Groovin' WIth Technology

Segway to talk about Vista and Groove

2008-06-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

At Tech Ed I was working with Shawn LeProsse and tablet PC specialist and someone who believes in Vista like myself. Well you never know what you'll learn hanging with other like minded people but Shawn blew me away with the Snipper tool in Vista I didn't eve know existed. We all love to copy and pas things but depending on whether it's par of a web site or pdf or whatever there is usually some annoyance to getting the job done effectively. Well with the Snipper tool that all changes dramatically (I'll also be looking at going tablet pc much sooner).

In the Vista start menu type Snipper and you're on your way to using the quickest grab and go piece of software that is so easy to use it's a shame people didn't know about it (till now).

And if you are using a pen you can free hand draw the required detail you want to grab.

Let's me show you how nicely this works:
I opened Snipper. It drapes the whole screen and then you need only grab the mouse and choose your desired snippet and then you are given an option to paste, email or save right away. It's just that simple.

Teleworking and Groove - Making it work

2008-05-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

As as prices continue to soar the option of workign off-site is no longer just a benefit of saving time and productivity, it also makes "green" sense and can have an economic impact for both employee and employer. BUT what if you haven't gone this route yet. How does one make the employer comfortable with letting you out of sight and not out of mind on your part or theirs. There are 3 components to this:

- Ensuring your boss can reach you easily
- Ensuring you have access to critical collaborators in your group
- Ensuring that you can deliver on time (meaning having access to critical documents and data)
- Showing online presence to your employer so that they know that at least you are "present"

In addition it is interesting to point out that many road warriors can benefit by being close to their clients and therefore offers additional productivity savings in terms of accessing clients quickly and more conveniently by starting from home base.

With Groove the above issues are not only handled within one application, groups of teleworkers can be kept as a workspace by employers so that notices that apply to this group specifically can be directed to them easily, real time and with traceability.

In times where shareholders are looking for value and greening of repsonsible companies, Groove is starting to look more and more like the "Green Technology Tool "of the year.

Error in "Contact Info" Tool

2008-04-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

Be careful when filling out a v-card that is meant for a Groove workspace. A recent error surfaced recentlythat requires that a first and family name must be filled out in v-card or you will likely get an error.

A fix is in the works.

Groove 2007 Templates

2008-04-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

It always makes sense to use templates rather than do things from scratch. Here is the best place to go and get up to date on time saving template tools:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?freetext=template&productID=20BE712B-2F07-4AC1-A9BB-E4CEF2AA331E&categoryId=&period=&sortCriteria=popularity&nr=20&DisplayLang=en

Think of these as much richer versions of the Groove 3.1 Rapid Solutions templates. Each tool comes with detailed user documentation. Small rapid training videos will be coming soon because we all hate to read the User Guides :-)

Chris Rue rants on Groove

2008-04-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.chrisrue.com/funcave/2008/02/the-segway-of-software.html

Chris is a great an insightful character (the Unknown MVP) who some months ago made a full length review of Groove. While I can't argue many points, there were some glaring differences of opinion or I should say rather that in the last few months many things have become clear and available that IF someone was communicating this to the community and to Microsoft the blog would be different. The MVP Summit allowed me to get a grip on the situation and start teaching people what the real story was and how working together would turn Groove into a tool everyone would derive a huge benefit from , a benefit they could hare with their clients. So stay tuned for the Emancipation of Groove (not just a Sharepoint client).

Best Group Sizes for Groove

2008-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

There have often been discussions lately as to the feasibility of the size of a Groove workspace. This has as much to do behind the purpose of the Groove in the first place. In my opinion Groove was really designed for groups up to say 25 or so. But most collaboraiton is among groups of 5-15. But Groove can entertain much larger numbers. The trick is to make collaboration effective and many people will argue this till blue in the face.

Based on some of the workspaces I have worked with, Groove is on average comprised of groups in the 45 range and some are over 150 in size (developer group). Keep in mind you are only storing data that is part of the workspace not the data of 150 users. That said it came back to the collaboration being done and Groove has some minor issues with calendaring and notifications which just don't do well unless you use some amazingly clean and handy tools from Hommes and Process. Then Grove takes a big leap forward. Hommes and Process put back what was sorely missing from Groove when it became part of Office 2007.

Now things like dropping docs form anywhere into Groove (and precisely to the workspace you want is as easy and saving in Office) and emails can also be dropped to Grove workspaces with the flick of a mouse click. Do check http://www.hommesetprocess.com/en

But back to the size issue.

I think you have to decide what it is you are trying to disseminate as information to a specific set of people in Groove and if you need to repeat specific messages but with different groups, how much versioning one does, if the information might be more of a dictation rather than a forum for discussion. And finally is there a need for people to be up to date on the data in a workspace?

Its not cut and dry and at a certian point (250 users) Groove should not be used as a solution but rather Sharepoint.

More on this again with a user group we'll talk about later.

MVP SUMMIT – No email but there was Groove

2008-04-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

You would think that the last thing you would expect while on Microsoft’s campus is a lack of connectivity (but let me iterate this was in one building and no one is perfect, Steve Ballmer humorously made that point in the MVP closing keynote) . But there it was, at a least one building we were in particular became a study in patience. When it seemed I may have found a connection after 50 tries it seemed I was once again foiled from sending my emails BUT funny enough Groove actions and interactions (mail, IM’s, discussions etc.) were somehow bypassing this problem. I did however need to get some details of a meeting to the new MVP Community director Toby Richards and with 2 hours to do I was a little stressed. But Groove was there for me again. I just copied the email contents, put it into a Groove message and sent it to my Groove PG who, since he is a Microsoft employee, and had an internal link, took the message, popped it into an email and sent it off to my very important recipient (and cc’d me) . Imagine my surprise at how many people later told me were beside themselves with no email access. But at least there was Groove. The fact that Groove is a secure peer to peer collaboration tool means that as long as you can reach the internet you can get connected quickly, get your communications out and business done!

MY Groove Workspace disappeared! Or the Watch the Up Folder button lesson

2008-04-20T16:57:00.002-07:00

Groove hasn’t exactly been around along time so it is no hard to imagine that when a particularly scary problem cropped up I couldn’t quite figure out what had happened at first. I thought I had played with every button but....
There is a little button in the bottom let corner that allows you to move folder levels and if you move to a folder level in which nothing has been deposited and if you ended up there by mistake, it would appear that your workspace it gone. As long as you know this little silly secret , you’ll likely save yourself and big headache.

Disaster Relief – Why using Groove will keep you from losing control.

2008-04-20T16:57:00.001-07:00

After the third time a client of mine was relieved of a few too many computers I started to think about what would happen if a fire totally destroyed the building they were in. It made for an interesting process by which it became clear that Groove was the one gem no one ever thought of as part of their disaster relief planning. No amount of backups was going to even begin to compare to the fact that with Groove (in a scenario where we share the workspace with our client) our firm could immediately start the recovery process for our client. Let me explain:
The Groove workspace contains some of following critical pieces of information:
IT schematic: cabling, servers, systems by departments, user details all the way out to the ISP details
Complete Hardware Asset Listing with specifics of each piece of equipment as well as date of purchase, warranty details, serial number
Complete Software Licence Inventory: Including Software Assurance benefits with expiration dates, usage to date, type: OEM, upgrades, volume purchasing
Security and Storage: often the IT is also responsible in some capacity for the security system: when and how they are installed, how accessed externally etc as well as of-site storage for backups. That information and how to get a hold of things like backups is critical details to access since it may take days to retrieve .
The additional benefit for both client and outsource in this particular scenario is that the outsource can be proactive with the client for renewals, budgets and issue tracking (jut some of the things you can do in Groove) without having to go through email. The whole IT outsource engagement is far superior for the person responsible on the client side. It also helps the outsource to better manage the client.
It will never be a question that if the time ever comes the Groove solution is not only a valuable tool it is also a new way for IT firms to manage their client base.

Sharepoint MVP’s – Preaching to the Already Converted

2008-04-20T16:56:00.002-07:00

Today’s MVP Summit sessions included one that had Groove and Sharepoint people in the same room. Now really this shouldn’t be a reason for concern but there still lies a perception that made me shake my head and maybe want to shake a few people but as a martial artist we are taught to use self control and I did but it wasn’t easy.
I have great respect for those MVP’s (I have done MOSS solutions) but I sat in a training for Groove synchronization with MOSS. It works! It’s what makes the dynamic collaboration scenario that Grooves provides the right solution when that collaboration includes members in or out of your domain members. Only the person designated will be able to sync documents back to the company’s MOSS.
Further to this it must be noted that many of those that worked in the enterprise space were considering installing a 3rd party product when Groove is part of the Office 2007 enterprise suite. I had to ask myself how this is beneficial to the client and client’s must ask themselves why that would be a good investment to them especially since I have actually used the two together and they work, right out of the box.
I do not blame the Sharepoint MVP community. It is a matter of education. You cannot be expected to “know it all” and Microsoft is adding new products (in fact I heard today of a new company they acquired that does even better search for Sharepoint) It’s not easy to keep up so why don’t we encourage new groups like Groove to make themselves known to their potential partners and we need to the support of Microsoft to reach some of these individual communities .
There is a phenomenal opportunity for far better solutions for all client types combining MOSS and Groove, so since the client’s satisfaction and the pride of the work we do being our ultimate goal then this subject needs to be taken to the next level.

MITPro

2008-04-20T16:56:00.001-07:00

It seems Groove has penetrated the ITPro community and for good reason. As with other groups I volunteer with, time is of the essence and with Canada’s wide geographical berth and diversity of MVP’s and MS Techies all communicating, Groove is a common foothold through which everyone can keep things in order and run local and national campaigns far easier over all time zones and with ease. If you haven’t already got your group connected then email me and I’ll help you get yours set up in a jiffy and explain the basics of Groove administration.
Oh and or those MVPs (Mitch thanks for asking) please note GROOVE SYNCS WITH SHAREPOINT! Come on guys. Feel the love. It’s real Groovey.

Social Networking

2008-04-20T16:55:00.002-07:00

While many of us clamour to keep up with so many of these social networking sites I am more than happy to have my workspaces where I can keep in contact with the people that mean the most to me (okay it’s all business contacts except for user and community project groups, but as Groove is put into some other versions of Office (PLEASE) I see this changing. And since Groove has this neat alert that appears quietly at the bottom of my screen and then hides itself until you scroll over it, unlike IM (MAKE ME CRAZY ORANGE FLASHES) I can peek at and decide when I am ready to deal with a Groove IM or a new file or message when it suits me. I also don’t feel the stress to update my “What Elisabeth is doing now....” Who cares if I’m about to ship my teenagers off to Siberia (one way ticket).
With Groove I can decide who I want to be in my group and certainly not have to worry about “outsiders” if I am the only one making the invites! I also find the fact that everything is encrypted, sending files and messages back and forth is not a big concern for me.
I think people only have to see the simplicity, security and offline beauty that Groove offers and they will start to see this as an alternative to too much “in your face” sites that we all know and sometimes quite rightly despise.

Safe Social Networking. In one word – Groove

2008-04-20T16:55:00.001-07:00

The more horror stories I hear about children becoming victim to individuals who do not have their best interests in mind on the net, the more I realize that collaboration tools like Groove present another opportunity, as truly safe social networking environments for young kids and teens. Let me explain.
Groove allows controlled workspaces, where only individuals who have received an invitation from the workspace manager may enter into this space, where anything from document sharing to calendaring and the all important chat and message sending tools are embedded. (Groove’s calendaring makes for simple “play date” coordination; and the kids get to work with and learn time management skills. {In white paper go into the potential in time to send the calendar reminders to parents Outlook} Because it is a dynamic collaboration tool children (with parental consent) can easily add new friends. As impatient as children can be on long trips, they can also use Groove to prepare messages, load holiday pictures and videos, prepare travel blogs and then have them automatically sync with their friend’s spaces as soon as an internet link is established. (In fact this could be used as a family collaborative space where children and their grandparents can communicate in safety too.)
In a perfect world turning to this kind of business tool would not be worth considering. However there have been some serious events because trusting children have opened themselves up to interacting with what they think is someone that is a similar age. And soon some of these children are lured to parks and amusement places where they find that their 11 year old buddy is a 42 year old pedophile. In many cases these children escape scared but unscathed but it is a sad truth that the mental and physical scars of some of these encounters are frightening.
Groove represents an opportunity for parents to provide a safe haven for children to interact with others without compromising their safety, until they are old enough to be taught safe surfing skills. This also means children can be safely left to “play” on their own, something that has been inherently dangerous, even with the net aware products. A good predator will never break the boundaries of these tools but rather work around them. With Groove there are never opportunities for this to happen. The only caveat is the trust within the parental circles of your own social network. Nothing is perfect but Groove can, with the will of the right executives be turned into the best protector yet of our most precious asset....our children.

Support Groups

2008-04-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

I recently organized another fundraiser for the MS Super Cities Walk. On my way to the MVP Summit I met a brand new MVP whose husband was afflicted with MS about a year and a half ago. My best friend from high school has been living with this scary disease for about 20 years (maybe more since she always seemed to be suffering from what they thought was meningitis). For much of that time she has been dealt some serious threats to her vision and the daily injections are mind numbing. I couldn’t fathom doing this. As we talked I wondered what support was out there for families. There are support groups as with most diseases but what struck me more was the fact that a web based one for epilepsy sufferers had recently been hacked and on the screen was a flash type file that could cause epileptic seizures, rendering the person to potential death . Now as silly as it sounds Groove actually would have prevented this or at least make the perpetrator traceable. With control over the workspace as tight or as loose as you desire, groups such as this would greatly benefit from a more “safe” environment. What seems so simple could actual prevent one death or many more.

Groove the SPAM killer OR Reason no. 1,985,433 to use Groove

2008-04-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

I have a customer who complained once again about the amount of spam that seemed to be distracting as the Montreal team was trying to collaborate with their colleagues in Boston on an SOP (Statement of Procedure). The biopharma industry is very much about collaboration; such is the history of scientists working the world over to find a cure for whatever has been ailing us. Unfortunately much of this is done via email and the caveat is while we can have nice neat folders that you can have your emails drop into automatically, it was getting overwhelmingly frustrating to try to sift through emails from new colleagues as new collaborators were added on a fairly frequent basis.
I had suggested that this is exactly where Groove shines. Opening a workspace for an SOP meant that the head of the project controlled contributors, content and it could be open to collaborators globally without having to worry about the network servers. The second important point was that as changes or messages came in they popped up in their own corner space and everyone was immediately able to view whatever it was that had been dropped into the workspace without opening anything! It was all encrypted. Research is an expensive business and having it secure is a priority.
What is popping up in Groove is priority items as determined by the user and this makes it far easier to keep people from being distracted by spam or searching for new colleagues. To this firm distractions caused by constant individual email filtering (getting people to use folders and rules doesn’t come easy nor is it useful with new people popping in and out the groups) was a concern. Productivity is first and foremost important in most people’s minds.
Finally when the SOP is finished and its time to move onto the next SOP there are important options besides the obvious ability to replicate the workspace. Documents can be moved to Sharepoint for retention and future workflow processing, they can be moved there to go through final approval processing, The workspace itself can be kept intact or revamped by adding or removing collaborators, and documentation, its name easily modified and new tools added or taken away (example calendaring, notes, pictures).
In a world where there are far too many distractions and spam a continual fight to control, Groove offers Spam free collaboration which is easier to ensure better productivity among its users.

Look Teach! We’re on Time!

2008-04-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

I’m one of those parents who HATES it with a passion when teachers doll out group assignments. It always ends up that someone doesn’t do their part and takes credit for everyone else’s work. Then there are the people whose pieces show up at 10:00p.m the night before it’s due and my poor kid is up till last midnight not only inserting it but most likely rewriting it because it sucks.
This is where we got the bright idea of using Groove as a “teachers’ monitor”. Putting a few kids on a 30 day version we experimented with a recent religion assignment (which the kids just love doing) and initially without the teacher we replaced her with me. I watched as the pieces started no coming in. I contacted parents and put out a few “reminders”. When the kids started to see how it kept track of messages (one girl got frustrated and started to threaten not to do her part i was quick to remind her that her comments were in stone and she better get back to work or the headmaster could get printed copies of sad threats.
As the deadline was closing in the final version was coming together nicely when one girl “forgot” she had a hockey tournament. That’s fine i said. You have a laptop and so type on the bus and when you get to the hotel you’ll sync automatically with the group, doesn’t matter where you are. That evening they hit hot spot at a Dunkin Donuts and there it was, the last piece of the project.. It was done before the weekend started and everyone had earned their part of the marks.
This also made it simple to know who to dock marks for plagiarism and how much each person truly committed to the entire project.
For teachers this means that should they adopt this methodology they can themselves be more in tune to the progress (or lack thereof and can provide much needed guidance, conveniently, at a distance whic makes their lives easier too!

Groove in the Community

2008-04-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the hardest things to coordinate is a fundraiser especially as so many people can change from year to year and keeping track of what was done one year to then next is a trip in itself. In creating a workspace in Groove the main players are able to kick into gear immediately once the current year’s event is over by simply changing a date e.g. MS Super Cities Walk 2007 becomes MS Super Cities Walk 2008. The forms, the fundraising group info. totals, sponsors, volunteers, etc can all neatly be subdivided into other folders and if necessary separate workspaces if, for instance, training information is to be coordinated and provided . With the newness of Groove, having all the volunteers on it might not make sense BUT with synchronization to Sharepoint taking the final documentation and training materials and synching them with a Sharepoint site makes the year to year management much more controllable. Since cost is also a big issue for many organizations Groove offer a very cost effective but secure solution that is above all so easy for most people to implement i.e. big IT bills they can’t afford are avoided. The issue usually is in understanding how to properly manage a workspace which we’ll take about later. For the smallest to the larger non-profits Groove can allow for you to keep more money in the hands of researchers, to find the cure!

Groove Business Case #2 - from a bright idea halfway across the world

2007-06-10T13:36:00.001-07:00

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.

Groove Business case #1 - two small entrepreneurs make a big noise

2007-06-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Okay so not all technology is a good thing

2007-05-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

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"

Groove is just Groovy

2007-05-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.