The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Positive Benefits of Telecommuting … (a) higher employee morale, (b) higher job satisfaction, and (c) lower employee stress and turnover. ScienceDaily
• More Mobility = Worse Document Management … 55% of employees do not store work documents where they should go. “ … 49% of PC users store these files in multiple locations, with a fifth (21%) using a memory stick. 14% of employees questioned admit to storing corporate material on the hard-drive of their laptop, and 9% even store work-related material on non-work owned personal devices. 8% use portable hard drives for work file storage, and 7% use mobile devices such as PDAs and smart phones for keeping hold of emails, files and documents.” UsabilityNews
• Remote Collaboration … Strategies for success with remote collaboration: (1) tight communication, (2) full access to all joint work products, (3) workflow, (4) the selection of the right people and methodologies, (5) communication, (6) best practice team processes, and (7) the use of the right technology. SaaStream

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Changing Decision Criteria for Collaborative Tools … Thoughts from Angela about the forthcoming change in decision criteria for collaboration tools: “It is important that collaboration software vendors recognise the risk that organizations are taking by implementing their software …. Increasingly it will not be a question of feature richness that differentiates one vendor from the next, it will be how strong their partner strategy is, the availability of published APIs and pre-built integration, and evidence of their ability to integrate into an organization’s broader IT environment, that will give them the edge. Customers need to feel that they are making a strategic investment, not just a tactical off-the-shelf tool purchase, and that the software vendor really understands their objectives and current environment.” There’s more in a free report. Tekrati
• Web 2.0 for Collaboration … UK managers don’t understand what “Web 2.0” is all about, but they are buying the technology because it is the latest available. They are deriving benefits in easier collaboration. “They may have adopted Web 2.0 for the wrong reasons, but the survey showed that benefits do come from collaboration rather than straightforward document management. Over half of the respondents said it is easier to work together more efficiently and to unite workers across different locations, and that it encourages greater openness in the organization. Only 16% cited improved document or content management as the main benefit.” CBR
• Qwaq Takes $7m … Qwaq announced the successful closing of $7 million in first round funding. “Qwaq Forums, the company’s first product, is a secure virtual workspace application that brings people, documents, and applications together in one online location, as if they were in the same physical location.” Red Herring

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Take Time To Do Nothing … You can’t live an unbalanced life for too long … schedule time to recharge. Craig Harper

Other Noteworthy Insights

• IBM vs Mac for Business … “So, should CIOs forget the past and jump on the Apple bandwagon? Not just yet. That’s because IBM’s vision of computing is much closer to business reality than Apple’s is. IT problems are complex and can’t be completely solved by a visit to your local Apple Store. For every IT question, Apple has one simple answer: the Mac.” ComputerWorld