Virtual Collaboration and Brainstorming – Use the right tools
February 7, 2008 by Phil Montero
I recently stumbled on a great article on Read-Write-Web about the “Work From Home” Generation.
They give a good overview of the pros and cons. While I agree with almost all of it, the first issue they raise as a negative is “Brainstorming is difficult”. While I agree initially it can be more challenging while you adapt to collaborating with others virtually, like anything it becomes much easier with practice. A large part of successfully brainstorming and collaboration with others across distance is choosing and “thoughtfully applying” the right technology. This is something we often talk about and stress in our workshops and books.
The list of tools to choose from gets more impressive with each passing month. Skype video conferencing, discussion boards, whiteboard applications, web meetings services like GoToMeeting, and web-based collaboration tools like Central Dekstop, all can lead to very rich virtual brainstorming and collaboration with your virtual team or colleagues. The key is finding the right tool for the type of collaboration you need to do and then taking some time to learn how to use it.
Be sure to check-out the “Work From Home” Generation article as there were over 55 comments posted by readers when I just checked and this discussion is quite interesting and many people raise some excellent points. In fact the ongoing comments and discussions on their post are a shining example of a group of people all distributed contributing to a common mind share. Brainstorming can work the same way.
