The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• The Strange Beauty of Virtual Teams … Jessica and Jeff summarize their recent research on effective virtual teams, with three major findings: diversity is good, use technology to simulate face-to-face, and leaders need to work hard to keep teams together. “Virtual teams are the workhorses—and the unexpected blessings—of today’s organizations. Whether crossing organizational, geographic, time-zone, cultural, language, or discipline boundaries, far-flung teams are the beautiful inventions that simplify work for smart enterprises.” Milestone Group

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Dysant Mobile Connector … Dysant Software released Dysant Mobile Connector, a configuration tool for providing access to Lotus Domino applications from BlackBerry handhelds. “DYSANT Mobile Connector is a development tool built in order to enable fast and easy conversion of architecture and logic of any data-engine application into access interface of BlackBerry terminal. ” Dysant (PDF)
• The Perfect Handheld … “Business people say that BlackBerrys excel at checking email, Palm’s phones are best for placing calls and checking voicemail, and that phones running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating systems have good sound quality.” WSJ
• Calgoo Connect … Calgoo released Calgoo Connect, which provides bi-directional synchronization between Outlook and Google Calendar. Calgoo
• OCS = Failure … Julie argues that OCS is trying to solve a set of problems that we don’t have anymore. “The selling point for it, according to the Microsoft “IT evangelist” leading the presentation, Chris Avis, is that people waste 30 minutes a week playing phone tag. Eliminate that, and you’ve reclaimed hundreds of hours of lost productivity per employee per year. Right away – I’m having a problem with this marketing pitch. E-mail (asynchronous communication) and voicemail (leave a message if the person isn’t there, for goodness sake!) have long-since solved the phone tag issue. I waste ZERO hours per week playing phone tag as I rarely call someone unless, via an e-mail or IM exchange, we’ve set up an appointment to talk live. ” NetworkWorld

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Calendar Triage … When you are overwhelmed, here’s a strategy to embrace: (1) protect the basics, (2) eliminate the non-essentials, and (3) re-schedule some of what remains. Michael Hyatt
• Amazing Days … Craig lists 10 ideas for having an amazing day more often … “Having an amazing day has got very little to do with what happens or doesn’t happen on a given day, and plenty to do with the attitude we take into every situation, every conversation and every experience… every day. In other words, having an amazing day is a choice.” #2 and #10 hit me hard. Craig Harper
• Email: 3 Gets … Matt’s strategy for handling email better: (a) get fewer, (b) get faster, or (c) get control. Matthew Cornell

Other Noteworthy Insights
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