Are you using collaboration software in your workplace? 

Web 2.0 has changed the way organisations collaborate.  Michael Dell founder of Dell Inc talks about the power of collaboration and how email volumes are dropping because of more effective ways to collaborate. Let’s take a look.

Dell talks about a whole new generation who share and collaborate online with people all over the world to get better answers and better outcomes.  So how are organisations using collaboration software tools to succeed? Below is an example of a company proactively using Collaboration software.

‘Amcor‘ said “The social platform had helped improve productivity by allowing employees  to more quickly share large files, pose questions to help solve problems quickly and access knowledge from all its sites”.

Methven-based farming advocate Sara Russell says “Social media tools could revolutionise the farming life in New Zealand.

Let’s look at some collaboration tools available?

Wikis are great for live information that is constantly changes.  A wiki is a website whose pages can be collaboratively edited by authorised users. Changes are stored so you can refer back to older versions.  There are a lot out there but here are a few examples.

With Google Sites which is free, we can quickly gather a variety of information in one place including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text and easily share it for viewing or editing.

SharePoint is a Microsoft Web application platform. There has two versions of SharePoint available at no cost, but it sells premium editions with additional functionality.

Yammer is designed for company collaboration, team efficiency, file sharing and knowledge exchange.  Similar to the SharePoint Yammer offers a basic Network for free and sells premium plans.

As you may be aware Microsoft spent US$1.2 billion on the Yammer acquisition in the last year.  It seems it will be a slow integration between them both. Read more.

You may be interested in reading the success factors described by Jim Cashel. Cashel explains when Wikis work well in organisations and that they replace previous inefficient ways.  We will see more and more organisations using  collaborating software applications and it will become part of our normal working day.