Thursday
May132010
Open Letter to Collaboration Tool Providers
13 May 2010 Tweet Based on our research and dialog with our readers, we have written an Open Letter to Collaboration Tool Providers on this site.
There is a wonderful abundance of collaboration tools, and more every week. At the same time, many users are frustrated that they are getting more tools rather than selected tools that meet their needs.
The six requests in this open letter are:
- Tell us clearly what your product does that makes it better than all the others
- Keep focusing on making the tools easier to use
- Give us free trials so we can test your product
- Build us the full suite we need, rather than point solutions
- Accommodate our many simultaneous projects
- Respect our data and privacy
Please take a look at the "letter" and let us know what you think in the comments section.
Update on 25 December 2010 by
Lokesh Datta
Lokesh Datta
Reader Comments (5)
"All you had to do was ask..."
Great Post. Being on the recipient side of this letter, I can assure you it resonates.
1) No Collaboration Tool provider wants to box in their vision. I'm sure that inevitably bleeds into our presentation of our technology out to the world. It is a delicate balance of presenting all of the potential without blurring the essential differentiators. Point taken.
2) Music to my ears. Our audience right now is largely contractors, independent professionals and consultants, and Mavenlink is asking them to invite their most precious asset, their clients, to work with them in our system. We need to make sure it is easy to use, and importantly, fits within current comfort zones (i.e. email integrations) where possible.
3) Guilty as charged. We just decided to change the current 30 day trial policy to focus on allowing our users to work through a set number of "trial" projects from start to finish before paying. Should have updates up on the site shortly.
4) Couldn't agree more.
5) This one is extremely important, but not as easy as it might sound. As we continue to roll out new features around privacy, permissions, and dashboard rollups, potential features start falling from the sky. Here's where I'm going to ask for a favor from the collaboration team members everywhere, be specific in what you want, and make sure you tell us.
6) Understood. I think part of our problem often is not making it clear enough how important your data and privacy our to us. We spend countless development hours protecting your data and privacy, and maybe not enough time sharing with you all that we have done.
I posted this question on LinkedIn: What would you like to see collaboration tool makers do, for us collaborators?
Here are some interesting responses that I like to share.
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Paul Oldfield, Software Consultant, People and Process Engineer, Lean, Agile and RUP at Capgemini
Okay, I doubt if I will see any collaboration tool address this in the next few years, but what I REALLY miss about working as a team, co-located, when I am not there and have to collaborate over a distance, is the information I get from the conversations and activities that are going on around me as I do my work and hold my own conversations. With that information, that sort of seeps in to my consciousness informally (Alistair Cockburn calls it "Osmotic Communication"), I keep far better in touch with the team, and have cues to help where I can help with problems that other people are having; they can chip in with help when I am discussing things with other people. Sometimes, even without the conversation, body language or "sounds of exasperation" give important cues. If there were a tool that could convey this information (at a reasonable price and without making things worse in other respects) I would be impressed.
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Wallace Jackson, Multimedia Producer and i3D Programmer for Acrobat 3D PDF, JavaFX, Mobile & Virtual Worlds
SmartPhone and e-Book (iPad) versions!
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Arti Dhar koul, Marketing Director at IT industry
It's not general market based, its client's specific business based.
Lokesh:
Take a look at our product, WizeHive (http://www.wizehive.com). Many of our customers and users, including TechCrunch, think our product is the one to use. We think that WizeHive is the best online collaboration tool out there, but then we are biased.
In response to your 6 points:
1. We are not heavy duty project management. If you need pert charts, gantt charts, etc. look elsewhere. If you need great task management, microblogging/conversations, file sharing, and business process automation, look for us. We are still evolving but have been adding tools that allow people to manage not only projects, but applications, resumes, and other business data.
2. Most people find our product pretty easy to use...but we are still working on making this better. I ran a technology startup for many years and we are getting there.
3. You have a 30 day free trial of our basic version (5 workspaces), and a FREE forever version that includes 1 workspace.
4. We now have 22 WizeApps (applets) and are coming out with more. They include task management, file sharing, discussions/notes, calendaring, and bunch of other features. Not instant messaging or conferencing yet. I think you'll find our 22 WizeApps has collectively more functionality then any of the other products you mentioned.
5. You can have as many workspaces as you need, and they in turn can have as many "page groups" and pages as you need. Our two tier structure of workspaces and pages is very different than other products. Within that you can manage as many projects as you want. We also include a "top down" view so you can pull all of this data from all the different projects together in one place.
6. We back up data every few minutes and have redundant servers. From our reporting screen you can export some data. We have exported full databases for others as needed and are building this into our full system.
Please take a look when you have a chance. We'd be happy to chat with you further.
Mike Levinson
Great post! As one of those collaboration tools that's "cropping up every week," we have found through trial and error that all of these are true. Fellowstream was terrible at #1 a few months ago. Through customer feedback and trial and error, we found that having a collaboration tool that allows you to use it for personal task management as well as collaboration really set us apart. Now we have to keep reiterating on our tool to make it "easier to use" as you've stated.
We have made a promise to ourselves and our supporters that we will not release or charge for Fellowstream until we have absolutely nailed making it easy to use and hitting our beta users needs. That's the only way we're going to survive in this very competitive space.
Lokesh,
great post, I agree with you on most points.
Check out our product, OffBureau (http://www.offbureau.com).
In response to your 6 points:
1. OffBureau, an online workspace, fuses collaboration, document management, and a social network. Its simple and universal structure can adapt to any workflow and can be used as a collaboration platform, intranet/extranet, document system, or FTP replacement.
OffBureau enables you to have a real time overview of project progress, but with focus on the content and not on the milestones. We are not heavy-duty project management. If you need pert charts, gantt charts, etc. look elsewhere.
We believe that one of our main advantages if the flexibility of the app. It allows you to apply your own workflow and data organization to OffBureau and not vice-versa.
OffBureau was developed especially for users from the field of creative services (companies and freelancers in advertising, design, architecture, etc), but is now also being used by companies from other fields, like professional services, academics, governmental offices, social groups, etc.
2. Most people find our product easy to use...but we are still working on making this better.
3. A free workspace for 5 users has all the features of a subscriber workspace except that it has limited storage space.
4. We believe that one of our main advantages if the flexibility of the app. It allows you to apply your own workflow and data organization to OffBureau and not vice-versa.
We consciously decided that we would not overburden the app with a wide range of features, because we don’t want to loose focus, transparency, and above all flexibility, our greatest asset. The market is full of suites with way too much features and I believe that if you want to be everything to everyone you end up being nothing for no one.
5. You can see all of your workspaces in one place – regardless of who set them up.
Workspace content is arranged in the familiar folder and subfolder structure (similar to desktop). In the Latest list you see all of the latest developments in all of your workspaces in chronological order (similar to Facebook wall).
OffBureau is scalable. Every registered user gets his own personal workspace and can manage his work and personal documents, projects, and networks in the same space.
You can easily scale the workspace to your needs and manage temporary participation of third parties. You can have as many workspaces as you need, and they in turn can have as many folders as you need. With Offbureau user permissions you can set granular permissions against each workspace or folder, controlling who can view specific items.
6. We understand the importance of safety. The servers are hosted in secure facilities, operated by one of the world's leaders in hosting. Access to workspaces and files is restricted, with full administrative control. We publish a full privacy policy outlining the protection surrounding our customer data. We have exported full databases for others as needed and are building this into our full system.
Please take a look when you have a chance. We'd be happy to chat with you further.