Posted by Dana Larson on September 03, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 30, 2010
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.
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 11, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on August 05, 2010
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.
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 14, 2010
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.
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 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 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 14, 2010
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.
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 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 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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 11, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 04, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on May 03, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on April 29, 2010
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!
Posted by Dana Larson on April 26, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on April 22, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on April 19, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on April 08, 2010
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!
Posted by Denis Ahearn on March 24, 2010
If you are familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel, then you might recall that Hansel laid a trail of breadcrumbs for him and his sister to follow in order that they could find their way back home. Unfortunately, the breadcrumbs were eaten by hungry birds, and the two children ended up getting lost in the woods and eventually bumped into a rather nasty witch. The fact that they had no history of where they'd been, and subsequently no way to back track nearly led to their undoing.
One of the lessons learned from this fable, is that it's a good idea to have a permanent history that you can follow to see where you've been and what you've done. Online organization and collaboration solutions like OnePlace do this for you automatically. Like a dutiful scribe, they sit silently in the background recording your every move. And when you need to go back in time to see what was done and by whom, these solutions provide the time machine to follow the trail of edits exactly as they occurred.
Posted by Dana Larson on March 23, 2010
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.
Posted by Denis Ahearn on March 18, 2010
At OnePlace, we understand that when life and work get busy, the best advice is often to work smarter, not harder. To that end, we've put together a list of ten ways for getting more from OnePlace, so that you can work smarter, not harder.
Posted by Steve Kickert on March 10, 2010
One of the first things taught in management courses is the idea of delegating for success. This does not mean passing along all your work so you don’t have to do anything - this means splitting out the work among the appropriate members of the team to enhance the outcome of the project.
Team collaboration is bringing a lot of companies into the next tier of success. This is indicating that those managers know how to organize their team to be most efficient, and team members are working hard together to be the most effective.
Posted by Dana Larson on March 05, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on March 04, 2010
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.
Posted by Steve Kickert on March 03, 2010
It’s no surprise that the more communication occurring between a business team, the more connected they feel, the more productive they are and the more successful the business is. And with an increase in communication training for managers and supervisors, the trend and success of increased communication will be continuing into the future of business.
What business teams are also coming to realize is that strong team collaboration is what connects everyone to increase that communication. Identifying ways to bring a business team together on a project is an important step in the direction of increased business success.
So what about communication and collaboration increases business success?
Posted by Dana Larson on January 25, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on January 18, 2010
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.
Posted by Dana Larson on January 07, 2010
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.
Posted by Steve Kickert on October 25, 2009
After three solid months of work, the NEW and MUCH improved version of OnePlace shipped today.
I would like to thank all our customers for helping us make OnePlace a success and for giving us your valuable feedback. Hopefully, you will see some of your great ideas implemented in this new version.
Click here to check out the new OnePlace.
Click here to see the complete release notes
Regards,
The OnePlace Team
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Posted by Denis Ahearn on January 20, 2009
Once in a while someone will ask us why we decided to create OnePlace, especially when you consider the number of other online tools that are available today for helping manage your projects and tasks and for collaborating with others. We have a pretty standard response to that question that I thought would be fun to share in this blog.
Posted by Denis Ahearn on January 14, 2009
Launching a startup was never considered easy. As if developing a business plan, getting funding, and focusing hard on product development wasn't enough, the entrepreneur has to worry about attracting key employees, taxes and benefits, creating a pleasant working environment, and building a culture of teamwork and collaboration.
But today's startups face an even more difficult challenge: working effectively as virtual teams. Almost every startup these days, certainly in my experience, is at least partially made up of dispersed employees—oftentimes in different cities or states, and sometimes even spread across country boundaries. Many startups, at least in the technology field, are made up entirely of individuals in separate locations. How then do they function? How can the entrepreneur possibly succeed with his or her venture if there's no single "place" where employees can regularly meet and work? Email and instant messaging are not the answer—teams become quickly overwhelmed trying to manage their collective work that way.
Posted by Denis Ahearn on December 31, 2008
2008 was a very busy year at Riverock Technologies. Our sole mission during this entire year was to prepare for successfully launching OnePlace into the market. Every day was spent focusing on this goal, which we achieved back in September when we released OnePlace for general use, and officially opened the proverbial doors for business.
So, before we close the books on 2008 and turn our attention towards the year to come, we thought it would be fun to take one last look in the rear view mirror to see what happened to OnePlace during this past year.
Posted by Denis Ahearn on December 12, 2008
One of the keys of effective team collaboration is what we like to call staying in-the-know. Knowing what your teammates have done, are doing, and plan to do is crucial for making sure that your efforts align properly with those of your team.
Unfortunately, keeping informed is not easy. Think about the team you're on right now. How many members does it have? How many initiatives is your team tackling right now? How much new information does your team receive on a daily basis? How much of what you knew yesterday will change today? Did you lose a team member yesterday? Did you gain a new one today? I could go on, but you get the point. Keeping track of all those things is difficult, and you need help.
Posted by Graeme Thickins on November 28, 2008
One thing we can say about our crack development team, they are ever-vigilant. They upgraded OnePlace™ again on 11/23/08 at 7:30am CST—even though it's been less than a week since the last upgrade! The OnePlace™ team added several enhancements that have been requested by nearly everyone. Here are the highlights of this latest upgrade:
• Project "Save As" - Now you can make a copy of a project!
• List "Save As" - Make as many copies of a list as you want.
• New Bookmarks List type - Share your bookmarks with your teammates, or just keep all your favorite bookmarks in one place.
• Export Tasks preview - If you're using the Export Tasks capability, then you will love this new capability.
• TeamPulse filter update - There are now separate settings for determining: 1) who you're pulsing to, and 2) which pulses do you want to see?
That last feature will strike a chord with Twitter users! (It's part of our recently announced TeamCentral capability.) First, you can actually select who you want following you (something you can't do in Twitter). Secondly, you can select which of your team members you want to follow (same as in Twitter)—so that you're sure to see all their ongoing updates, or "pulses" as we say in OnePlace™ lingo. Best of all, it's easy for you to adjust either of these selections anytime via this TeamPulse "filter."
Posted by Denis Ahearn on November 24, 2008
In the two years that we've been focusing on providing a solution to the problems that teams face when collaborating on complex projects, it never ceases to amaze me how often we bump into people who tell us they basically use nothing more than email and instant messaging to collaborate on projects. When we meet new people related to what we do here at Riverock Technologies, we like to ask them about the tools they are currently using on their team to help them manage projects and collaborate on doing those projects. Time and time again the answer we hear, delivered with a somewhat sheepish expression, is email. Of course, we also hear of tools such as Microsoft Project and Sharepoint being used, but clearly it's in the minority. When we ask follow up questions on the usage of those tools, we usually find out they're not really being used by the people doing the actual work. Most if not all collaboration happens using email.
Posted by Graeme Thickins on November 24, 2008
Over the weekend, we were honored to be included in an article in the PioneerPress, one of two major dailies in these parts (and one whose circulation is actually growing). It appeared in Sunday's business section: "Private Twitter-like microblogging services can facilitate communication, cooperation among employees working on the same team or project." 
The writer was longtime local technology reporter Julio Ojeda-Zapata, who also happens to be one of the most plugged-in reporters in the country in the ways of social media, including Twitter (he's even written a book, just being released: "Twitter Means Business").
Posted by Mark Peterson on November 06, 2008
In this day and age, many of us spend at least part of our mental bandwidth worrying about global warming, recycling, carbon footprints, carbon debts, and greenhouse gases. It's amazing to think that, only a few short years ago, most of these terms weren't even part of our vernacular and now they're part of our daily lives.
When thinking of ways to make ourselves more eco-friendly, software isn't usually the first thing that springs to mind. However, using the right software as part of your work and personal routine can indeed reduce your carbon footprint. How so? Mainly by reducing your need to travel.