Web 2.0: Online Collaboration Software and Other Great Tools (download available)

As an online collaboration software vendor, we at GroveSite know a bit about Web 2.0!  I was recently asked to give an overview of 'Web 2.0 and Global Collaboration' for a California trade and economic development conference.  All in 30 minutes!  Undaunted, I tried to get my hands around how best to categorize the wealth of Web 2.0 technology tools, and then try to communicate that to an audience of small businesses, economic development agencies and trade organizations

By the way, if any of you are interested, you can access my Web 2.0 and Global Collaboration PowerPoint deck at http://www.slideshare.net/JaneHagen/web-20-and-the-world-of-global-collaboration-v2010.

Some folks say that Web 2.0 technologies have finally enabled the truly "Writable Web."  That means the information, or content, one can find on the web comes from all kinds of everyday people - business people, consumers, kids (especially kids).  Web content is no longer just the carefully groomed and proofread output of company marketers and their web programmers.

At GroveSite, we like to think of Web 2.0 technologies in three classes: User-generated content, collaborative, and social networking.   For the purposes of my address to this conference, I discussed:

• "User-generated' content
  •  Blogs
  • Podcasts, videos
• Collaborative
  • Web conferencing, desktop sharing 
  • Online workspaces/portals
  • Wikis
• Social Networking
  • Facebook 
  • Twitter 
  • Linked In 

  If you view the PPT, you can see examples of each technology, chosen from the economic development and trade industries.  I used GroveSite for examples of online workspaces/portals and wikis.  Check out a few GroveSite examples in this industry at:

  Shared Product Development Log: http://grovesite.com/grovedemos/pdlog

  Supplier Collaboration and Sample Tracking:  http://grovesite.com/grovedemos/designloft

  Online Communities:  Tradeport Collaborator:  http://grovesite.com/tradeport

  Online Communities:  CA Business Transportation and Housing Agency: http://grovesite.com/cabth/PIAC  

  And thank you for taking the time to peruse this.

Julius A Tavernaro joins the GroveSite team

Julius Tavernaro joined GroveSite this month to help the company implement an aggressive multi-year roadmap for its flagship online collaboration software product. GroveSite already makes it easy to collaborate securely with customers, vendors, partners, and far-flung colleagues. Mr. Tavernaro will lead a major UI project to enhance GroveSite's online file sharing, wiki web pages, project management, discussion forums, online calendars and web database capabilities. 

Julius brings ten years of web development experience to the GroveSite team. He has a natural curiosity and passion for exploring new software technologies that enhance the user experience.  Prior to joining GroveSite, Mr. Tavernaro worked in diverse industries including higher education, consulting, and health care. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Arizona State University.

Feel free to give Julius a call!

Is the virtual workplace a "must"? You bet!

If you are not sure about the benefits of online collaboration workspaces and cloud computing, I recommend “The virtual workplace is a ‘must’ not a ‘should,’“ (KM World, June 2010) a great article authored by Art Murray and Mirghani Mohamed of Applied Knowledge Sciences.   The virtual workplace is one  in which employees can work from anywhere that has internet access.  It relies on web-based technology like GroveSite’s online collaboration workspaces and online databases.   Today you can have your accounting online (think Quickbooks), your sales pipeline online (think Salesforce CRM), your intranet, customer project portals, and vendor collaboration online (think GroveSite).  My laptop died a few years ago and I was able to pick up within the hour on a borrowed machine;  all I needed was an internet connection and my login information to access all my prospects and projects.  Not one iota of data was lost, and productivity loss was almost nil.

What is the cost of NOT having online information and work technologies?  Murray and Mohamed cite the “snowpocalypse,” the blizzard that shut down many Washington DC government offices for four days, as costing a half-billion dollars in lost work time.  I remember working with one of GroveSite’s clients in DC during that storm.  She was curled up at home, logged into her teams’ GroveSites and continuing to work.  Product designers at our retail clients can [and do] work from home to collaborate with overseas vendors, even though their corporate offices are socked in by wintry weather.   If a natural disaster is significant enough to wipe out a brick-and-mortar workplace, companies with traditional brick-and-mortar computing may be out of business.  Online technologies are a true boon for keeping productivity high, managing risk, and ensuring business continuity.

Another great point made by Murray and Mohamed is how online workplaces preserve knowledge.  We speak about this all the time at GroveSite  – not just  in regard to disaster recovery – but in the day-to-day life of a project team or department.   A key project leader or subject expert might retire or leave your company, but if the project’s knowledge – files, discussions, workplans, resources, history – is in an online project site, that knowledge is not lost.  Think how quickly new team members can come up to speed. 

Kudos to the authors for summarizing the rationale for online technologies and workplaces.  We live and breathe this every day!

 

 

 

GroveSite: Extended Maintenance Feb 27 2010 to add hardware capacity

We will be upgrading the GroveSite online collaboration software infrastructure on Saturday February 27, 2010.  This upgrade expands file storage capacity to accommodate current and future growth.

GroveSite's online collaboration service will be inaccessible for up to 24 hours, from 12:01 am MST to 11:59 pm MST on February 27,  2010.  Users who try to access the system during this time will see an “Extended Maintenance” screen.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you or your teams, and appreciate your patience as we continue to innovate and upgrade the services we provide to your organization.

If you have questions please contact us at customerservice@grovesite.com.

Thank you

The GroveSite Team

 

 

 

Tips for Document Management: Upload, Open, Check Out, Check In....

GroveSite's online collaboration software provides great tools for organizing and sharing documents and other files.  Our File Library page type may be the most frequently-used tool in our toolkit!  If you want to learn the basics of uploading a document, updating its category or status, and using Check Out and Check In, just visit the GroveSite Help Desk: Tips for Document Management.  This is an easy one-page guide which you can print for reference if you like.

GroveSite gives you the option of keeping older versions around or not.  If you'd like your team to only have access to the most up-to-date documents, just replace an older document with a new version by clicking the [edit] to the left of the 'row'.  Then attach your new document using the BROWSE button. 

If you'd like to keep older versions of a document available to your team, just upload a new version using the normal [Add a New File] link.  Your new file will be uploaded and listed in its own 'row' on the page.  The file name is displayed, followed by a version number, such as _1.

Client Showcase: The Chronicle of Higher Education

GroveSite is pleased to welcome The Chronicle of Higher Education as a new client to its 'wiki' hosted collaboration service.  The Chronicle, a very prestigious organization, is the primary source of job listings for college and university faculty members and administrators in North America.

The Chronicle's Director of Sales Operations and Production was looking for an easy, collaborative solution for coordinating The Chronicle's advertising sales teams and sales support personnel.  With GroveSite she and her staff have quickly built a secure online Sales Resource Center, internally dubbed the "ChronWiki".   The Chronicle staff have embraced one of GroveSite's powerful features -  the custom web database.  Using our Custom Database Editor, they have quickly built several custom databases in the ChronWiki to track sales opportunities and manage contract processing work flow within their team.

Our staff at GroveSite is proud to support them and thrilled to see the customized collaboration solution they created with a minimal amount of web/phone training from us.

New Features: Database Quick Edit and Quick Discussion Post

GroveSite's online collaboration software now includes Quick Edit and Quick Discussion Post features to further enhance its shared database functionality.  In GroveSite, you can create a simple online database of whatever information is important to your team or project.  This might be Work Orders, Sales Leads, Software Bugs, Permit Status, Construction RFIs, Vendor Quotes, a Product Development Log, Audit Issues and so forth.

The new Quick Edit enables you to edit multiple rows simultaneously;  once you have made your changes, just click Save once.  It's fast and easy.

As our users know, a great thing about GroveSite's database feature is that you can have a 'discussion' area associated with each and every row in the database.   So if your database is for issue tracking, members of the team can add notes, interim status, resolution options, and so forth.  You can also attach files to your comments.   The Quick Discussion Post allows you to enter a comment once, and attach it to multiple rows of the database.

See graphics and examples at the GroveSite Help Desk

GroveSite selected for Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Social Software, 2008

As a co-founder of GroveSite, I am pleased to say how honored we are that GroveSite was selected (for the second year in a row) for inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant industry analyses, the "Gartner Magic Quadrant for Social Software, 2008."   GroveSite was one of only 38 vendors, including giants such as IBM and Microsoft, selected for inclusion.   In its comprehensive study, Gartner evaluated each vendor's ability to execute and its completeness of vision.   In its comments about GroveSite, Gartner again mentioned GroveSite’s strength in “easily customizable workspaces that blend wiki-style text information with more structured file and data exchange" and its “innovative use of "online web-native databases."  

GroveSite's hosted collaboration software has been offered since 2003 in the 'team collaboration software' category.  We have chosen to offer only a hosted (software-as-a-service) version, as our niche is helping clients collaborate with their vendors, customers, and other external partners.  Gartner first developed a Magic Quadrant analysis of this market in 2007, at which time the title of their study was, "Gartner Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration and Social Software." So it is interesting that in 2008, they have attempted to group vendors such as GroveSite -- whose emphasis is online team workspaces -- with vendors who offer  'Facebook'-style social software all under a Social Software moniker.

Back to the 'web-native database' feature mentioned in the study:  GroveSite’s clients are increasingly using this web database feature to support day-to-day workflow between a company and its overseas suppliers.  Our database feature is somewhat unique as it incorporates discussion logs, multiple file attachments with thumbnails, and granular security.  For these clients, GroveSite moves from ‘social community tool' to 'secure web system for vital day-to-day business operations’.  We love it!

McGrath joins GroveSite as CTO

Mr. Mike McGrath has joined GroveSite as Chief Technical Officer.  McGrath has over 17 years experience in the Information Technology industry with an emphasis on the development of complex business software.  Mr. McGrath comes from Countrywide Financial where he spent the last 3 years developing and supporting the Web Authentication System for the Countrywide Financial B2C / B2B websites. 

Mr. McGrath holds a M.S. in Computer Information Systems from Bellevue University and a B.S. in Finance from Peru State College.  In addition, he is a Microsoft .NET Certified Solution Developer.  "I'm very excited to join GroveSite, which is a proven leader in the Web Collaboration Software marketplace".

Saved by Software as a Service (Saas) Apps

If you, like me, are joined at the hip to your laptop, you know that sinking feeling when you realize your hard drive has died.  In times past, that meant days of unproductive time waiting for repairs, followed by frustration trying to get everything back to where it was before it broke.

But this time, my use of software-as-a-service applications saved me.  You see, 98% of my work is supported by hosted applications. I just grabbed a spare laptop in the office and kept on working, via the web.

CRM:  Our Customer Relationship Management application is built in our own GroveSite hosted collaboration software.  So I knew the status of each lead, what documents had been sent, what terms had been discussed and what I was supposed to do on each.  I interactively updated our CRM site with all the sales activities I did over that week.  Productivity loss:  0%

Customer Support:  When clients need assistance, my work with them is over the web, on their own GroveSites.  Our clients sites and data are all accessible by our support personnel, over the web.  Productivity loss:  0%

Finance and Accounting:  We use Quickbooks Online, the hosted service, for billing, accounting, and financial reporting.  So without missing a beat, we could still add new clients to the billing system, answer billing questions, issue new invoices, and produce the month's financial statements.  Productivity loss: 0%

Email:  Well, I had to find my password to access my webmail, but webmail worked great too.  And it was even easier to keep up with email since I now use a Blackberry.  Plus the Blackberry had my address book and calendar, so I didn't even miss Outlook.  Productivity loss:  0%

In all, my week without my personal laptop was testimonial to the fact that web-based applications provide business continuity during a local disaster.

Are you sold on software-as-a-service yet?