A number of new collaboration tools -- both standalone and delivered on-demand, with many based on Web 2.0 technologies -- enable smaller businesses to collaborate and share information and files in real time, without the typical, related costs or IT management overhead. Learn how companies are putting them to work
Don't want to install and manage SharePoint, or any other so-called enterprise groupware suite? Increasingly, you don't have to. A number of new collaboration tools -- both installed in-house or delivered on-demand, with many based on Web 2.0 technologies -- now enable smaller organizations to collaborate in online spaces, conference over the Web, and share files in real time, without the typical, related costs or IT management overhead.
Take Zeus Jones, a "non-traditional marketing firm" based in Minneapolis with 11 employees who have been using a collaboration tool called Yugma since working with a graphic designer based remotely. "It was one of those things we didn't know we needed until we started to use it," says partner Christian Erickson.
Yugma, which is available as a quick download (like many such tools, the basic version is free), provides a persistent Web conference meeting space, and also includes file and screen sharing, which Zeus Jones routinely uses for a quick, "digital look over the shoulder" of a work in progress. "We can instantly hop on and give someone immediate feedback," even when traveling, says Erickson. This approach also sidesteps the version control issues associated with swapping files or presentations.
No Suite Required
Of course, Zeus Jones isn't alone. Many companies are adopting or investigating more lightweight collaboration, communication, and workspace tools, such as standalone software for file-sharing or document collaboration, blogs for knowledge-sharing, and wikis for whiteboarding or even project management. These tools are no Notes, SharePoint, or Groove. But for many, that's the point.
Yet, are these more lightweight collaboration options up to the challenge? Many say yes. "The truth is, it's much better in the mini-services or Web 2.0-type world, to say this is what we do, we're the best at it, and we're going to offer compatibility and plug-in ability to a bunch of other services," says Erickson. "The days of 'Lotus Notes or Outlook, we use one or the other'? Those days are over."
Don't Miss: Tool Talk: More on the collaboration tools mentioned in this story
The Medium is the Message
The increased availability of more lightweight collaboration tools, besides being an obvious offshoot of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, may also be a rebuke to enterprise groupware, which historically promised collaboration -- a one-stop shop for e-mail, document and file sharing, news, databases, and more -- but often undelivered.
According to Kara Pernice, who managed the first user experience program for the Lotus Notes Client, Designer, and Domino Server products, and is now director of research for Nielsen Norman Group, a usability consulting firm, "if you think about Lotus Notes, that really shot itself in the foot, with its proprietary elements, and the difficulty of administering it." Later, some of the Notes team produced Groove, "which was trying to be this cool, hip thing, but the user interface side didn't quite hit the mark."
Interface flaws aside, she says these programs are used to good effect in some organizations. Yet their failings also point to what's essential for a collaboration tool to succeed: It needs to be easy to deploy, not too proprietary, and easy for IT to manage.
All that aside, "what makes something catch like wildfire? A lot of it really is the interface," she notes. "You have to feel like this is better than e-mail, picking up the phone, or stopping by someone's desk, and inflicting a difficult interface on someone isn't going to be a better choice for people."
Next Page: Wikis, Mature Tools, and SaaS
