Collaboration Approach from Roelto
Real time online collaboration tools for businesses is certainly an area that is of great interest and applies to all businesses large and small. I thought we might have a look “What Does Real Time Collaboration Look Like?” and how it can support Team collaboration as well as collaboration for business.
Improving business with real time collaboration
There are some great tools and applications readily available to use by everyone from children, single business owners to large corporations. Like many of you and as I have mentioned previously, we have all used various technologies with varying degrees of success and frustration such as Video Conferencing (when it worked), to email, Skype, WebEx, FaceBook, YouTube, Google, to more specific commercial applications and technologies. All of which, I think are being driven by a few key trends that I have listed below in no particular order. I am sure there are a few more on your list also but here these trends could be used to take advantage of and improve your business:
- Social Networking – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube – Video
- Mobile Devices – there seem to be more mobile phone shops on the street than all of the supermarkets added together
- Internet – Cloud, Cloud, Cloud, Cloud as long as it has Cloud in it your okay
- Cultural and Social Change – people are more open to collaborating without physically meeting one another
- Sustainability – green, jobs, society, buildings, energy, value…….
- Economic recession – let’s try and talk about growth instead
- Globalisation – the network is complex, extensive and has no borders, thanks to the Internet
There is also a change in vocabulary when people are articulating or presenting a point of view – words that were not used several years ago but our now common place. The few that I have noted are:
- Sustainability – I started hearing and using this after Al Gore’s video, “An Inconvenient Truth”
- Billion – until the economic implosion you hardly ever heard this number, now even my 6 year old son uses it when describing how many sweets he would like!
- Collaboration – use to be communication, but I think this word has taken over
For the last couple of years I have been focussing my consulting around providing collaboration services. In doing so I came to my own conclusion that if you are going to talk, present and consult for a fee then being able to demonstrate this collaboration to the potentially billions of people around the world in a sustainable (BINGO!) way, then you better be able to demonstrate it.
Real time collaboration as a future strategy
Real Time Collaboration I suggest contains several key components and it’s not all technology either. Firstly and most importantly, there has to be a need for people to do it, followed by the people willing to do it. Not all of us are extroverts wanting to collaborate with external people, let alone our internal colleagues, although I am sure that’s because of other reasons which we won’t go into here. But the fact remains that people are the most important part of collaboration because without them nothing happens! FACT. This also links to one of my previous articles about Strategy Collaboration where people need to be involved, take ownership rather than letting other people decide and being told “this is how you will collaborate”. So importantly if you want to do this (real time collaboration) and no disrespect to our IT colleagues, please do this collectively. It’s not just an IT solution. If the people do not buy into it then it will just sit there idle. And finally, the need to do this has largely been driven by the recession, reduction in resources and the need to do more with less. Need I say more?
The technology is the enabler, to help make this happen in a cost effective, intuitive, simple, and sustainable (BINGO) way. There are many technology solutions out there and I don’t intend to go through these today – maybe that’s another article if people are interested?
However, what I will share with you is the solution that I have developed called WaaS (Workshop as a Service) which includes several technologies configured to deliver a Collaboration Service. Refer to Fig 1: Real Time Collaboration which shows a screen shot of an a real time visual collaboration software that I use called SharpCloud.
Visual Collaboration Tools
There are several visual collaboration tools and platforms that you can choose from. Some are simple and are okay but don’t quite cover all the key areas and functionality you need. Hence your collaborations and hybrid working will fail.
SharpCloud Visual Collaboration
The collaboration platform – here I use sharpcloud (see it’s got the word “Cloud” in it). I know this is obvious but this is a cloud based application that allows people to collaborate (BINGO) in a visual and intuitive way to develop strategies, roadmaps and many other end user applications. One of the main benefits here is that you can be up and running within minutes – no extra hardware, software, IT Infrastructure to justify, purchase, install and commission.
The collaboration content – these are the tools, templates and presentations that I have developed and can be shared and used as part of sharpcloud, to facilitate workshops and collaborative meetings, saving time and cost as a key benefit.
The collaboration delivery – there are a couple of ways here. Simply everyone logging on to sharpcloud and dialling into a telephone conference gets everyone online and collaborating. WebEx is another technology that we use and is great for training, webinars and meetings. Finally RADVISON Scopia – this enables us to initiate video conferences to virtually any end point such as a laptop, existing Audio Video Conferencing Systems, desk top Telepresence to mobile smart devices.
The collaboration Interaction – There is the online interaction but when hosted in a room we use sharpcloud through a Touch Screen (Minority Report in Action). This really gets the interaction and collaboration going both on a physical and personal level.
Collaboration tools and methods by Roelto
So instead of writing it down in detail, on several pages for you to read – I thought why not show you a Video, “to paint a picture”.
Free 14 Day SharpCloud Trial
Also I want to give you the opportunity to experience “a real time collaboration platform” like SharpCloud to help you to become more Visually Collaborative, create a Billion different user cases (well not quite), utilising a Sustainable (scalable, cost effective, green IT) solution – BINGO, BINGO, BINGO!
Just leave your details in the form below and I will take of the rest for you.
Keep on collaborating!
Warmly,
Jason