The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Jon offers 5 tips on working with distributed teams, including (1) keep an open IM channel, (2) don’t forget the phone, (3) set up systems for tracking outputs, and more. Megan offers 10 more.
• Telecommuting has a number of flaws to avoid, including (1) people not setting boundaries between work and life, (2) staying away from the office for too long, (4) not communicating with the boss about what’s working and what’s not, and more.
• Alan summarized the Enterprise 2.0 Conference from this week, noting “The biggest change from last year’s conference in my mind, was that rather than talk about technology, everyone was talking about culture. Almost every session I went to, and hallway conversation I had was not about what product to use, but rather about how/when/where/why to get people using “social software”. What are the best practices? What is the RIO? Where does this succeed, and where does this fail? etc. “
• Sandy outlined the approach taken by Wallem to Enterprise 2.0 and the benefits it achieved. “Their solution, using K2 for BPM, Attensa for RSS and SharePoint as a content repository, integrates process-driven applications with managed RSS. The solution uses K2 to manage processes, then pushes the process event log (or some filtered version of it) over to the Attensa feed server, where it can be served up to a web interface or delivered by email. The advantage of using a feed server for this is that it provides complete device/platform independence for consuming the event feed, as well as providing multiple formats for consumption.” Benefits: increased visibility, mobile device support, reduced email clutter, and more. See also Dennis Howlett.

The Technology Trends of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams

• Open Text announced additional Enterprise 2.0 enhancements to its products, including social networking, content integration, security and personalization, compliance and validation services, and more. “Open Text’s Extended Collaboration solution, set for release later this month, provides a powerful work environment where employees can easily circulate ideas, experiences and knowledge in real-time. The solution combines a robust knowledge repository with project workspaces, polls, news channels, tasks and milestones. A set of community applications brings specialized, enterprise-ready tools, including real-time collaboration or newsletter views, FAQs, and event calendars to promote shared expertise and best practices. Community content can also be managed according to compliance, records retention and legal rules since the solution is integrated with Open Text’s powerful records management and archiving capabilities. Open Text has already seen strong interest in the solution from Livelink ECM customers since first unveiling the solution back in March.”

Insights on Being Productive and Effective as an Individual

• Craig offers a great list of 50 habits of highly successful people. Eg, “26. Their desire to be exceptional means that they typically do things that most won’t. They become exceptional by choice. We’re all faced with live-shaping decisions almost daily. Successful people make the decisions that most won’t and don’t.“
• NovaMind released an update to its mindmapping software, with a number of visual enhancements to maps.
• If you are going to get up early, use the time for great pursuits, not just checking email. “For those of you working on waking up early, this is an important question to ask yourself (though it’s equally important for those who take the night owl route). If you suddenly had an extra hour a day, what would you do with it? What would be meaningful enough for you to consider it time well spent? What have you been putting off for weeks / months / years / forever that you just don’t want to put off any longer?“
• If you have an endless to-do list, perhaps it is time to start managing your attention / focus more. “In the cases where people reported managing their time, they more often reported experiencing burn-out, they didn’t know how much longer they could go on at their particular job or lifestyle. There was often a sense of helplessness and overwhelm. The endless list, the one that gets added to and never completed, at the center of it all, left them with a heavy heart and a burdened sense of tomorrow. There was no celebration of what had been accomplished, no kick back and enjoy after a day well done. Office workers with schedules packed with meetings, projects, and overflowing email boxes reported best efforts to manage time; best efforts that left them breathless. Physicians, rapidly cycling through appointments and report writing, focused on time and efficiency. Time. Efficiency. Lists. Tasks. What did surgeons, artists, and CEOs have in common? Most of them reported that they managed both their time and their attention“
• Procrastination is …
• What if … you were eager for more meaningful work, came up with ideas for betterment, and developed satisfaction about your work? Ernie has more, and a discussion thread.

Other Noteworthy Insights

• Quick summary of Steve’s presentation this week.