I’ve recently explained on MakeUseOf.com how to use Google Maps as a tool for distributed teams. In this post I am going to review other tools that support and improve the work of distributed teams. The tools will help you improve the way you share files, communicate, and work collaboratively with people not near you.

File sharing

One of the basic needs of a distributed team is the ability to share files. For ad-hoc teams, who do not work together on a regular basis, Drop.io is a great solution. Drop.io is a private sharing and collaboration web app. It lets you instantly create a mini site, called ‘a drop’, into which you can upload any type of file. You can annotate the file with comments or sections of text and use the chat feature for synchronized work sessions.

Continue reading “Web Apps & Software for Distributed Teams” »

Two weeks a go I gave a lecture in a social media seminar. Now I’ve translated the presentation I used into English and made it easier to understand without seeing the actual lecture.

The presentation describes 20 social media practices that will help you in your daily life. It includes tools to monitor your web presence, ways to track interesting topics and conversations, methods to find people and to get answers, and more.

It revolves around the following seven categories:

1. People Database
2. Keeping in touch and more
3. Conversation
4. Search
5. Collaborating
6. Monitoring and News
7. Self monitoring

I’ll be glad to get your feedback and thoughts about it.

Numerous Collaboration tools and online storage applications offer a variety of collaboration abilities. Online collaborated editing, synchronization across computers, multiple file sharing , and on-the-spot windows and document sharing are just some of them. The following review will help you know and choose the right collaboration tools for your needs.

This is an excerpt of a guest post I wrote on ReadWriteWeb (by now it got more the 210 tweets). To read the full post visit the online collaboration tools guide.

More and More new web apps enable us to do things that once required installation, registration, expertise and, of course, payments. The following tools will allow you to instantly video capture your screen, Share files, create a chat room, photo album, web meeting environment, or a MindMap – all within a few mouse clicks.

Instant video capture – ScreenCastle

ScreenCastle is a Video screen capture tool that works directly from your browser. To start recording your screen (and microphone) just enter the site, click the start button, choose the region to capture and press “start recording”. Once done, you will be given a link to view the video or a code to embed it into a website.

ScrennCastle – video screen capture
Continue reading “6 Web Apps to Instantly Capture, Share, Display and Meet” »

A great video about learning, innovation,  and the combination of the two to create innovation teams. The video, created by Roger H. Shealy, is based on a paper by Sara L. Beckman and Michael Barry. Read the full paper here: Innovation as a Learning Process: Embedding Design Thinking

Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger H. Shealy on Vimeo.

Via The Content Economy

If you're thinking of setting up your own personal Website or blog, or considering using one as a collaboration tool for you team, using WordPress or Google sites must have crossed your mind. These two platforms has some overlapping abilities but they actually suit for totally different uses. Here is a review of WordPress and Google sites that will help you choose the right platform for your needs.

WordPress

WordPress is an open source blog tool and publishing platform. It is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world.

Google sites

Google Sites is an online application for easy creation and sharing of webpages. It allows you to gather information (such as videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text) in one place and share it for viewing or editing with others.

Continue reading “Two Free Website Building Platforms Compared – WordPress VS. Google Sites” »