Team Tools for Colloboration (Internet-based)

Greetings,

Some interesting topics were presented during our past class. Some were "old" such ODBC while others were "leading edge" such as Cloud Computing. These new technologies do lend themselves to improved tools such as for communication & colloboration. Last year I used two very productive tools that made use of the Internet while enabling our team work on an intense school project. Both tools were new to me but easy to learn.

Skype and Dimdim are the Internet-based tools. Price is well... free! So your money back if you are not satisfied. Here are some links: http://skype.com/ and http://www.dimdim.com/products/dimdim_integrations.html

The primary use of Skype (for us) was to have group conversations while we as individuals were using computers and/or planning our work. Now this can be done differently depending upon personal perference but I prefer to use a headset with a microphone. So I did incur a cost in buying a nice headset. I do recommend buying a premium headset so that you are comfortable and can use the headset for the long haul. Back to Skype - the primary benefit is that your team can work together but not have to be in the same location such as the endearing GSU library.

The other tool is Dimdim. Dimdim has multiple uses but our primary use was to have one person displaying his or her computer session over the Internet to the group. This simplifies the ongoing conversation by allowing everyone to have a simultaneous experience with a single computer session.

Dimdim does offer a wealth of other group possibilities; much more than sharing a single computer session among a group. Both voice and video can be streamed to many places. Dimdim's focus is more of web conferencing, webinars, Internet classrooms and such. I may be taking the wrong path but Skype seems to be superior with its streaming of audio.

While we are on the topic of Dimdim, you should know that it is a good example of various topics discussed during the API & Cloud Computing presentation. Topics such as API, Open Source, Mashups... From the Dimdim web page: Dimdim is the world’s only open source web conference with a completely open & free API. This means you can integrate or mashup Dimdim with your own stuff, web application, directory, email system, even Facebook or your website.

Good luck with these tools. One circumstance that provoked this discussion was the use of the Google Presentation Tool by Mega Hot Pot. Perhaps this seminar thing is working. Cheers!

Bill Stephens
Mercury Group

I am thinking my next posting will be about some additional Internet tools but with other uses for your group. Maybe the same price => free.