For any school system, communication is key. This is why we honor schools in our Giving Back program. Anytime we can help a school system stay more organized and improve collaboration, we will do it. That is why we are happy to announce the arrival of Richmont Graduate University into our Giving Back program!

Richmont Graduate University is a faith-based, Christian university. As a graduate school in the process of expanding, they currently have four primary areas of focus: counseling, psychology, formation and ministry.

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Online team collaboration is a hot topic of discussion, and managing communications in the cloud is something many businesses are looking into and implementing these days. There are a great many benefits to online collaboration, but do these benefits really help? Will they replace the traditional forms of communication?

Will we all end up typing, IMing, emailing and tweeting so much that we lose the ability to speak? Will we be able to function in a face-to-face meeting?

Here are a few popular, more traditional, communication methods that can be enhanced by effective online team collaboration.

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A few weeks ago, we featured a post identifying ways to increase client collaboration, and improve the communication and workflow channels you have with your clients. This is a huge area of importance for many service-based companies out there, and being able to better connect with clients can mean the different between a successful engagement and a client failure.

In our previous post, we discussed how online discussions, file collaboration and status reports can help increase client collaboration. By using these tools inside a business organization solution, you’ll be opening the doors to more effective communication with your clients.

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It seem that, across the board, the success or failure of team collaboration adoption into the well-known business processes hangs on one factor - a designated “champion” in the office. This person, if assigned, can help push the idea and benefits of team collaboration to others in the business.

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Business collaboration has been steadily growing for the past couple years, and conversations about it have also been growing over the last few months. In April, we wrote a post on businesses collaboration software benefits, and how these benefits positively impact the people on a business team. The six benefits we mentioned were increased communication, improved idea generation, increased transparency, increased product quality, stronger teammate connections and improved planning processes.

These benefits are all still valid, and have been proved invaluable over the last few months. By improving upon the communication and the connectivity between teammates, better work is completed is less time.

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I know, it’s a bit of a weird title. But the baby planning industry is hot these days, and even they can’t plan for a baby all by themselves. Itsabelly Baby Planners has been working with OnePlace for the past two years to help manage and organize their business information so they can expand like a pregnant woman’s belly.

Itsabelly Baby Planners offers baby panning services to support families in making healthy and safe choices for their new little one. They help families add safe items to their baby registry, create a beneficial nursery design, develop birth plans to help welcome the baby into the new world and even help baby proof the home.

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One of the biggest hinderances in choosing the right business collaboration software is that there are so many to choose from. Companies don’t know how to start researching or how to go about choosing which software solution is right for them.

A big tip we at OnePlace can give you is to test out the options. Sign up for as many free trials as you are able to fit into your schedule and get to work connecting with your teammates and collaborating on small tasks together. This will help you understand which features you like, which you don’t, and which are must-haves when you go forward with your choice for a collaboration solution.

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It’s no secret that the main idea behind team collaboration is the idea of open communication. If you’re team isn’t communicating, you’re team isn’t collaborating either. So you need to make sure you find a solution that facilitates this communication between your team members.

One of the most efficient and effective ways to hold conversations in through online discussions. Rather than holding meetings or having phone calls where notes may or may not be taken correctly, online discussions allow team members to stay connected and talk about anything related to their business or the projects they are working on.

Effective team collaboration can be achieved through online discussions because of a variety of factors.

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We’ve seen a huge increase in the amount of schools using OnePlace lately, and we absolutely love it! With a new school year right around the corner, we are feeling the back to school hype as well, and are continuing to offer OnePlace free of charge to schools and educational organizations as well as non-profits.

The newest addition to our Giving Back program is Valencia Community College of Orlando, FL. Their Learning Technology & Alternate Delivery team provides collegewide support to all faculty, staff and students for integrating technology into the curriculum. Most of their workload comes in terms of supporting faculty with the creation, adaptation and implementation of course materials for online instruction. There is a team of 14 individuals who are responsible for simple projects like creating logos & graphics to video production requests for full online streaming video. 

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We’ve all heard by now that effective team collaboration can greatly impact the productivity and success of the business. In a recent study, over 80% of businesses stated that collaboration was the key to future success. This sounds great, right?

Absolutely! But there are many businesses who are hesitant to jump on the collaboration bandwagon because they aren’t sure exactly how collaboration will benefit them. A big concern is that the new collaboration process may not be as productive or beneficial as they want it to be.

In all honesty, there is a learning curve with collaboration processes and tools, as there is with almost everything else in the business world. The key is to agreeing to get around the curve as gracefully and successfully as possible to begin enhancing the communication and collaboration in your business.

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When it comes to online business collaboration and team collaboration solutions, there will always be a learning curve when adopting the new tools and processes. This just comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, there are businesses that, when faced with this learning curve, opt not to continue with the tool, labeling it as “unintuitive”, “challenging” and “complex”. While this can be said about some of the available collaboration tools, many options will work in a business team as long as they are properly integrated into the business processes.

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If your business is looking ahead for new solutions to make it more successful, you may have heard the phrase “social business software” recently. But you might be wondering exactly what it is and how it can help your business.

As a relatively new concept from an old need, social business software refers to a software application that allows those within a business to connect and communicate. It will allow those in the business to connect with those outside the business, such as customers, clients and vendors. It will also connect team members over great distances, thus allowing for a dispersed team and reduced travel costs for face-to-face meetings.

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Something that we’ve heard from customers - and have experienced first-hand - is that OnePlace is fantastic, but takes a little getting used to. We’ve written a few tips on how to accept collaboration into your corporate culture and how to include OnePlace in your business processes, but we’ve gone one step further to help our new and current customers learn the ins and outs of OnePlace.

We’ve worked hard over the last few months to create OnePlace onboarding tutorial videos! These videos show you the benefits that OnePlace offers, including connecting your team, collaborating on projects and completing your work.

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Over the years, OnePlace has acquired many accounts from schools, either in our area or around the country. These school accounts range from managing offices of communications to managing collaboration in an MBA-level business class. Some of our school accounts include MidAmerica Nazarene University, and the University of Minnesota’s Waller Lab and Academic Health Center.

Even before we started offering OnePlace free of charge to non-profits and schools, we saw a large group of our accounts coming from schools and educational institutions. It’s interesting to wonder what exactly could be causing these schools to find OnePlace and to start using OnePlace. Is it because it’s easy to use? Is it because it fits well with their processes? Or is it just because smarter people use OnePlace?

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Because we are based in Minnesota, it always touches our hearts a little bit more to help non-profits, charities and schools in our backyard. Joining our Giving Back program, and their cohorts at the U of M Waller Lab, is the team from the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center.

The Academic Health Center prepares the next generation of health professionals who will improve the health of families and communities, discover and deliver new treatments and cures, and enhance the economic vitality of Minnesota's health industries.

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A few months ago, we highlighted many reasons why happy employees are productive employees. A few of our favorite ways to make employees happy, and thus more productive, were to recognize success, set goals, provide career growth opportunities, offer flexible work hours, provide quality office supplies and go on team field trips.

Because we want to do our part to make sure everyone on your business team is happy, productive and successful, here are a few more ways to keep your employees happy.

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These days, businesses large and small are looking ahead toward effective business collaboration. Numerous studies have shown that the majority of businesses feel collaboration is something they will want and/or need within the next 10 years, though some are hesitant to take the necessary steps to implement collaboration.

While collaboration is all the talk right now, soon it will become the norm. Just as email dominates our professional communications now, effective business collaboration will dominate the way we work together and communicate as a team in the future. Collaboration is king, or at the very least the heir apparent to the business process throne.

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As OnePlace continues to help non-profit and charity organizations communicate, collaborate and complete work in a more efficient way, we are always humbled by the great work of others. The newest non-profit to join our Giving Back program, the Crown Jewel Club, is no exception.

Crown Jewel Club is a non-profit organization, located in El Segundo, CA, which empowers at-risk girls by teaching social skills and basic disciplines essential to building self-esteem and self-confidence for academic achievement and overall success in life.

Crown Jewel Club was referred to OnePlace by Buying Time, LLC, one of our dedicated customers. CJC plans to use OnePlace as a time tracking and task management service to monitor their volunteers' hours.

If you’d like to join our Giving Back program, visit our website and contact us to let us know! We love helping those who help others, and can help you keep more organized so you spend more time on what really matters.

If you’ve been reading our blog over the last few months, you’ve heard us talk about the benefits of team collaboration, and how businesses can effectively engage others in online collaboration. And if you’ve taken a look at our website, you’ve seen that we offer a (fantastic) business collaboration solution to do just the things we preach.

But today, I’m going to go over a few different ways to use OnePlace. Because, well, it’s not all about the business and the collaboration. It can be used for a great many things!

If you’ve been a fan of OnePlace for a while, you are well-aware that OnePlace is not only a business solution, but a personal solution as well. OnePlace can be used for many things not relating to work, and still be an effective tool. Here are a few examples of how OnePlace can benefit your personal organization and collaboration.

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You’ve probably experienced the pains of emailing files and documents to team members in almost every job you held, correct? Unfortunately, this isn’t the most effective way to share and collaborate on documents. But don’t worry - this is just the way the corporate world has been trained.

However, now that you are aware of the truth, it’s time to find a better document collaboration software solution that will save time, email inbox space and undue stress when working together on files.

But wait - what is document collaboration software?

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July has been a busy month with our Giving Back program! We’ve welcomed many new accounts to join us, and benefit their business organization and team collaboration. The newest addition to the OnePlace family is MidAmerica Nazarene University Marketing Communications.

MNU Marketing Communications is a unit within the MidAmerica Nazarene University, focusing on messaging, promoting and building communications between the university and the public.

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Because OnePlace is so committed to giving back to those that are giving of themselves for the benefit of others, we love adding new members to our Giving Back program. Joining us this week is the Harlem Opera Theater, who is looking for a bit of work management and communication organization help.

Harlem Opera Theater, located in New York, was founded in 2001 as a non-profit corporation. Under Artistic Director, Gregory Hopkins, internationally acclaimed tenor, conductor, organist and pianist, Harlem Opera Theater performances include all types of musical offerings: opera, oratory concerts, recitals, Negro Spirituals and varied forms of American music, in keeping with their mission “to provide performance opportunities for professional and developing gifted artists within Harlem and communities where opera is seldom performed; and to cultivate and expand audience appreciation for opera and classical music through creative programming.” Particular focus is given to the works of African-American composers and to projects that link different aspects of the performing arts. 

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Now that your business is moving forward toward engaging in team collaboration, you probably expect some great success right of the bat, right? Fantastic! You can definitely achieve the collaboration success you desire. However, unless you know how to collaborate effectively, your efforts may be wasted at first.

Here are a few tips to learning how to collaborate effectively in your team.

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Already in the month of July, we are announcing our partnership with another deserving organization. We'd like to welcome The Association of Finance & Insurance Professionals to OnePlace's Giving Back program!

AFIP is a nonprofit educational foundation educating and supporting in-dealership finance managers and the field representatives of manufacturers, lenders and vendors who serve the F&I function. They serve their constituents by providing college-level regulatory education through the AFIP Certification Program, legal and regulatory guidance and assistance, compliance products, industry advocacy, dispute mediation and resolution, and industry news.

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I came across this blog post this morning, and I wanted to make sure I shared it with our readers as well. Tony Wilson wrote about why collaboration works in business teams. However, he didn't just talk about the improved business results - he talked about the biological reactions caused by collaborative environments and how they increase trust and productivity.

I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did!

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With so much communication about team collaboration and business collaboration lately, there are some that are curious, but don’t know exactly what it is. So, from Wikipedia, the free, online collaborative encyclopedia, here is the definition of collaboration.

“Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals”

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We love helping those who help others, and our Giving Back program keeps expanding because of it! At OnePlace, we are proud to announce the addition of another deserving non-profit organization into our Giving Back program.

YouthBuild Louisville is an exciting youth and community development program in Louisville, Kentucky. This nationally recognized program provides opportunities for youth to build homes for low-income people. YouthBuild aides unemployed and undereducated young people, ages 16 to 24, build affordable housing for homeless and low-income families in their own communities. They split their time between the construction site and the classroom, where they earn their GED or high school diploma, learn to be community leaders, and prepare for jobs or college.

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When it comes to implementing team collaboration in your business, there is no one way to help your business team collaborate better. There are many techniques that you can, and should, implement in your business. From learning how to work together to create a great product, team collaboration can impact every part of your business.

In order for team collaboration to be successful in your business, here are a few techniques that can get your business team started off on the right foot.

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Showcasing another educational and charity organization that we work with, we are proud to announce our partnership with the online division of the Northland International University.

Northland International University is a Bible college located in Dunbar, WI.  Northland Online is a division of NI maintaining online classes for early advantage classes (high school dual credit classes), undergraduate classes and graduate level classes.

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Trying to find the right software, or place, in which your team can collaborate is a big challenge for businesses. There is a lot of research that needs to be done and a lot of testing that needs to be completed. But once you’ve found the right software for your business collaboration, everything will fall into place.

When testing out different collaboration software offerings, make sure to read a bit about what is the latest and greatest in software trends and look for a solution that drives you to the future. Your business collaboration and your business success will depend on it.

Here are a few recent blog posts that can give you a heads up on the trends in collaboration software.

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With all the chatter about effective business collaboration, you’ve probably heard that our main stance is that collaboration needs to be accepted and integrated into the corporate culture before it can take hold and be effective for the business. What’s incredibly challenging is when there are some in the organization that realize the need for an effective work management and collaboration solution, and others don’t realize that anything is wrong with their current situation.

So how can collaboration penetrate these businesses? Before we go into those solutions, let’s take a look at a real life case study of how ineffective processes are hurting individuals and business projects.

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With as much attention as business team collaboration is getting, it’s surprising that not as much attention is given to the idea of connecting within the business team. In order to collaborate effectively, team members - from internal coworkers to external customers and vendors - need to be connected to open the doors for communication and future collaboration.

Because keeping your business team connected is the first step toward successful business collaboration, here are a few recent posts and articles identifying the benefit of connecting with your teammates.

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Analysts, collaboration professionals and even businesses are realizing more and more frequently that in order for team collaboration to work in their business, they need to accept it into their corporate culture. It’s not just the tools and processes that make collaboration - it is the people using those tools and the people following those processes.

Last week, we talked about some of the common challenges with accepting collaboration into a business’s internal processes. One of the biggest challenges is that team members will revert back to their old habits of ineffective collaboration if they aren’t pushed toward making the new collaboration processes work. In this post, we will expand on ways to encourage others to keep collaborating in the new way to make it more effective.

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Let me just say first of all, we are loving that Summer is right around the corner. That said, the sun is shining on a lot more collaboration areas lately, and are keeping us pretty busy with keeping up with these fantastic authors, analysts and bloggers!

So when it comes to team collaboration, what solutions do you use in your business? Are you already using a an online collaboration solution like OnePlace? Or still in the past using email to “collaborate” with your team? Somewhere in between? That’s what this week’s posts have been about - the wide spectrum of ways you can collaborate with your team.

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We all know that once you fully integrate effective team collaboration processes and solutions into your business, your team will be working together more effectively. The quality of their work will increase, and so will your bottom line. There is, of course, a learning curve with integrating collaboration into your business, but overcoming that will only strengthen the connections made between your teammates and the tools you are using.

But there comes a time in any collaborator's life - usually at the beginning of the heavy collaboration efforts - when they think “Can’t I just send this one file over quickly via email?”

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OnePlace is pleased to announce another partner in our Giving Back program - The Green Lifestyle Film Festival!

The Green Lifestyle Film Festival is a weekend long event that presents international, independent filmmakers commenting on issues in the environment and media. Their intention is to create a film festival that offers a very courageous and in depth approach to examining and suggesting lifestyles that are compatible with the Laws of Nature, and that teach the world to live from a place of rawness, openness and transformation. The GLFF is a new type of green event, meant to be uplifting and solutions based, full of inspirational and educational films, real food and diverse dialogue to produce a window for changing ourselves.

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Effective business collaboration can be achieved to increase the productivity and success of the business. However, in order to achieve this type of effective business collaboration, there needs to be a people and process change to accept the new direction of collaboration with open arms.

So who are the people to accept collaboration? And what people can you collaborate with? Where can we collaborate? What technologies are available for collaboration, and what are some of the expected outcomes? Never fear - all of these questions have been addressed in the last few days in the blog posts below.

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It’s no surprise - we love to showcase our customers that are increasing business success by being more connected and organized with OnePlace. And it makes us feel even better when those organizations that are succeeding are doing good for their community as well.

So we were glad we were able to help the Columbus Lesbian and Gay Softball Association manage their tasks and stay organized for hosting their softball league’s World Series this year in Columbus, Ohio!


When Columbus was selected to host the league’s 2010 World Series, the CLGSA needed a more robust way to manage planning and preparing for the event. OnePlace was able to step up to bat for the CLGSA.

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Okay, I know it’s not really Monday today (Happy Memorial Day yesterday!), but since we were all out enjoying sunshine and barbecues yesterday afternoon, today we can get back into the swing of things by catching up on the latest business collaboration news together!

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about how effective team and online collaboration can lead to improved organization and increased innovation when it comes to a successful business. I have to agree with this, of course, as I - as well as my colleagues at OnePlace - believe that collaboration can bring a great number of benefits to the business.

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If you’re like many of us and working in a client or customer service business, you tend to do a lot of work for your customers and clients. There is a lot of communication going back and forth, and products and projects are being updated for the benefit of the client.

When you’ve already taken the necessary steps to improve internal team collaboration within your business and are using a solution like OnePlace, you see an increase in the quality of work and communications happening among your team. But then - horror of horrors - you need to take a file out of your collaboration solution (thus rendering it outdated) and email it to your client.

If you just said “Wow, this sounds very inefficient and ineffective,” you are spot on.

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Today's guest post comes from Lokesh Datta, a co-founder of All Collaboration. Focusing on collaboration, All Collaboration offers points-of-view, original research, reviews of products and services, interviews with industry luminaries, and the “best of” articles on the web. All Collaboration has a companion Discussion Group on LinkedIn. Follow Lokesh on Twitter: @LDatta.

People collaborate, tools don’t! We hear this admonition often and, in fact, I plead guilty to using it as well. Is that sufficient, however, for successful collaboration? Not really! People and tools are both necessary but not sufficient. Effective collaboration requires a holistic approach, consisting of: Purpose, People, Process and Place.

What happens if any one of these is lacking is detail, clarity or fit?

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Improving the amount and quality of team collaboration in the workplace can significantly increase the effectiveness of business communication and the overall success of the business. There is no place that this is more true than in today’s enterprise business.

With more and more team members working hard to drive the product and the company forward, you need to make sure teams are working together. You need to give them the tools to stay connected and increase that collaboration for the improvement of your enterprise.

These posts agreed as well. Here are 4 recent blog posts on enterprise collaboration and how to experience the benefits collaboration can offer.

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There is nothing better than the feeling you get when you give back what you can to others. Because of that, OnePlace is proud to announce we’ve taken on a new customer in our Giving Back program - The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.

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If you’re a part of the increasing trend of running a virtual office, you are aware of the great benefits of them. Team members in a virtual office have shown increased productivity, increased positivity toward their job and even a decreased environmental impact because of the lack of commuting.

One of the main challenges, however, of a virtual office is trying to keep everyone connected. There aren’t easy options of holding impromptu face-to-face meetings, and phone calls need to be thought twice about because of differing time zones.

So, in order to increase the effectiveness of your virtual office, and encourage increased productivity, here are a few tips for keeping your virtual workforce connected.

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With all the chatter about business collaboration processes and solutions lately, it’s no wonder that additional questions arise. Why should I use collaboration processes in my business? How does it help? What solution will be best for my business?

And along with all these questions is one over-arching question that needs to be answered: How does collaboration impact my business? You need to understand this - whether it be the positive impact or the negative impact - before engaging too heavily in a collaboration solution.

Last week there were a few great articles published addressing this very question. Here are links to a few of them, but feel free to share your favorites with us as well!

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So you’ve heard about how great business collaboration can be - fantastic! You’re right, too, because collaboration between teammates, clients and customers can have a great impact on the success of your business. But you need to take the necessary steps in order to make that collaboration successful.

What you need to make sure you do first and foremost is successfully implement the collaboration process into your business. Your team - from the business leaders down to the interns - need to accept collaboration and have these processes ingrained into their very core.

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It’s hard to deny that collaboration can significantly impact your business for the better. Effective team collaboration can improve the quality of communication, the quality of attitude and the quality of the work being completed.

There are some business cultures, however, that are opposed to this collaboration, or at least unaware of the benefits this collaboration can offer. In order to effectively integrate successful collaboration in your business culture, you need to make the necessary steps.

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Because social media is so popular - for marketers, for students, for families - businesses are starting to see how useful it can be as well. More and more businesses are looking at social media tools as ways to both connect with team members and spread the word about their business as a whole.

Here are a few examples of how businesses are using social media tools to connect their people to each other, and to customers, for increased collaboration.

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Well, if you have a a somewhat twisted mind, you can probably come up with an idea connecting beer, yoga and babies. And we aren’t judging you for it at all. But what we actually see as a common thread between these three very different industries is an increase in business organization and team collaboration success.

Lift Bridge Beer Company, Itsabelly and Yoga Pro have all been OnePlace customers for some time now, and have experienced huge success after implementing the solution. Make sure to read these case studies to find out how!

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So you’ve implemented a business collaboration solution in your company - fantastic! You have already taken the first, most important step to improving the effectiveness of your business communications and collaboration.

Now that you’ve received that gold star, you may need a bit of help encouraging the rest of your team to move away from their old ways of collaboration (email, IM, face-to-face meetings, etc.) and into the new solution that will benefit your people and your business as a whole. And once your people have begun using the solution, how are you going to make sure you get the most out of their communication and collaboration?

Here are 6 steps to making your team collaboration more effective.

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Last week, there was some blog chatter about the benefits of small business and enterprise collaboration solutions, and whether or not they can be effective in today’s business world. Now, I am of the opinion that they can be, but there is a lot to be said about the implementation of such solutions to make them useful.

(Ahem - Stay tuned for a blog post from me about that subject.)

Here are some posts speaking to the effectiveness of business collaboration solutions.

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Because OnePlace loves to give back to non-profit and charity organizations, we are pleased to announce the arrival of a new customer - Shekinah Fire Ministries.

Shekinah Fire Ministries is a church organization dedicated to teach the Word of God. They were looking through many project management and task management solutions before finding OnePlace.

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The topic of collaboration - whether it be small business team collaboration or enterprise collaboration - has been a popular one lately. We’ve seen people write on the advancements in collaboration, what factors lead to successful collaboration, and how collaboration via social media is the wave of the future.

What I haven’t seen recently is a discussion about the benefits that a collaboration software system can provide. So, here it is!

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We all need more time in our day, right? This is the solution that Buying Time, LLC is solving for their clients. Servicing the Southern California communities of Los Angeles, Buying Time provides services to give their clients more time, such as picking up dry cleaning, walking a dog or creating a PowerPoint presentation.

Buying Time needed help managing all the client tasks in one system, and managing which contractor would take which task. By utilizing OnePlace, client tasks can be input into the system right away, and contractors can pick up tasks when they need to be done and when they fit into their schedules.

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With the increased popularity of social media tools, and the State of Collaboration report released recently, the topic of team collaboration has been a hot one. More and more businesses are feeling the need for this type of business collaboration solution to increase communication between team members.

The blogosphere has been chattering about team collaboration recently. Here are some recent blog posts to bring you up to speed on team collaboration.

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In case you weren’t aware, today is Earth Day! Designed as a day to increase awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment, Earth Day was founded in 1970 and has inspired countless people across all countries to better the world we live in.

At OnePlace, we care deeply about helping others and helping our great planet. One of the greatest actions we are taking toward helping the environment is having an all virtual office.

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In many business settings, especially small businesses, every single person on the team matters. There is not one person without whom the business could succeed. This type of dependence comes from hiring the right people - the lynch pins - to bring your business successfully into the future.

Unfortunately there are instances when the people you hire in your business aren’t doing their best. And just like the saying goes, a business is only as strong as its weakest link. They may not be doing their best for a multitude of reasons, and before it can affect your business, try to figure out why there is a downturn in their efficiency and productivity.

Here are a few reasons why a team member may not be performing at the high standards you need in your business.

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I know, I know, it’s been a while since we posted a Monday Blog Post Round-Up. Sorry guys! But don’t worry, we’ve still been reading our favorite blogs, and have been quite busy posting ourselves.

We hope to make up for our absence the last couple of weeks by showcasing some fantastic blog posts about improving business productivity and energizing your team for success.

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Yesterday, PCWorld Business Center compiled a great resource: The Essential Project Management Reading List. For those looking for a bit of help in their project management positions or just curious abut how to improve their ability to manage projects, this list can meet their needs.

We've pulled a few of our favorite resources from PCWorld and listed them below. You can also read the full article on the PCWorld Business Center.

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In case you’ve been hiding under a rock every Spring since you were born, April 15th is Tax Day - so you better make sure you’ve filed your tax return by then!

You should also know that last year there were many tax changes. If you found it a bit challenging to get all the pertinent information needed to file your tax return this year, why not use this as a reason to get organized for next year?

There are many ways to get organized and make a difference in the way your information is stored. Here are just a few tips for keeping important information in a safe place.

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Over the past 6 week we've been running a promotion for our customers. Those who sign up for a new OnePlace team account were entered in a drawing to win Rock Band 2 Special Edition for the Wii!

We want our customers be to Rock Stars in their business, at home AND on stage!

The winner was chosen last week and we are proud to announce that it was Rephael Inbar who took home Rock Band 2!

Congratulations from the OnePlace team, and we hope you enjoy it!

And for everyone else, keep rockin' on with OnePlace!

At OnePlace, we love reading what others are saying about business organization, the latest project management tips and ways to increase team collaboration. By reviewing what others are putting out there about new and evolving processes for better business communication, we can focus on our position to improve our business, our communication and our product.

In order to “share the wealth”, so to speak, here are 5 of our favorite collaboration blogs for you to begin reading as well!

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OnePlace, the online team collaboration solution for small businesses, recently updated its solution with a new look and a better way for teams to stay connected. The new People feature allows users better access to teammate activity and contact information within OnePlace.

“OnePlace is the Facebook for business,” says Steve Kickert, CEO of OnePlace, “We want team members to communicate and collaborate on projects, and the new People feature enables both flawlessly.”

People pages display teammate contact information, what projects they have scheduled and their recent activity so project managers can stay up to date on their project status. The new feature further enables collaboration between team members within the OnePlace solution.

To create a free individual account or register for a trial of OnePlace for your business, visit our website at http://www.oneplacehome.com.

Experienced sales director Matt Geiser has joined the team at OnePlace, the powerful online organization solution for small businesses. In his new role as Vice President of Business Development for OnePlace, Matt will handle all aspects of sales including lead nurturing and building professional partnerships.

“We are both excited and fortunate to welcome such a seasoned sales professional to our team,” said Steve Kickert, CEO of OnePlace, “We build our team the same way we build our product; with great care. Matt joins us at an optimum time.”

Matt joins OnePlace after extensive experience in the software sales industry, including working at Microsoft, Knoa Software and SuperBuild, LLC. Matt has significantly increased sales revenue at all past positions, while developing sales strategy and building relationships with Fortune 500 partners.

To learn more about Matt and the rest of the OnePlace team, subscribe to our blog and keep up to date on Matt's latest posts.

Spring has sprung! The time has come for winter clothes to be packed away, flower gardens to be planted and sunscreen to be purchased.

And along with Spring comes Spring Cleaning - the annual event of cleaning out the mess you’ve stored over the winter and starting fresh with a clean house... and a clean office!

Here are 5 tips for Spring Cleaning your work to get you more organized!

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It’s been said that if it takes you longer than 5 minutes to list all your active projects, you aren’t managing your projects effectively. It’s also been said that if you can’t see work being done, it’s not being done. These concepts are two of the issues solved by a quality project management solution so you aren’t fooled by your projects again!

We want to make sure you are the master behind your project planning, so here are 5 ways to avoid being fooled by your projects.

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Project management is a thriving topic these days, and while some people love it and some people hate it, it’s difficult to not utilize project management practices in any business setting.

But what exactly is project management? How do we explain it? How do we get started more effectively managing projects? And how can it benefit us? These are all great questions that have been answered in many recent blog posts.

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I was catching up on my Twitter feeds last week, and I noticed a tweet that caused me to have a rather large reaction:

michellegallen - Use BaseCamp myself, but haven't fallen in love. Perhaps I shouldn't expect love from project management software?

This astounded me. I couldn’t understand why someone would use an additional solution for organization and project management and not love it.

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As we’ve mentioned before, workplace communication is one of the most important factors to the success of the business. By having an open communication system in your office, team members will feel free to work together, and employees will be able to talk with managers when necessary.

Better communication also increases trust and collaboration between teams. By getting the basics of good professional communication down, all the people in your business will feel more connected, and increase success on all business projects.

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It’s time to share another OnePlace case study, and what better way to honor St. Patrick’s Day than to share the success story of a local brewery?

Lift Bridge Beer Company, based in Stillwater, MN, started as a hobby business, and needed some help organizing their distributed workforce. Because most people still had day jobs, the tasks associated with getting the brewery up and running were sent via email. This process led to lost tasks and forgotten notes.

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For most of the United States, yesterday marked the start of Daylight Savings Time - the wonderful time of year when we set our clocks forward one hour and suddenly it is much lighter in the evening. Now we can go out for walks on a nice Spring evening, or just enjoy the fact that it is no longer dark out when we are heading home from the office.

The hardest part of the switch to Daylight Savings time every year is the event of “Springing Forward” - where we effectively lose an hour to our day. This can cause people to feel a little behind during the Sunday on which we change our clocks, to feeling sleepy the next day at work.

Here are a few tips to stay productive when moving to Daylight Savings Time:

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We’ve discussed how staying connected to your teammates is an important step toward overall business success. We like to make sure everyone on our team can communicate with each other and stay up to date on other’s activity, as this allows us to build on projects, tasks and ideas together.

One main way we at OnePlace stay connected is through Team Pulse. Team Pulse allows us to know what the others are currently working on, and ask questions directly to one person, the members of one workplace or the entire company.

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When starting and running a small business, there are times when disorganization can take control. But it’s all how you manage your business people and information that can increase organizational success in your business.

This week we are highlighting some of last week’s blog posts on increasing organization in your business. Here are some of our favorites.

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It’s true that business teams can benefit from some good team collaboration and increased communication. It increases the connection felt by team members, and encourages participation in all projects. With this increased communication, teams increase the success of the business.

But there’s another team that could benefit from a bit of collaboration - your home team. No, I don’t mean your favorite home town baseball or football team; I mean the team comprised of your family members.

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At OnePlace, we strongly believe that collaboration is the key to business success. Allow everyone an opportunity to participate on a project, and everyone can be proud of the results.

By integrating online team collaboration tools into project management, small business teams are able to keep all communications and projects organized in a centralized location. This can lead to increased task management, increased collaboration on projects and less information lost - allowing your team to be more successful.

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Something we strongly believe in at OnePlace is the ability to give back whatever we can to the community. Our team members participate in local non-profit organizations, but we always want to do more for others.

It’s because of this that we offer OnePlace free of charge to non-profits, charity organizations and school. We want to help all businesses and organizations increase their small business success, and OnePlace is the solution that can help do that.

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At OnePlace, we believe that companies - large and small - can benefit from online business organization and project management solutions. They are the right tools for encouraging your team to be as successful as they can be.

Here are a few posts published last week that offer some great tips for small and large businesses - highlighting everything from project management tips to ways to keep your employees dedicated to their jobs.

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Last week, we wrote about how file sharing and file versioning within OnePlace can be a great team collaboration solution. This is especially true when many members of a large team need to update one file before a meeting or presentation.

Imagine what would happen if there weren’t a good system for tracking versions of files - how would a team know that all updates and additions were made in the right places across each version of the file? This is exactly what happened to Mark, the manager of a design company who had just landed his first big client.

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Good online project management software will allow users to view detailed reports of the status of a project. This is exactly what OnePlace offers.

OnePlace allows users to view reports for any workplace or project, and be able to visually see the status of that project. Now, project managers will be able to see at a glance how many tasks are completed, how much time has been spent and which team member has been working the most.

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We love talking with our current and potential customers. Because of this, we are offering a OnePlace Web Demo every Thursday morning for attendees to learn more about OnePlace and how it can make their business even more efficient and effective.

At 11am CST each Thursday morning, join Steve Kickert - CEO and co-founder of OnePlace - as he takes you through using OnePlace to improve your small business organization and communication. You will review the different features of OnePlace, including online project management, team collaboration, discussions and file sharing. You will also learn how OnePlace will empower your people to be successful, so your business is too.

You can register for the OnePlace Web Demo on our homepage at http://www.oneplacehome.com to hear more about how OnePlace can positively impact your business.

See you on Thursday!

Riverock Technologies, a software development company based in Minnesota, was founded in 2007 with one goal in mind - to provide employees with a balanced life while allowing the team to create small business software that people love to use. Riverock Technologies developed OnePlace to do just that.

OnePlace was created as the solution to effectively manage the complex projects that come with developing software. OnePlace also combines this information with personal organization to increase personal productivity. With OnePlace, users can organize their personal and professional lives in a way that keeps all tasks and projects in a central location and alleviates the stress of not knowing what is on deck for tomorrow.

OnePlace allows the team at Riverock Technologies to manage projects online and follow the agile development practices of the software industry. OnePlace is the main tool used for communication and collaboration between team members, using features such as Discussions and Team Pulse to ask questions and keep the team updated on the status of tasks. And because Riverock Technologies is a virtual company, OnePlace keeps everyone connected, making it feel like the rest of the team is in the next office.

This solution is perfect for the Riverock Technologies team, and has proven to be perfect for other small businesses as well. Read more about how OnePlace has improved business, organization and communication for Riverock Technologies, and sign up for a free 14-day trial of OnePlace to improve your business success.

All small businesses are looking for more ways to be more efficient and effective. There are online solutions available to increase this effectiveness, many of them inexpensive enough for anyone to use.

Last week, many blog posts were published discussing these tools to increase business efficiency. Here are a few of our favorites:

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This morning I read an article from Candice Arnold called “A Positive Attitude at Work Could Make Tough Times Easier to Bear”. The article struck me as interesting, as I try to stay positive most of the time, and I try not to let the little things get me down.

But this article went ahead to explain that business owners - while trying to make it through the tough economic times - may be putting on a positivity charade in front of their employees. They may be saying that everything is fine; meanwhile their business is crumbling around them.

On the other hand, business owners shouldn’t fall down the negativity rabbit hole either - all that brings is gloom and doom, and no one is encouraged to get any work done because they feel it’s worthless.

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We truly believe that a strong team collaboration solution is the key to a growing small business. Collaboration and communication are the cornerstones for bringing team members together on projects and improving business success.

OnePlace offers many different features that aid teams in working together on projects. One of our more unique team collaboration solutions is our file sharing feature.

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OnePlace is proud to say that we have some great customers with whom we work to increase their business success. And they help us too. We thrive off of customer feedback and are always working to make our small business organization solution better.

One of the customers who has offered some great suggestions to OnePlace is Accountants-4-Less - a provider of back office solutions for businesses that need a way to better manage time consuming tasks. And in turn, Accountants-4-Less has received a great business benefit from OnePlace.

Accountants-4-Less had been using Basecamp from 37Signals for a couple years prior to moving over to OnePlace. They liked how OnePlace gave them more features for less money, and the hierarchical project feature better suited their project management needs.

After utilizing OnePlace in 2008, Accountants-4-Less was able to reduce time spent on project management by 50%. Now the staff has more time to focus on keeping their clients happy rather than managing tasks in another project management system.

You can read the entire Accountants-4-Less case study on our website, and view other case studies to see how more small businesses are using OnePlace to increase the success of their people and their business.

Last week was a busy week for project management with hundreds of blog posts being written about the topic. This is a key indicator to how important a good online project management solution can be.

Here is an overview of some of the more popular project management posts that came out last week.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day coming up this Sunday, the OnePlace team wanted to share how much we love and care about our customers and their success. We thrive off of your feedback to keep making OnePlace better and better.

And OnePlace users love us too - below is a list of the Top 5 most loved OnePlace features that keep our customers successful in their personal and professional lives.

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In online project management, the ability to track time spent on tasks is almost as important as the ability to manage tasks in the first place. Knowing how long it takes to complete a task or a project aids in project planning and ultimately the team’s success of that project.

For small business project management, effective time tracking can mean the difference between a well-oil machine and an over-worked stressed out team. You want to make sure you are planning appropriately for the capacity of your team, as well as giving yourself enough room to complete quality work in a timely manner.

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When you think about it, there aren’t many companies that couldn’t benefit from any type of project and task management system. There are certain small businesses that don’t need this type of solution yet, but if they have any hope of being successful in the future, finalizing processes and getting organized now will definitely help.

Task management software like OnePlace can keep individuals organized, as well as business teams. And for a growing business, strong organization is necessary.

Imagine how you would handle Annie’s situation without a project management system. Annie is a young accounting professional that, after getting her first taste of the corporate world, decided to go out on her own and start a financial virtual assistant company. Annie helps small businesses with their financial needs including accounts payable and receivable and financial forecasting.

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We are starting a new trend every Monday here on our blog, which is to feature blog posts from the past week that we think are informative, educational, interesting or just plain awesome.

Because we at OnePlace focus on increasing small business productivity and employee success, below are some great new blog posts featuring additional ways to improve upon that success.

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The world seems to be changing faster than ever. With the aid of new technology and the emerging personalities of new generations entering the workforce, the traditional ways of doing business are being pushed back to make way for new business practices.

There may be people in your company who don’t know how to use email. There may be people who need a business organization solution to keep projects straight. Entry-level students who grew up with the internet don’t know how to work without social media and team collaboration tools. You are going to need to offer training and education for many members of your team throughout the life of your business.

Whether you are hiring someone new or looking to enhance the skills of your current team, there are many options available to improve their workforce skills.

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When we developed OnePlace a few years ago, we wanted to ensure our solution met the needs of small businesses to increase their business success. One need we saw over and over again was the need for project management within the business.

Online project management allows you and your business team to organize and manage projects and tasks in an efficient and effective way. Keeping track of projects across multiple team members can be a bit challenging without the aid of an online solution. We kept all this in mind when developing OnePlace.

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A main component of our small business organization solution is online project management. We are all very organized people, and like to help others stay organized as well.

Because of Post-It Notes, calendar updates and reminders on your cell phone, there are just as many ways to manage tasks as there are tasks to complete. And while we love it when stuff gets done, we want to make sure the people in your business are remembering what to do, and getting the right things done.

Here are 5 ways to manage tasks more effectively to ensure greater efficiency:

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The OnePlace team is dedicated to using OnePlace to help organize our professional and personal lives. And if we weren’t, what kind of advocates would we be for our small business solution?

Since joining the team, I have become increasingly aware of the intricacies of OnePlace and all the cool features that make this solution great. I want to take this time to point out some of these great features in OnePlace to aid some of our current customers in using OnePlace to its fullest extent.

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I recently came across an article published in October 2009 from Web Worker Daily entitled The Pomodoro Technique: A GTD Alternative?” After reading the article, I found myself relating to the issues that the Pomodoro Technique claims to alleviate.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Pomodoro Technique is a way to manage time and projects to get the most accomplished. It targets those people who are easily distracted by outside factors when trying to get work done, and those who have anxiety over looming deadlines and the “ticking clock.”

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At OnePlace, we take any chance we can to make small businesses more efficient and effective. There are hundreds of available tools to keep the individual productive, and we like to think we bridge the gap between personal productivity and small business productivity tools with OnePlace.

We also know that in order to be successful, sometimes all it takes is a cheerleader in our corner encouraging us to be the best we can be. That is why we wanted to highlight some of our favorite productivity blogs here - to share with you a few more resources to help you manage tasks.

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Even in today’s economy, there are new small businesses starting up left and right. Once an idea is formed, a multitude of meetings have to occur to plan for success, such as making sure the business strategy is secure, identifying the sales and marketing plan and key messaging, and targeting the right prospects.

It’s a true fact that there are too many meetings in business. On the flip side, it is true that meetings do need to exist. The trick is making meetings as efficient and effective as possible.

When working with OnePlace as your online collaboration solution, discussions play an important role in eliminating the need for multiple meetings, and can impact the major decisions that make a business successful.

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Do you ever have those days where you were really busy, but didn’t end up getting anything accomplished? Or when you can’t overlook the amount of work you have to complete, so you just don’t do anything?

The team at OnePlace knows how important it is to keep on top of your goals to get work accomplished. Heck, that is why OnePlace was created! We believe that task management and team collaboration can improve the efficiency of any small business team and make them more productive.

Here are some easy to follow tips for improving your business productivity:

1. Schedule Your Work - Outlining exactly what you have to accomplish each day and managing your tasks gives you a nice visual of all your work, and allows you to choose which to work on next. And nothing beats the feeling of checking things off your to do list! (read a blog post on scheduling here)
2. Take Notes - Have you ever left a meeting and forgotten your next steps? Take notes when in meetings, on the phone or anytime they pop into your mind. This saves time by not having to revisit the conversations later.
3. Organize Your Workspace - A chaotic workspace can distract you from the work at hand. Make sure your desk and computer desktop are neat and organized prior to beginning your work.
4. Open the Doors of Collaboration - Brainstorming with team members is a powerful tool. So is the opportunity to run an idea by a coworker to see if you’re on the right track. Team collaboration tools help to open the doors and keep team members connected all day.
5. Love Your Job - If you don’t like your job, you are automatically going to suck at it. Make sure that you are doing the best for your boss and yourself by finding the right job for you. If it helps, take a career assessment to find out what skills match your personality best.
6. Know When to Procrastinate - Procrastination is one of the worst time-sucks in the workplace - but there is a time and place to procrastinate. By managing your tasks, you can complete what you feel like completing, and move the other items out to another time.
7. Attack the Big Rocks - There are some tasks, however, that need to be worked on right away. Start working on those “big rocks” first thing in the morning. Once you get them done, you’ll feel more accomplished for the day.
8. Delegate to Team Members - If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the work in front of you, ask a coworker for a bit of help. Taking 5 minutes to reassign a task and explain it to someone else will free up a lot of task time for you to accomplish everything else.
9. Exercise - A mid-day heart rate boost can increase productivity for the afternoon. If you can’t do jumping jacks in your office, a lunchtime walk works just as well.
10. Keep Team Members in the Loop - By sharing your to do list with coworkers, you are instantly held accountable for completing that work. Ensure you are using a team collaboration solution that offers transparency and allows team members to see other’s work easily to manage that accountability.
11. Eliminate Distractions - Get rid of email, Twitter, Facebook, and other distractions on your computer and get to work. Without the distractions of questions, tweets and status updates, you will find yourself working harder on your task list.
12. Work When You’re Productive - There are always going to be times in the day when you are more productive than others. For me, it’s first thing in the morning. Identify these times for yourself, and plan your work accordingly.
13. Just Do It - Sometimes the best way to get stuff done is to start working. Get to work and see how much you can do :-)

Being aware of what you have to accomplish can help push you get more done. Learn what tools help you work more efficiently and continue to use them to wow your boss and feel good about your work.

What other tools do you use to keep productive?

OnePlace is enabling charities and non-profit organizations to continue helping out in a more efficient way by offering free online project management and team collaboration.

New Life Church - located in Foley, MN and currently meeting in the Foley High School - needed a bit of help collaborating with employees and members. They turned to OnePlace as a virtual solution to aid in team collaboration and project management. Now the New Life Church can more easily communicate with team members and keep more organized on current and upcoming tasks.

OnePlace is proud to welcome New Life Church into the OnePlace family. We look forward to giving back to those charities and non-profits that give of themselves as we expand OnePlace and our online project management solutions.

With business expanding and OnePlace continuing to grow, we are pleased to bring on Dana Larson as the new Marketing Manager on the Riverock team!

Originally from Wisconsin (Go Packers!) Dana attended college at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities and graduated with a degree in Strategic Communications and a love for marketing.

For nearly 3 years after graduation, Dana worked at the Twin Cities internet marketing firm TopRank Online Marketing as their Search Marketing Supervisor. Her role at TopRank included everything from executing keyword research to social media marketing to developing and implementing client marketing strategies and back again.

When not marketing and promoting OnePlace, Dana loves to take naps, eat pizza dipped in ranch dressing, travel and spend time with her family.

We are excited to have Dana as a part of our team and look forward to the business growing even more!