 Comments »
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One of the most compelling promises of computer technology for business is collaboration. Working together without being together. EasyStreet uses a collaboration and document control application called ClearSpace to manage project teams and ideas. It also is a resource to know “what’s going on” within the company.
EasyStreet will be providing a managed ClearSpace server for the attendees at the “Putting Collaboration to Work” conference taking place on Friday, June 8th. ClearSpace will be one of the web2.0 tools used to illustrate and demonstrate collaboration issues at the conference.
As a thank you, the conference organizers have invited us to extend a 50% discount to any who wish to attend. Visit the PDMF website and register with the discount code “Friend50″.
I will be there and I am hoping to see you there.
June 4th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in SaaS, Web 2.0, @ EasyStreet, Collaboration, General | Enter a comment »
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