Trello. Basecamp is everyone’s favorite project management app. 15 Free Tools for Web-based Collaboration. No man (or woman) is an island – and this statement can’t be any truer if you’re a designer or developer. Though paid/subscription services like Basecamp and Zimbra are great, individuals strapped for cash have a ton of alternatives that provide similar (if not better) features.
In this article, you’ll find 15 free tools to help you facilitate remote/web-based collaboration. Whether you need basic whiteboarding/brainstorming tools or fully-featured project management applications – you should be able to find a tool or two that’s worth checking out. Google Docs Google Docs is an excellent application for collaboration. You can share documents and spreadsheets and collaborate with your team/clients in real-time. Being a browser-based application – the requirements to get up and running is very minimal. Stixy Stixy is a flexible, online “bulletin board”/drawing board. Project2Manage bubbl.us bubbl.us is a free, web-based application for collaborative brainstorming. Dabbleboard Protonotes Twiddla. Do Collaboration Tools Boost Workplace Communication? A Review of the Academic Research. Anyone in the working world knows this: Meetings are as hard to kill off as a supervillain in a James Bond film.
Despite the mainstreaming of email and other collaboration technologies in the past decade, senior managers still spend about 23 hours per week in face-to-face meetings (Rogelberg and colleagues, 2007). Seventy-two percent of those managers said they spend more time in meetings than they did five years earlier. In this paper, I’ll review the academic research on the impact of email, instant messaging (IM), and video on business collaboration, and suggest the good and bad things that the use of virtual avatars and social networking might bring.
Email: Convenient, but Limited Cartwright and Kovacs (1995) identified three advantages to email: It is quick, it is convenient, and it is inexpensive. 5) Email increases the number of “social loafers” and “free riders.” Luciana immediately becomes concerned that Sophia is angry at their lack of communication. 2) Interruptions. 7 Resources to Improve Workplace Collaboration. 5 tools to improve team collaboration. As the internet continues to break down the traditional barriers of long distance communication, many companies are dipping into talent pools all over the world to make their hires. Skill is becoming more important than location, meaning you may find yourself with a developer evangelist in Austin, a designer in Kansas City, or a marketing specialist living on a ranch in Wyoming. With remote teams comes a lot of time spent collaborating through email on tasks such as presentations and product launches.
While we use our fair share of Google Docs at Dwolla, I’d like to look at a few other tools meant to make team collaboration less painful. After all, who likes a flooded inbox of absurdly long email chains? Asana is an essential part of how our marketing and business development teams work together. Trello is an easy to use task management board, helping you do everything from plan trips with friends to organize work projects.