Collaboration is an important aspect for the success of business as the ability of the employees to work together in a team is essential to encourage creativity, improve productivity and promote healthy employee relationship in an organization. The organizations are using different tools and technologies for enabling individuals and groups to communicate, collaborate and interact for sharing knowledge and information among geographically dispersed locations. Such technologies used for creating linkage between large number of people and organization to achieve organizational goals are referred to as collaborative technologies. Collaborative technologies are transforming the way people in organizations work together, whether they are in next office or across the globe (Wallace, 2015). Some of the widely used collaborative technologies are:
E-mail: E-mail is the one of the oldest, simplest and probably most used technologies for information sharing. The advantage of e-mail is it is device or application independent and with the attachments we can share almost anything the readers can read. It facilitates sharing of information to multiple team members at once irrespective of their location. It is also used for time management, calendaring, reminders and keeping track of work progress (Olson & Olson).
Instant Messaging (IM): IM allows sharing of text based information or multimedia files to individual or group by using different applications like Messenger, Google Talk, Viber, WhatsApp, Skype etc. It has replaced the use of e-mails, telephones and even face-to-face interactions in some cases as it can be effectively used for quick questions, scheduling, organizing social interactions and keeping in touch with other group members (Cameron & Webster, 2005).
Web Conferencing: Web conferencing supports live meeting via internet where all the participants join meeting from their computers or smartphones. It is widely used for corporate training, global project teams, product announcement and virtual sales calls. The software like WebEx or Go To Meeting are used for web conferencing as they support both voice and video supporting (Wallace, 2015).
Wikis: Wiki facilitates end-user contributions and collaborative editing by allowing users to add and edit interlinked web pages. It is used for centralizing documents and creating knowledge warehouse where any employee can contribute and update the information based on their knowledge and experience.
Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are graphical, 3-D representations of physical spaces that allow a person to experience realistic environment, usually through an avatar. Using this technology, people can explore the space, manipulate objects and can interact with other people’s avatars. Meta-Institute of Computational Astrophysics (MITA) is using virtual world for professional seminars, popular lectures and public outreach events (Djorgovski & Hut, 2010).
In addition to these, blogs, micro-blogging, discussion forums, social networks and group decision support system are also used for collaboration.
As the members of virtual teams are located in different geographical locations, they collaborate by using different communication technologies. I think the shared work space is the most appropriate technology for virtual teams. It provides platform for storing, downloading, revising, updating and returning the information associated with the project. The shared work space does not require virtual presence of all the team members at once for collaboration purpose. It also eliminates confusion and duplication as the information is constantly revised. The team members can follow up the work progress, view and edit on the work of other members, revise the work done, check and post updates at their feasible time that makes the team work easier.
References
Cameron, J. F., & Webster, J. (2005). Unintended consequences of Emerging Communication Technologies: Instant Messaging in the Workplace. Computers in Human Behavior, 21 (1), 85-103.
Djorgovski, S., & Hut, G. (2010). Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA. Facets of Virtual Environments, 33 , 29-43.
Olson, J. S., & Olson, G. M. (n.d.). Collaboration Technologies and Their Use. California: National Acadeny of Sciences (US). Retrieved from sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/gro... 2
Wallace, P. (2015). Introduction to Information Systems (Second ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
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Collaboration is an important aspect for the success of business as the ability of the employees to work together in a team is essential to encourage creativity, improve productivity and promote healthy employee relationship in an organization. The organizations are using different tools and technologies for enabling individuals and groups to communicate, collaborate and interact for sharing knowledge and information among geographically dispersed locations. Such technologies used for creating linkage between large number of people and organization to achieve organizational goals are referred to as collaborative technologies. Collaborative technologies are transforming the way people in organizations work together, whether they are in next office or across the globe (Wallace, 2015). Some of the widely used collaborative technologies are:
E-mail: E-mail is the one of the oldest, simplest and probably most used technologies for information sharing. The advantage of e-mail is it is device or application independent and with the attachments we can share almost anything the readers can read. It facilitates sharing of information to multiple team members at once irrespective of their location. It is also used for time management, calendaring, reminders and keeping track of work progress (Olson & Olson).
Instant Messaging (IM): IM allows sharing of text based information or multimedia files to individual or group by using different applications like Messenger, Google Talk, Viber, WhatsApp, Skype etc. It has replaced the use of e-mails, telephones and even face-to-face interactions in some cases as it can be effectively used for quick questions, scheduling, organizing social interactions and keeping in touch with other group members (Cameron & Webster, 2005).
Web Conferencing: Web conferencing supports live meeting via internet where all the participants join meeting from their computers or smartphones. It is widely used for corporate training, global project teams, product announcement and virtual sales calls. The software like WebEx or Go To Meeting are used for web conferencing as they support both voice and video supporting (Wallace, 2015).
Wikis: Wiki facilitates end-user contributions and collaborative editing by allowing users to add and edit interlinked web pages. It is used for centralizing documents and creating knowledge warehouse where any employee can contribute and update the information based on their knowledge and experience.
Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are graphical, 3-D representations of physical spaces that allow a person to experience realistic environment, usually through an avatar. Using this technology, people can explore the space, manipulate objects and can interact with other people’s avatars. Meta-Institute of Computational Astrophysics (MITA) is using virtual world for professional seminars, popular lectures and public outreach events (Djorgovski & Hut, 2010).
In addition to these, blogs, micro-blogging, discussion forums, social networks and group decision support system are also used for collaboration.
As the members of virtual teams are located in different geographical locations, they collaborate by using different communication technologies. I think the shared work space is the most appropriate technology for virtual teams. It provides platform for storing, downloading, revising, updating and returning the information associated with the project. The shared work space does not require virtual presence of all the team members at once for collaboration purpose. It also eliminates confusion and duplication as the information is constantly revised. The team members can follow up the work progress, view and edit on the work of other members, revise the work done, check and post updates at their feasible time that makes the team work easier.
References
Cameron, J. F., & Webster, J. (2005). Unintended consequences of Emerging Communication Technologies: Instant Messaging in the Workplace. Computers in Human Behavior, 21 (1), 85-103.
Djorgovski, S., & Hut, G. (2010). Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA. Facets of Virtual Environments, 33 , 29-43.
Olson, J. S., & Olson, G. M. (n.d.). Collaboration Technologies and Their Use. California: National Acadeny of Sciences (US). Retrieved from sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/gro... 2
Wallace, P. (2015). Introduction to Information Systems (Second ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.