The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• “The essential feature of a common thought is not that it is held in common, but that it has been produced in common”, per Mary Parker Follet (1868-1933)
• Small and medium sized businesses are moving beyond email to collaboration tools, according to Gartner research.
• Approach sharing from a place of openness, and you’ll get back cooperation and teamwork.

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• JustSystems believes that the document is the application, and released a white paper to explain why. “JustSystems’ ‘document-as-application’ approach blurs the line between traditional documents, which provide rich context, persistence and portability; and business applications, which provide live data and an interactive user experience. The result is a dynamic document that comes to life with diverse and distributed information sources that are always up to date.“
• Xythos Software released updates to the Xythos Enterprise Document Management and Digital Locker 7.0 Suites. “The new software suites feature enhanced business process automation and interoperability features, as well as support for popular Web 2.0 social networking features such as Wiki’s, content tagging, and RSS feeds.” Available immediately.
• FaceTime and Mimosa announced a partnership for content archival in the enterprise. “The combined solution will deliver comprehensive business communications archival for business critical documents, email, calendar and contact items, public IM networks, enterprise IM networks, professional community networks, and Web conferencing.“
• LiquidTalk announced an integration with BlackBerry devices, so that mobile professionals can access business multimedia content. Available immediately.
• MindMeister, an online mind mapping service, offers the GeistesBlitz tool for quickly capturing ideas into your default mindmap. “Ever had a great idea that was gone again before you had the chance to jot it down? Well, with the new Geistesblitz Tools this won’t happen again. You can insert ideas into your default mind map on MindMeister directly from your Mac Dashboard, Windows Sidebar or Yahoo! Widgets Desktop, without having to open a browser or log on!“
• Webmail.us announced a change of name to MailTrust, and introduced Microsoft Exchange hosting services.
• The US Marine Corps has signed up for 283,000 licenses of Jabber. “The Marines will use the software for communication and collaboration services, including instant messaging, persistent group chat, presence capabilities, gateways for federation with Session Initiation Protocol/Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions and Internet Relay Chat messaging services.“
• Huddle.net announced a virtual workspace add-in for Facebook, for project collaboration within Facebook. “With Huddle.net consumers and businesses can instantly create networks of secure workspaces. The Huddles can be open, allowing the groups to work and grow organically, or closed with specific permissions for each user. The key is that any one with or without an account can be invited into a Huddle and become part of a team or project.” At DEMO this week, it has also announced a desktop integration.
• Daptiv and Pervasive Software announced a partnership aimed at better integration between Daptiv and enterprise systems, and a new product to enable it. “Taking full advantage of Pervasive’s extensive library of more than 150 adapters – running the gamut from ERP systems from SAP, Oracle and Peoplesoft, to development tools like Visual Studio Team System from Microsoft – Daptiv Connect will provide Daptiv customers with easy-to-use integration tools that help them quickly map data relationships between Daptiv’s environment and outside enterprise applications. Since data from multiple systems, such as financial data in ERP or sales data in CRM, can be integrated into the Daptiv environment and tied to relevant projects, Daptiv PPM will become the central, enterprise-wide source for managing and collaborating on everyday work.“
• Adobe released Version 7.0 of Buzzword, its collaborative word processor. There’s quite a list of new and updated things.

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Ideas to improve the time management skills of salespeople: keep a complete history of all client interactions, plan your day with scheduled follow-up calls, work on selling, and more.