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The Evolution of Collaboration

Written by: Jace Ricafrente

Article Overview: A look at how web-based collaboration tools are fueling the future of small-business productivity.

The Evolution of Collaboration

"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." -Charles Darwin

Biology 101 – Darwin was referring to biological symbiosis in which species commit to a relationship that, through their combined efforts, benefits them both. Out of their mutual collaborative interactions comes success. Like in the case of the Ocellaris clownfish and the Ritteri sea anemone; or the common jassid nymph and the Australian meat ant. Like with Lassie and Timmy.
The take-home message is that working together gets more done for everyone. But collaboration has changed a bit since Darwin. In order to keep up (no less prevail) in a modern, fast-paced world, businesses require ever faster, cheaper, easier, and more reliable collaborative tools to fuel productivity between people for their mutual gain.

Fast means instantaneous. Increasingly, there is less time to dial up a fax machine or wait for a file to slowly attach to email (then wait yet again during sending). This is especially true for entrepreneurs, whose small businesses are built on every advantageous edge that makes them competitive with larger corporations as well as one another. For small business, everything must be real-time – not just information anymore, but also changes. Small business needs collaborative tools that can keep up.

Enter web-based collaborative tools, center stage. These business implements are the only means fast enough to meet the high-speed demands of internet-age industry. They achieve instantaneous cooperation despite distance, cost, and other past inhibitive considerations. In support of a powerful storage hub, they allow you to securely store your information, make real-time changes to it, share it openly or discretely, and, most importantly, collaborate on it with family, friends, groups, departments, business teams, clients, vendors, or anyone.

Fast isn't the only measure, though. These tools must be easy, with user-friendly interfaces and intuitive commands. Complicated FTP programs are a thing of the past, and email is too limited (and sometimes too flaky) to fully meet a company's diverse needs. Tools must be cheap. The idea is productivity, and expensive software or services prohibit that goal. Web-based tools fill the demands traditionally met by established application suites, but without their hefty price tags attached. Most of all, though, tools must be reliable. Web-based collaboration does not depend on one machine (PC or Mac) or one server, but reliably and securely functions outside of these constraints in the cloud, so to speak. The information my enterprise team works on in the office all day is still accessible to me at my home computer (and I can still work with them from there all night). And with the extensive controls built in to web-based tools, even the most sensitive materials remain completely confidential despite their availability within user-defined limitations. Simply put, all-in-all web-based tools make collaboration simple.

In the spirit of Darwinian Theory, entrepreneurs do not seek just momentary productivity, but enduring and prevailing success. The business world is evolving; so must collaboration.

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  Collaborate - It's the Path to Success

Article Tags: advantageous edge, australian meat, biology 101, business teams, charles darwin, collaborative interactions, collaborative tools, fast paced world, friends groups, home message, internet age, lassie, mutual gain, ocellaris clownfish, sea anemone, storage hub, symbiosis, time changes, tools center, world businesses



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