We all know how important security is in a world that is ripe with those that wish to make a mockery of the benefits of technology thus we have firewalls, passwords, intranets, and layers of protection that sometimes do more to hinder creativity and communication than we would like. That means that our companies have had to make it harder for those to get at our intellectual property & client information and for good reason. So when I was recently stuck in an airport between flights I became acutely aware that I had the answer to a bottleneck in a process and how much I wanted to get a matter dealt with but didn't want to risk going through our servers through an ISP I wouldn't know and couldn't necessarily trust.
Voila Groove!
Using my Groove account on my laptop and that of a colleague I desperately needed to communicate with, I had my documents being reviewed and discussing changes LIVE while the airline decided how many more parts they would ship down to the airport before giving up and putting us more than 12 hours behind schedule. Needless to say the rest of the crew was brought up to speed on the same Groove workspace and the project was back on track. We synched the documents with our Sharepoint server and the rest, as they say, is history.
Okay except for the part where I arrived at my destination at 3 in the morning with a meeting scheduled at 7:30 a.m. Yeah Groove fixed that too. I put a msg out to my client with whom I had a workspace set up to show him our progress and he gladly gave me that extra 30 minutes I lovingly spent catching up on emails.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Groove Business case #1 - two small entrepreneurs make a big noise
Olivia and Nancy, two business owners, in different fields, but with the same end client in mind have been working together for 1 1/2 years appearing as a united front for projects all over town but have found the disjoint from communicating with suppliers and clients to keeping track of tasks has them worried they will not grow to be able to compete with the larger production firms in the area. In some cases they doubled up on orders for anything from refreshments to staffing for events.
When Olivia saw a demo for Sharepoint it opened her eyes to the possibilities of some serious collaboration BUT it was cost prohibitive, but more importantly way beyond what they required to solve and grow their business pains at this point in their business.
That's when we introduced Groove. For these two entrepreneurs the ability to set up work spaces devoted to each project was the biggest step in organizing and knowing at what point each event was at in terms of preparedness.
The projects were visible, any communication was directed at the specific event easily and by eventually joining in their major supplier, the panicked phone tag and silly errors were stopped in their tracks. Changes to orders were easily alerted to the proper persons and keeping even the client updated, depending on the level of involvement they wanted to have, was easily restricted to their particular event only.
For small businesses that need to work together to catch the "bigger fish", Groove answered the most basic critical businesses issues.
When Olivia saw a demo for Sharepoint it opened her eyes to the possibilities of some serious collaboration BUT it was cost prohibitive, but more importantly way beyond what they required to solve and grow their business pains at this point in their business.
That's when we introduced Groove. For these two entrepreneurs the ability to set up work spaces devoted to each project was the biggest step in organizing and knowing at what point each event was at in terms of preparedness.
The projects were visible, any communication was directed at the specific event easily and by eventually joining in their major supplier, the panicked phone tag and silly errors were stopped in their tracks. Changes to orders were easily alerted to the proper persons and keeping even the client updated, depending on the level of involvement they wanted to have, was easily restricted to their particular event only.
For small businesses that need to work together to catch the "bigger fish", Groove answered the most basic critical businesses issues.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Okay so not all technology is a good thing
Yeah yeah I know better than to jump onto any new product bandwagon. However after being an evangelist for Groove over the last several months I finally got vindication today for all my ranting about Groove. A dear colleague at IAMCP, John Payes, asked our v-team to make sure they checked our IAMCP CDN team site for all the documentation for all divisions of our team.
Let me explain first that John is "mother hen" of our group and people are constantly after him and keeping on top of everything and the hundreds of sub projects he keeps track of has to be a logistical nightmare at best. John is a master of this (teach me John please). John is stepping down soon so he was smart enough to realize he could disseminate this information in millions of ways but Groove was his obvious choice for several reasons:
1) seconds to establish the workspace and load documents into logical order
2) easily secured so that just members of IAMCP Canada can access it
3) updates are uploaded right form our desktops
4) everyone is immediately alerted to changes and if alerts aren't invoked then they are easily seen when you open Groove.
5) WE DON'T HAVE TO KEEP EMAILING EVERYONE FOR EVERY LITTLE THING
and that's my point. With Groove you put the information there and people know that when they want to catch up they only have to open Groove to know exactly what they need to take a look at.
Moreover, as John put it, it takes some strain off the Exchange server! I never thought about that but it makes a good point for "load balancing". I was so wrapped up in other value points I never put any thought to that. We all know the traffic that takes place in our inboxes so Groove allows you to segregate communication on projects or groups you deem important and then know you can collaborate easily without searching your inbox for docs or files to go back and forth on.
There are a million value points for Groove. I'll get to many of them in this blog along with some technical items so that you can easily do things like synch docs with Sharepoint. I'll also make a business case for the use of Groove in the SMB market. Here's a great extension to the Office product line.
Hmmm I see a message from John. He thinks 5 women is already more than enough for a panel. Methinks he has no idea how quickly we women can talk. If they had a radar gun pointed at my lips I'd be locked up for too many "speeding tickets"
Let me explain first that John is "mother hen" of our group and people are constantly after him and keeping on top of everything and the hundreds of sub projects he keeps track of has to be a logistical nightmare at best. John is a master of this (teach me John please). John is stepping down soon so he was smart enough to realize he could disseminate this information in millions of ways but Groove was his obvious choice for several reasons:
1) seconds to establish the workspace and load documents into logical order
2) easily secured so that just members of IAMCP Canada can access it
3) updates are uploaded right form our desktops
4) everyone is immediately alerted to changes and if alerts aren't invoked then they are easily seen when you open Groove.
5) WE DON'T HAVE TO KEEP EMAILING EVERYONE FOR EVERY LITTLE THING
and that's my point. With Groove you put the information there and people know that when they want to catch up they only have to open Groove to know exactly what they need to take a look at.
Moreover, as John put it, it takes some strain off the Exchange server! I never thought about that but it makes a good point for "load balancing". I was so wrapped up in other value points I never put any thought to that. We all know the traffic that takes place in our inboxes so Groove allows you to segregate communication on projects or groups you deem important and then know you can collaborate easily without searching your inbox for docs or files to go back and forth on.
There are a million value points for Groove. I'll get to many of them in this blog along with some technical items so that you can easily do things like synch docs with Sharepoint. I'll also make a business case for the use of Groove in the SMB market. Here's a great extension to the Office product line.
Hmmm I see a message from John. He thinks 5 women is already more than enough for a panel. Methinks he has no idea how quickly we women can talk. If they had a radar gun pointed at my lips I'd be locked up for too many "speeding tickets"
Groove is just Groovy
If you haven't had a chance to use Microsoft's Groove then you're missing out on a great piece of technology that is perfect for someone like myself who is not only an SMB but just about as "all over the place" as one can get. I'll be introducing you to this life saver and as some of the hundreds of people in my 8 workspaces have already found out, this is one piece of software any right minded entrepreneur should not be without.
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