The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• NewsObserver looks at how some companies are supporting telecommuting by employees, including IBM, Cisco, and Red Hat. Implications: lower gas bills, more flexitime, and a transition to results-based assessment rather than time-based.

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Tungle announced support for meeting scheduling on iPhone. “So, if you are an iPhone / Mac user how can you use Tungle? If you are scheduling meetings, today you need to be on Outlook. However, we will soon support iCal and Entourage. If you are receiving a meeting invite from someone using Tungle, you can book that meeting either from your desktop or from your iPhone and have it show up in your iPhone, iCal, or Entourage calendar.“
• PostPath announced that various healthcare facilities in the US have adopted the PostPath Server for email. “Moses Taylor Hospital, Appalachian Regional Healthcare System and Southeast Alabama Medical Center have each deployed PostPath Server and WebMail to users in production environments in order to combine native Outlook and mobile device support, offer full-featured webmail to all staff and reduce overall infrastructure costs.“
• The VP for Product Development at Vorsite Corporation asks whether SharePoint is a disruptive technology for enterprise content management? His conclusion: Not yet. “Many in the ECM industry will argue that MOSS/SharePoint is not an Enterprise Content Management solution with Enterprise being the operative word. This is certainly true (to some extent) especially when SharePoint functionalities are lined up against the ECM definition provided by AIIM. However this is the nature of a disruptive technology, incumbents see it as inferior or lacking and never pay attention to it until it starts to affect their bottom line. There is a long history of disruptive technologies and how incumbents have responded to them at their own peril. What I see going on in the ECM software industry shares striking similarities with the disruptions I have read about. MOSS may not be an ECM solution today, as defined by the industry, but it will be in the very near future.“
• With American Airlines introducing new baggage handling fees, Jeff from WebEx lists numerous things you could do with the baggage handling money instead. Eg, “(1) Skip the trip completely and buy one month of WebEx – you can have that meeting and as many more meetings for that month as you want on-line. Zero carbon (almost), zero hassle, zero checked bags; (2) Buy two webcams – one for you and one for your client – and meet “face-to-face” on WebEx; and (3) Buy a nice catered lunch for your client, have it sent to him or her, and have a lunch meeting on WebEx.“
• SpanningSync is adding bi-directional contact sync in Version 2.0 of its Mac to Google sync tool. “The synchronization is bidirectional, and can be limited to just certain groups in your Address Book. As with other Spanning Sync updates, the new version will be free to registered users ($25 annual subscription or $65 one-time purchase).“

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Brian and Matthew talk about using visual mapping to get work done. Key things for Matthew: (a) keeping track of disparate information in a single place, (b) filtering out irrelevant information at certain times of the day, (c) keeping track of test information related to his work, and more.

Other Noteworthy Insights

• The iPhone will be available in 7 more countries soon. “In a brief statement issued today, TeliaSonera said it had inked a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia “later this year.” Financial terms were not disclosed.“
• Tools change workflow, and the critical path of the activities.