NewYork2008:Collaborative Tools

Collaborative Tools

• Wikis
• Blogs
• conference Calls
• Emails
• Googledocs
• SharePoint
• Instant Messaging
• IRC/Group Chat
• NetMeeting (Shared Desktop)
• RSS
• Meetings
• Intranets
• Telephones
• Calendars
• Social Networking Sites (LinkedIn, Facebook)
• Forums/Bulletin Boards
• Listserves
• Video Conferencing
• Second Life

Factors in Choosing Tools:

• Location of members, documents, and products.
• Cost
• Ease of use
• Time--length of collaboration--amount of planning
• Compatibility
• Synchronous/asynchronous
• Audit trail
• Privacy/security
• Stage/phase
• Availability/Infrastructure
• Time zones
• Urgency of collaboration
• File sharing
• Versioning
• Number of people on your team

Discussion Wikis

Pros: Lots of info, versions, flexible, fast to post, great for producing docs, generally easy to use, good for documentation, infinitely scalable, captures high quality, good for background
Cons: not as easy to understand, better for tech savvy, difficult to parse, can be difficult to find, adoption is challenging, adoption can be hard, needs more monitoring, can be hard to view what changes (depending), difficult to compartmentalize, versions can be an issue, bad for simultaneous groupware

GoogleDoc|Collaboration
Pros: Simultaneous writing, easy access to files, structure is closer to what people are used to, easy to have different teams on different documents, Can have view-only users, versions is easier, more easily supports word/openoffice, easy to get started, easy to upload without a lot of
Cons: Individual; not group focused (in GoogleDocs), security is a pain, everyone needs google account, not as fast to scale, easy to delete, have to backup data, internet dependence, hard to archive

SharePoint/Intranets--intranet portal that allows easy creation of subportals--group collaboration internet tool--includes calendars--microsoft project
Pros: Flexibility, doc storage, SharePoint integrates well with Microsoft, easily post docs, file sharing, good for non-tech ????
Cons: User adaptation, it can do anything but at a weighty cost, SP: overlap with MS Products poorly, difficult/costly to customize, costly to add licensens/file space
More: There's an overlap of sharepoint skills and programming skills to be able to fully utilize sharepoint.

Basecamp/Central Desktop/etc
Pros: Easy to use, see different changes/audit log, clear doc trail, tasks/milestones, discussions
Cons: Expensive, limited functionality, not as flexible
More: When would you use wiki vs. basecamp?

Social Networking Sites
Pros: Good for contact storage, outreach to volunteers, free, keeping in touch, personal ties
Cons: Personal ties, substantial setup

Forums/Bulletin Boards/Listserves
Pros: One question/multiple answers, ask the public, social postings, can opt to view or get emails, task allocator, digest or not, push
Cons: Bat at organizing things, setup intensive, adoption, volume of email, lack of ownership, easy to ignore

Blogs
Pros: Familiar, promotes discussion, feel fancier/newer, more central control
Cons: Needs central direction, needs to be set up, stagnates/bottlenecks without central contributor, new setups for new things
More: Good if you'd got it.

IM/IRC/Group Chat
Pros: Fast response, synchronous/asynchronous, captures fluid knowledge, great for rewrite, quick question/answer, watercooler conservation
Cons:
More: Multicollaborative Joomla Bug Squashing IRC/Yugma/Skype
Cons:

Second Life
Pros:
Cons: Geeky, high setup--admin/avatar angst/user needs to setup,

Video Conferencing:
There's no tendency to multitask since you're accountable. Maybe we should change the culture of multitasking for other larger-scale collaborative venues (group chats, conference call, etc).

Q: What do you do with team members with different amounts of tech experience? What tools would you recommend?
A: Conference calls. There needs to be a culture of how to be comfortable with the tools that you use on both sides.