Here at CloudAve we’re firm believers in the power of collaboration. When Ben became part of a group looking at building a collaborative platform for data sharing for a local Government organization, it seemed logical to approach the project in a similarly collaborative way. Wanting to “eat their own dog food”, a joint group of individuals shared in the project; Mike Riversdale, Aaron Brunet and Ben all joined forces to work on a project initiated by a forward thinking local government staffer required to manage an extensive natural resource. The great thing about this particular project is that, without giving specifics out, it seeks to improve the management of a scare natural resource.

So that’s where you, the readers, come in. Part of the project is to look at different collaboration tools that meet the requirements of the project. These requirements are; 

  1. Include the standard apps normally expected in an office suite (Word, spreadsheet, slides, schedule/calendar)
  2. Structures for data, documents, images, maps and recordings.
  3. Accessible via a browser, platform independent 
  4. Reliable (the app must work when required, not be intermittent)
  5. Material must be easily extractable / exportable (don’t want material locked-in to application tools)
  6. Responsive (must appear to the user that the app is local – quick / snappy in operation
  7. Economically priced (ie not free, but not super pricey either)

Now, to be fair, we’ve sort of got the obvious ones covered – Google Apps, Zoho, Microsoft Office Live Workspace (such a snappy line) and the usual suspects – but what are online collaboration tools that you use and can’t believe no-one has ever heard of?

Don’t hold back – TELL US!

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Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

3 Comments
  • Hi Ben,

    We love the 37signals suite. Although most of the team are base in the same city, we have a few people we work with internationally and Basecamp , is ideal for sharing, project managing and keeping track of collaborative efforts.

    I also recently came across Action Method , which although has the ability for collaboration, it’s predominantly used as a personal project management system.

    Now I don’t know if these meet all the requirements that you specified, by here at yMedia “we’re firm believers in the power of collaboration” too, and these are just a couple of the tools we use to enable that.

    Best,
    JadE

  • You may have a look at a very good online collaboation tool: R-HUB web conferencing servers. It is an on premise solution which provides 6 real time collaboration applications in one box.

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