e-tipi sounds like a weird name for a web-based service, and when you find out it stands for “Espresso Thinking Platform,” things don’t become much clearer. But once you find out what the app’s developers think “Espresso Thinking” is, then you start to get the idea:
“We believe that sharing an espresso in a nice café creates a particular atmosphere that frees minds and promotes promising ideas to expressly appear. This is what we call Espresso Thinking.”
It’s a nice thought, but is that really something that can be captured in a web-based environment? I recently talked about the same kind of collaboration (lack of coffee products notwithstanding) in an article about my beloved sketchbook, so I was eager to find out if I could recreate the experience digitally using e-tipi. Read the rest of this entry »
Corporate email is becoming increasingly less effective for project communications in today’s geographically dispersed work teams. It’s gradually being displaced by solutions like Microsoft SharePoint, instant messaging and even social media tools.
Following the lead of Twitter, microblogging has began to enter the enterprise with Yammer and Present.ly leading the way. 
Over on GigaOM, Jennifer recently wrote a post entitled “Social Network Use in the Office Could Spur Better Enterprise Technology” about the value of social media inside the enterprise and some of the benefits for companies.
The next step is taking corporate microblogging tools mobile. Both Yammer and Present.ly offer iPhone apps (available for free download from the iTunes App Store): Read the rest of this entry »
Because of its recent return to my working methodology, I want to take a moment to single out a very low-tech web working tool for praise. I’m talking about the sketchbook, that handy little tome in which we can capture and generate some of our best ideas. Not to be confused with the writer’s notebook, mind you, which is a great tool, too, but a different kind of beast.
The sketchbook is a free space for your ideas to play, unbound by lines and ruled margins. It’s a laboratory, a playground, a testing facility and a sounding board. And perhaps best of all, it requires no batteries and can go pretty much anywhere you do. Here’s why I love mine so much, and why any web worker would do well to have their own on hand. Read the rest of this entry »
Twitter lists are a great way to group people into various categories, filter conversations, keep up with experts within a specific field and track a topic without needing to follow all of the relevant users — and can even be used as an RSS reader replacement. Despite being such a new feature, people are already using lists as a measure of influence.
I’ve spent the last few years working with online communities and collaboration technologies, and have come to expect to be able to collaborate with people when using online social tools. As a result, I wish that Twitter lists were more collaborative. Right now, Twitter lists and accounts have a one-to-one relationship. I create a list, and I’m the only person who can edit it. I started thinking about this limitation when Rael Dornfest created his Portland Food Cart list. I’m a huge fan of the Portland food cart scene, so I decided to follow his list instead of creating yet another one. The downside was that as there were some food carts missing from his list, I needed to send @replies to Rael to get him to add them — I couldn’t just add them myself. Read the rest of this entry »
As Google is issuing Wave invites in a steady trickle, those fortunate enough to have an account are trying to figure out how this new tool might fit into their workflow and help them better communicate and collaborate with their teams and clients. Read the rest of this entry »
My recent post “5 Web Office Considerations: Beyond the Buzz” garnered some thought-provoking comments, which got me pondering on the proper place for the web office suite (whether it is ThinkFree, Zoho or Google Apps) in today’s world.
As a technical writer by trade, I have fairly strong opinions as to how a web office suite can fit into the workflow of a team publishing moderately complex documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I do believe that a web office suite and Microsoft Office don’t have to be “natural enemies in the wild” and can coexist to offer web workers, their employers, and their clients the best possible document authoring, publishing and collaborative working solution.
This post is going to dive into some things web workers should consider in a mixed Microsoft Office/web office environment, and in environments where multiple web office suites are used. Read the rest of this entry »
My previous post “6 Tips for Using Google Wave on your First Project” was really about the initial experience a client and I had with Google Wave, and some the early lessons we learned. While I would rank both of us as web-savvy early adopters, suffice it to say my wish list for Google Wave features has been growing fairly rapidly. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
