Posted by Matt Geiser on April 19, 2011
AnotherPlace - This was a sensitive word with the OnePlace founding team. They did not want to hear that their OnePlace social software for teams could easily be delegated as “AnotherPlace”. I joined the OnePlace team one year ago as a business development consultant and, of course, I had to challenge the product’s value. Collaboration is cool, but is it worth the hassle of another software application, and another subscription? As I came up to speed on Social Business Software space, I looked at dozens of applications that were developed to enhance team performance while leveraging the social aspects of popular interfaces like Facebook and Twitter, they all were AnotherPlace: each valuable in their own right, but not critical tools.
Now as a part Bluewater, 22 people are using OnePlace daily to various degrees. For some it replaces the network drive where files used to be stored. Others use it to share their daily conquests, collaborate and/or manage their daily workloads. This morning I received a team activity report from OnePlace that showed OP usage by individual and the overall team; the numbers were impressive and the range of usage by team member is wide. User adoption is very individualistic in collaborative solutions and that is okay, as long as every user sees value in participating in the discussion.
In the new software model, solutions are casually brought in by the team, and users are not forced to adopt them. Rather users now need to find value on their own terms. The new model isn’t all or nothing, instead value is driven at an individual level, and team adoption reflects that. For everyone on our team the consensus is that OnePlace isn’t AnotherPlace, rather it has become ThePlace for team social and work activity.
Posted by Dana Larson on December 20, 2010
As you are probably aware, increased business communications enhances workplace satisfaction and overall business success. These days, businesses focus more on improving their communication to build up their employees rather than forcing them into producing work. This business management style is going a long way toward a more open, professional culture that improves the work experience and ultimately moves the business forward.
One challenge with this open communication culture is how to organize those communications. Is there a good way to store information, dialogues, decisions and notes based on spoken communication? How about finding ideas buried in email inboxes? What if someone forgets a key decision and a project isn’t started on time? These are all questions businesses are facing with regard to facilitating open dialogues in the office.
So, how can you organize these business communications? Here are a few tips that will keep your team more productive as a result.
Posted by Dana Larson on December 13, 2010
Cloud computing doesn’t just have to be for business information storage. Don’t let the overly techie name fool you - cloud computing can be useful for all people in your business. Everyone from the IT guy to the part-time administrative assistant can use cloud computing systems to improve their business processes.
One of the great benefits to cloud computing is the act of easy information sharing. Documents and resources from one computer can automatically be stored up in the cloud, and accessed by anyone else on the team from anywhere at any time. This process, in effect, triggers more effective team collaboration.
Posted by Dana Larson on December 06, 2010
You may have heard of cloud computing in the past, as it is becoming more and more popular in the business world these days. What it is though, is a bit more technical than some small businesses are looking into at the moment.
Cloud computing is essentially putting your business information “in the cloud”, or on an Internet server, and accessing it on demand. This allows for improved share-ability between teammates, businesses and service providers. If you need to have access to some information instantly, you can find it on the cloud easily and securely.
But what exactly are the benefits of cloud computing? Does your business need it? Can cloud computing improve business efficiency? Perhaps. Here’s why.
Posted by Dana Larson on November 22, 2010
In today’s business world, improving communications is being thought of as the key to ongoing success of the business. No longer can teammates work separately from one another. Staying in touch and working with others is what will help move the business forward into the future.
While there are many tools to improve your workplace communications, including classes, software and open floor plans, we will take this time to review with you what benefits you can expect once you’ve implemented the improved communication plan.
So, what can you expect from improved workplace communications?
Posted by Dana Larson on November 15, 2010
Business collaboration software is, as its name implies, a software that facilitates better collaboration among business teams. Not only can it help your team communication better around the work at hand, but it can help your team get work done faster and with higher quality.
Collaboration software can even help bring teams closer together. Now, rather than spending a great deal of time and money on team building activities, utilizing the tools at hand can bring about the same result.
So how can collaboration software help build a stronger team?
Posted by Dana Larson on September 28, 2010
So, you think it’s time to implement a new collaboration solution. Great! We think it’s time too. Business collaboration can bring about many benefits, and really connect teams.
If you know all that, you’ve just got to get your boss’s approval to move forward with the implementation of your new solution. This may sound easier than it actually is. A lot of times, supervisors know they want a new solution, but they aren’t sure how to put it in place, or aren’t willing to take the time to figure it out and understand it.
Posted by Dana Larson on September 16, 2010
Yesterday, The SMB Group released their latest study: "Moving Beyond Email - The Era of SMB Online Collaboration Suites." This study takes a look at the collaboration market for small and medium-sized businesses, and analyzes the service offerings of eight different collaboration solutions. OnePlace was one of the eight solutions reviewed and compared.
From the press release announcing the study's release: "The report features the SMB Readiness Grid and detailed comparison reports designed to help SMBs evaluate solutions based on several criteria, including: company strengths, solution capabilities, and marketing strategies relevant to the SMB market. Vendors examined in the report include: Google Apps for Business, HyperOffice, IBM LotusLive, Microsoft BPOS, OnePlace, Salesforce Chatter, VMware Zimbra and Zoho. Detailed vendor profiles are also included in the study."
Posted by Dana Larson on September 02, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 26, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 23, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 19, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 17, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 16, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 12, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 10, 2010
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?
Posted by Dana Larson on August 03, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on July 27, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on July 20, 2010
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?
Posted by Dana Larson on July 13, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on July 09, 2010
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!
Posted by Dana Larson on July 06, 2010
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”
Posted by Dana Larson on June 30, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 28, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 24, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 21, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 17, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 10, 2010
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?”
Posted by Dana Larson on June 07, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on June 01, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 27, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 25, 2010
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?
Posted by Dana Larson on May 24, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 20, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 17, 2010
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!
Posted by Dana Larson on May 13, 2010
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.