The People Part of Working with People You Can’t Be With

• Dennis Kennedy has a new article on collaborative technologies, about working with others around the corner or around the world. “We based the article on some of the main themes of our new book on collaboration tools and technologies. This article is designed as an short introduction to the topic of collaboration tools. The sidebar addresses the all-important issue of collaboration culture and sets out some tips for handling cultural issues in your collaboration efforts.” It was co-written with Tom Mighell. See Law Practice Magazine, and the sidebar includes (1) know thyself, (2) know thy collaborators, (3) build on what works, (4) investigate team-building and collaboration strategies, (5) consider incentives and penalties, and (6) remember that culture is a moving target.
• The presence of a shared mental model among all users is a key driver to the success of collaboration software usage.
• Organize your communication around goals and actions, rather than informing.
• Scott talks about how Attensa approaches the deployment of enterprise RSS: (1) form a focused RSS initiative team, (2) define applications and use cases, and (3) implement and document use cases, and (4) build on success. He talks to two use cases: (a) market intelligence, and (b) streamlining internal communications. “Opportunities to improve group communication and efficiency by migrating existing email newsletters to a more efficient publish-subscribe service exist in every organization we work with. The same content that is being assembled into monolithic email blocks can be broken down into articles in feeds that deliver the information in a contextual and accessible format through a group blog and RSS feed format.“

The Technology Trends of Working with People You Can’t Be With

• Captaris is aiming to build on the popularity of SharePoint and is offering paper-capture capabilities for SharePoint. “Historically, document automation has either been the domain of large, complex enterprise applications or simply a replacement to the file cabinet where documents are captured electronically and stored. Captaris envisions documents as a central component to collaboration and sees the SharePoint platform in the same light as Microsoft, who calls it a business productivity server. With SharePoint, Microsoft is providing the infrastructure and Captaris is providing the document capture, routing, distribution, retrieval and process management.”
• Calgoo switched to a free pricing model, and added Google Calendar synchronization.
• Google Calendar now supports CalDAV, enabling synchronization between Apple iCal and Google Calendar. “CalDAV is a standardized sharing protocol, allowing you to access the same set of data with others to edit and sync data changes between multiple users. On a workflow level, this means people with access to edit your Google Calendar will be able to make changes in both iCal and Google Calendar that will sync up with both.“

Insights on Being Productive and Effective

• What’s the reason for being productive and efficient? To have more time to think. From Barack Obama: “ … actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking.“
• Matt released the next edition of his IdeaLab publication, with tips for capturing ideas, a warning about big to-do lists, problems with the 2-minute rule, and much more. I love this format for keeping up with the ideas that Matt is thinking about — excellent work!
• Peter talks about the five-tool employee, who is someone who “(1) gets things done with results to show for their effort – no excuses for failure, (2) accomplishes things that are remarkable – above and beyond what’s expected, (3) exercises sound decision-making skills, acting quickly and decisively, (4) communicates well and can convince others to act, and (5) deals well with ambiguity, makes order where others see confusion.” Are you one?
• If you carry an idea-capture notebook, capture one idea per page so as to give room for your ideas to grow. “Record one idea per page in your journal, capturing any details on paper that are in your mind at the time. Then, return to it days or weeks later to review it. You then have an opportunity to look upon each idea with fresh eyes, and add more color, detail and nuance to those that inspire you, much like an artist does. And because you have only recorded one idea per page, you have plenty of room to record these additional thoughts and insights.“
• There are two types of tasks: those that get done or don’t, and those that produce a backlog if they aren’t attended to. “The real problem with backlogs is that they take you out of the present. Instead of dealing with today’s work, you are constantly trying to catch up. It’s the difference between walking along a well-defined path and walking across a muddy field. On the path you can walk freely, but in the field your boots get caked in mud and you have to put out more and more effort while going slower and slower.” Mark has ideas on how to get rid of the backlog once and for all.

Other Noteworthy Insights

• Michael observes an inverse relationship between company size and a sense of urgency. “More often than not, small companies have a sense of urgency. Why? Because their very survival is at stake. If they don’t move quickly, they get squashed by larger, more established competitors. On the other hand, it is rare to find large companies that truly have a sense of urgency. Their circumstances rarely demand it. They can continue with business-as-usual and do pretty well. Nothing has to be done today or even this week. Nothing is really at stake—or so they think. Often, by the time they wake up, it’s too late.” As the CEO of a big company (Thomas Nelson), he wants to change that at his firm, and outlines a four step approach.