My top 6 Digital Collaboration Tools
If you are a frequent reader of this blog you know that I have been talking a lot about the concepts around collaboration. I firmly believe that the web has created the most fertile ground in history for uber-powerful collaboration to take place. In this article I am going to share with you 6 tools that I use frequently for collaboration and why I use them. I would love any other suggestions you might have for tools that you find particularly usefull as well.
1. Twitter – Ok, Twitter might sound like a cliche tool but Twitter has become my large net. What I mean is that I am able to scan for specific terms and chat with many over the twitter interface using tweetdeck or seesmic desktop. If I am looking for information on a certain topic or people with a specific interest Twitter is the quickest way to do this. Not a lot of deep collaboration happens here for me but it provides massive access to people I might never have known.
2. Skype – Skype is a free tool that allows you to make free skype to skype audio and video calls as well as text chat. Skype is a great tool for one to one or one to few collaboration. I have been using it for one to one for many years and plan to use it for an upcoming mastermind group that I have formed with some close friends and colleagues. I suggest starting your own weekly mastermind session. heck, schedule a skype video lunch with someone who you want to connect with!
3. Google Docs – Google docs is a pretty well known tool for collaborating on documents with a team. In fact the entire google office like sweet allows for collaboration and editing. You have the ability to set permissions for those with editing capabilities as well as those that are only able to view.
4. Google Wave – Wave can be a bit choppy at times and not so easy to use, but it is still in beta. The potential of wave is huge, but I mainly use it for project notes and brainstorming. Wave allows multiple people to add to a document and threads together all of the workings within a specified project. If you are sharing websites, notes, documents, and actively brainstorming a project give wave a try.
5. Yammer – Much like twitter yammer is private and by invite only. Yammer works by email extensions. So if you have a number of people with a similar email extension then any of the updates made in yammer would be visible to them. You also have the ability to group and friend people the same way you can on twitter. This is very convenient in large organizations. If more organizations utilized the power of yammer they could possibly take a huge amount of weight off the email servers.
6. Dropbox – The final collaboration tool is perhaps the most powerful and underused. Dropbox is cloud storage for large files. If you work collaboratively on large documents, photo editing, video, or audio dropbox is a must have. These files are often too time consuming and large to send by email. Dropbox allows to to drop a file into a shared folder and distribute to the collaborators. When I was learning how to produce audio podcasts John Meadows and I wore out our dropbox accounts.
Tomorrow I will share my 6 favorite WordPress plugins.
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Comments
Glenda, a board of mentors sounds great! For your note taking and having a great place to store ideas I think Evernote is a great option (http://www.evernote.com/) They are always making great additions and improving the app. If you are an iPhone user they have an app that will sync to the desktop. If you have a blackberry or other smartphone there is a good chance they have an app for that too. Give Evernote a try and let me know how you like it.
Keith
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Thanks Keith! I’ll go play around with Evernote and see if it does what I have in mind.
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To grow my own teeny business, I’ve been pondering putting together a Board of Mentors – a group willing to allow me to occasionally pick their brains. And I’ve been wondering what tool would work best for collaborating and keep track of tidbits, ideas, resources. Might Google Wave work here?