It’s about time

By Yves Godbout

The future is now. Technology has come a long way and various collaboration tools offer some advantages in the workplace

While it may seem information technology tools have been around forever, some of us remember large computer centres where only a select few were allowed to talk to the mainframe and we had to wait in line to get cards punched and read by the card reader. Thankfully that is behind us and we all use technology in our day-to-day lives at work and at play. It is time to break away from talking about where we have been and what has happened and delve into the future to expose a few ideas that have the IT landscape buzzing.

Today the industry is talking about collaboration and analysts believe it to be the hottest topic out there. It is defined as “all processes wherein people work together — applying both to the work of individuals as well as larger collectives and societies. As an intrinsic aspect of human society, the term is used in many varying contexts such as science, art, education and business.”

We collaborate in our work day with e-mail and audit working paper software that tracks and documents all our thinking and analysis processes, but we are only on the edge of where collaboration can take us. To make full use of collaboration, we need tools, some of which we already use at home and at the office, but collaboration tools can be defined a little broader as “collaborative software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals. Collaborative software is the basis for computer-supported cooperative work. Such software systems as mail, calendaring, chat and wiki belong in this category. It has been suggested that Metcalfe’s law — the more people who use something, the more valuable it becomes — applies to such software.”

E-mail
We use collaborative software every day at work and home. Even though we take it for granted, this phenomenon is relatively new. Before 1995, e-mail was only used within business and it took a few years for Internet e-mail to gain corporate acceptance.

Now Internet e-mail is everywhere. Most people who buy a PC today have a few simple uses for it: go on the Web, do homework, chat using instant messaging and get e-mail. Any PC today is Internet ready; simply plug it in and you are on the Web.

So we have the mail thing whipped now; we use e-mail for most of our interactions in business, especially for communicating with peers within the organization. We have learned to use this collaboration tool quite effectively but it does have some limitations. Some of its major characteristics with regard to collaboration include advantages such as:

• everyone knows about it.
• it is easy to use,
• people from within and outside the organization can be included,
• easy to access remotely, even wirelessly using BlackBerries or Pocket PCs.

And it has disadvantages such as:

• e-mail takes up a lot of time in business,
• the risk of polluting a noninterested party’s inbox with irrelevant information,
• the risk of not informing people who are an integral part of the project and who could therefore contribute to its success,
• many copies of the same information is maintained by many parties, requiring archiving resources,
• if the Internet is used, there’s a risk of interception of sensitive information,
• can be used against you in court; information out of context can be damaging,
• difficult to keep track of a conversation or discussion stream in its entire context.

Chat
When it comes to chat or instant messaging, we are not as far along, which is a shame as it is a tool that provides tremendous opportunities for collaboration. For example, teens and young adults use MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger to collaborate when working on school projects, keeping up with friends and family and to organize their social lives. It is not uncommon to find a student sitting at a PC working on an assignment while chatting with class-mates and grandma at the same time. Talk about multitasking.
Younger people have been using collaboration tools since they first used the family PC. But when they start work, the tools are taken away, with security and productivity cited as the main obstacles to using the technology that has been so useful to them. The tools they have learned to use effectively are banned in most enterprises. True, instant messaging can expose your business to viruses or other malware and could lead to corporate information loss or disclosure if not properly controlled. But it does not mean we cannot use the tools if they are implemented securely.

Instant messaging is available for enterprise use from many sources, but most notably from Microsoft and IBM. When properly set up, they are safe and can provide staff with appropriate tools, offering the user features such as:

• presence information. If you log on to your computer, workmates know you are at your PC. The user can customize his or her presence information by indicating that he or she is Online, Busy, In a meeting, Out to lunch, Be right back or even Appear offline;
• allows for the sending of quick notes using chat;
• can be used for voice and video calls;
• allows sharing of documents, files and even desktop whiteboards and applications.

Corporate instant messaging can also control which features a user can access. We may not want employees to chat with people outside the enterprise; that can be controlled using corporate tools and policies. Chatting with people outside may be allowed, after all, being able to say hi to your child after school can be a nice feature, or we may decide this is a work tool and allow access only to people inside the enterprise. Sharing of documents is another matter. We may allow it only from within the enterprise to protect information. Most of the functionality is customizable if we use enterprise tools, but not if we use public tools such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk.

The debate is about why we should use this tool. After all, we have e-mail and phones. True, but they are inefficient when compared with instant messaging, and these are tools that new professionals are accustomed to. Chat sites are no longer just for kids, they are used for most CA training programs.

Wiki
Again, the definition of this term is a “type of website that allows visitors to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website or to certain specific wiki sites.”

Maybe this sounds like techno-jargon, but only until you try it out. It can be useful in a work environment. You can see the most impressive wiki on the Internet by simply going to the Wikipedia at www.wikipedia.com. If you find something that you do not like or could improve upon, you can simply edit this public domain encyclopedia. Visit the site to gain an appreciation of its potential in business.

Wiki may sound nerdy until you look at two examples of implementations of this technology. The first is a wiki used by a university engineering team for a group project in its final year. The site fully documented everything that happened on the project during the year, every version, every piece of information; every discussion that made up the final report was fully documented. The beauty is that the students used the tool to do the project, not to document it. The documentation was a by-product; it is what made the final product possible. Finally, it is now possible to have documentation without creating huge amounts of additional overhead.

Another example is a demo wiki from TWiki, a GNU General Public License product. This means it is free — no licensing costs — user-supported software. It is used by such companies as Motorola, SAP, Cingular and Texas Instruments, not just by Internet types. This is not a public domain toy but a real work instrument.

At first glance, a wiki appears to be a tool mostly appropriate for large projects. But its application can be used for a wealth of things such as a quick and easy Intranet, a corporate policy repository or guidance repository. The possibilities are endless once it is delved into.

On the down side, a wiki can be a little tricky. Since everyone can contribute, you may want to control who is adding what to the site. This adds accountability to the collaborative process. Access can be controlled and tracked using authentication methods such as Active Directory.

SharePoint
SharePoint is a Microsoft product that has a lot of collaboration features. It forms the basis for Microsoft’s collaboration initiative. It provides presence information, document sharing and instant messaging. SharePoint has much of the functionality available in a wiki along with full integration with Microsoft Office products. This makes it easier to use. It comes in many flavours and is highly customizable, depending on the use planned for it.

A SharePoint team site can be used as an Intranet for a small company or can be created to help document and organize a specific project or client file. It can also integrate users from outside the organization, making it a collaborative tool used to share information with business partners and people within the organization.

SharePoint is also part of the Microsoft Small Business Server package. It is an affordable solution for many small businesses as well as large corporations. For example, a SharePoint site used by a small construction company could allow clients, workers, contractors and owners to share specifications, plans and other information about the project. As this site is on the Internet, all could connect to it and share information — once they were properly authenticated, of course. Every aspect of the project can be documented and available for all to see.

Blogs
A blog — short for Web log — is defined as a “website where entries are made in journal style displayed in reverse chronological order.” Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Why would this be needed for business?

A blog can be a strong communication tool as everyone can share thoughts and ideas. It is a great replacement for meetings as people can contribute when they have time or ideas. Regardless of the location of participants, their participation and ideas are welcome and easy to add. Another bonus is that the decision is automatically documented in the blog. Everyone is aware of the thought process that backs up the corporate position. It is an easy way to document and allows for the tracking of the collective intelligence of the group.

Most blogging software allows for commenting or interaction on the content. This informal commenting process gives everyone in the organization the opportunity to comment on or add to the contents and give their opinions.

Blogging software is available from many sources, ranging from commercial product to open source. A summary of the types of blogs that are most relevant for business (taken from www.beginnersguide.com) include:

“Business blogs: exist for the sole purpose of selling products or services. A business blog is a promotional marketing tool, though it is usually well designed and packed with helpful content, so as not to appear completely commercial.

Organizational blogs: are similar to personal blogs, except the content represents an organization, rather than an individual. [They] can be internal [within a large company] or external [communicating with clients or interested parties]. Organization blogs are a common way for not-for-profit groups to communicate their message to the general public.”

Modern Web browsers incorporate Really Simple Syndication feeds that can monitor blogs and alert users to activity on the blog without the need to visit a specific URL. This makes blogs a very powerful and time-sensitive solution for information sharing.

The future is now
While these technologies are not new, they may be new to the workplace. Productivity gains can be high if we start using the tools familiar to new recruits. Most of these tools appeared on the Internet and require the Internet or corporate network to make them accessible to all. They require little training, are Web-based and require little infrastructure and several are open source, making them cost effective. The investment required is the time to review how they apply to an organization and how to implement them.

These tools come with issues however. Security needs to be at the forefront of the implementation of most of these technologies. For example, an instant-messaging installation that is wide open with no restrictions can be a disaster waiting to happen in an organization. It can be a portal from which information leaves the organization or a tremendous time waster if you have overly active socialites.

We should not be afraid of staff wasting their time chatting. Instant messaging is no different from phones, e-mail or Internet access. Professionals need tools to work, and professionals use the tools responsibly when they understand the rules.

Yves Godbout, CA•IT, CA•CISA, is the director of IT services with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. He has extensive experience in information technologies as they apply to the enterprise and in audit. He is chair of the CICA Alliance for Excellence in Information Technology. Godbout is also Technical editor for technology