The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Effective Virtual Organizations … The NSF is sponsoring a 3-day workshop on building effective virtual organizations in Washington DC in January 2008. Ian is one of the organizers. “Virtual organizations are increasingly central to the science and engineering projects funded by the National Science Foundation. Indeed, if you are a researcher or educator, chances are that you if don’t already lead or participate in at least one distributed team, you will soon. Unfortunately, chances are also that you have never been told how to establish such teams, how to make them successful, or what technologies exist that can help them function effectively. You probably haven’t had many opportunities to interact with others building, or just working in, virtual organizations, either. Our goal at this workshop is to help address this knowledge gap. We invite you to take this opportunity to come and learn what is required to make virtual organizations successful, contribute your experiences and challenges to the discussions, and to establish new connections that will help you succeed in your research and education projects in the future.” Neat! Ian Foster

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Zoho Writer Offline … Zoho released full offline support for Writer, its online word processor. It uses Google Gears to do so. Read/WriteWeb
• Where is EditGrid? … Ryan thinks that EditGrid has lost the plot with its latest design, and is no longer focused on the “Web 2.0 viral, friendly, spreadsheets-for-everyone” model. Perhaps they’ve decided to make some money on this by focusing on the business market. Radica Writing Club
• Live Documents … InstaColl released Live Documents, a set of online Microsoft Office like applications. “Live Documents is a full-featured suite of online Office productivity applications offering functionality equivalent to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Built using RIA technologies such as Flash and Flex, Live Documents allow users to view and edit documents within any common browser on any operating system from anywhere. Live Documents uses a Flash-based user interface that offers a richer and responsive user experience that is comparable to native Office software applications.” ZDNet

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Danny on Why People Use Text Editors for Personal Organization … An argument for using simple tools for organizing oneself … “If you want to organize yourself, take the stuff you’re going to forget quickly and dump it just as quickly — if it’s in your short-term memory, you have to put it somewhere.” Danny O’Brien
• Reserved Time … Jason recommends reserving time each week for working on the significant things in your life: “Every day, too many people leave their office without having spent time on the Significant Things. A lot of people set goals and objectives for themselves, and then, for one reason or another, don’t get around to actually progressing by taking action on their most Significant Projects and Actions. So here is something you can try: reserve a specific time this week – away from your computer, your mobile phone and your coworkers and/or staff. This time block should be between 45-90 minutes (how long can you go away and still have your department or business run along without you?).” Jason Womack

Other Noteworthy Insights

• iPhone-style BlackBerry? … Research in Motion is working on a touch-screen BlackBerry, similar in form factor to the iPhone. “The 9000 series will break from the traditional half-screen, half-keyboard look of the BlackBerry. The handsets will also incorporate an upgraded multimedia system, along with the standard push email capabilities.” Apparently. ipodnn, Silicon Alley Insider