Getting work done by assigning tasks

We’re all busy at work and sometimes this means that it is hard to keep track of what we’re supposed to be doing and when. Working collaboratively can ease some of the pressure, but it requires asking colleagues to add to their burgeoning to-do lists as well. The trick is finding the best way to get your task to the top of their list.
When emails, post-its and polite nudges just won’t do, the best way to prompt someone to do something is to assign them a task in your company’s enterprise social collaboration site read more.

Like, for when a comment is just too much…

We’re all used to liking statuses on Facebook – in fact it’s so embedded in our culture that people name their kids after likes and rappers get tattoos of the like button.
Enterprise social collaboration software companies like HighQ have noticed the popularity of the like button on social media, and many have embraced this one-click mode of communication in their platforms. But why are likes so popular? And why do people use them?
Aside from being time-savers, this post looks at the instances in which people use likes and what you can use them for too read more.

Buy vs build: The pros and cons of cloud software

Stuart Barr analyses the growing trend for organisations to select cloud-based off-the-shelf systems instead of building their own in-house solutions.
In these tricky economic times with downward pressure on internal budgets, alternative fee-arrangements and an expectation from clients to deliver ever more value, there are difficult decisions to be made about the best way to provide new client facing services. This inevitably involves technology and needs to be put in place quickly and efficiently.
Until fairly recently, the installation of new systems has required an army of developers, system administrators, additional data centres, a long lead time and large budgets to build and run applications in-house. Now off the shelf cloud-based software offers a real alternative that has some potentially massive advantages read more.

Health services must collaborate and communicate

Digital communications across the health services have to be radically improved in order to enable health professionals to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on patient-centric activities. For example, in relation to enabling such communication amongst professionals, while email is useful, care must be taken not to try to use it for purposes for which it was never intended, especially these days with the maturation and cost-effectiveness of cloud and enterprise social collaboration technologies that can substantially improve communication and cooperation between professionals at low cost read more.

Bring Your Own Device: the facts

Lots of people have been talking about the emerging “bring your own device” (“BYOD”) trend over the past few months, unsurprisingly so as smartphone and tablet sales go through the roof (Gartner says 225 million smartphones were sold this year, up 46.5% from last year). In this article, I talk about what this trend is, and reflect on what this means for both employees and organizations.

What is the BYOD trend?

As we all know, today’s organisation is global, its workforce highly mobile and increasingly tech-savvy read more at Highq.com.

Does home working stifle collaboration?

Earlier this year Yahoo!’s Chief Exec, Marissa Mayer, announced that she was axing the company’s working from home policy and ordered all remote workers back into their nearest Yahoo! office by June this year, or they faced losing their jobs. She cited one of her reasons as being the need for better collaboration, and that this is done best when people are in the same office.
Is this the harsh truth or outdated mentality? The latter if you ask me.
To suggest employees working from home limit an organisation’s ability to collaborate implies that that same organisation can’t collaborate with regional or overseas offices, external partners or clients properly. Whilst this may be the bleak reality for businesses whose technology systems are out of date, forward looking companies which have adopted cutting-edge enterprise social collaboration tools shouldn’t have these insecurities read more.

How can collaboration software create a knowledge sharing culture?

In today's economy, innovation is extremely important. That is why knowledge sharing is creeping higher and higher up the priority list of companies eager to become forward-thinkers and leaders in their industries. Historically, corporate culture has revolved around knowledge hoarding, where employees feel that they are safe in their jobs only as long as they are the only person with the knowledge to do it. This is not conducive to innovation, however. In order to nurture an innovative business, companies should instead adopt a knowledge sharing culture. First of all, it's helpful to identify exactly what a knowledge sharing culture is. Knowledge sharing means providing information and know-how to help others solve problems, develop ideas and implement or improve procedures. Knowledge can be shared through all modes of communication, and a knowledge sharing culture encourages as much communication as possible.

Knowledge sharing in this way has been shown to increase and speed up productivity, enhance team performance and morale, increase sales growth and revenue, and above all foster innovation. Obviously, these are all things that any good company wants to achieve. Enterprise data collaboration platforms, like HighQ Collaborate, have been designed to make knowledge sharing easy by embedding it into the way people and companies work read more.

The no hype guide to secure file sharing

Most people are familiar with commercial file sharing services like Dropbox and You Send It. These are great solutions to the problem of file-size limits on emails. If you need to send a 400mb video file to a friend, short of posting a flash drive to them you'll most likely want to use Dropbox. However, these commercial file sharing services are not secure. Dropbox has been hacked in the past, exposing users' files. This is distressing enough for consumers whose files are personal, but means that they are risky for businesses who often handle confidential documents. Instead, many companies are choosing dedicated secure file sharing platforms as their preferred method of transferring large or confidential documents.

Secure file sharing platforms provide and safe and reliable method of uploading and sharing documents without having to use email or commercial file sharing tools. This method is the approach adopted by many large organisations who have confidential documents such as business pitches and sensitive information which they need to share, either internally with colleagues or externally with clients. Users can grant access to the system only through usernames and passwords, different to shared drives where everyone who has access can see every document saved in the system read more.

What is a Secure Virtual Data Room?

Many businesses require the ability to share files between one another and with clients. In most cases, these files are confidential and require high levels of security to ensure that they don't get lost or fall into the wrong hands. Before the digital age, businesses shared hard-copy documents by hand, which was risky as it required a level of trust that the file wouldn't be misplaced, read or copied by unscrupulous employees or postal service workers. What's more, the cost and time of transporting files was troublesome, and though faxing made this easier this was far from the most secure option. Paper files take up room and require time to organise and locate when access is required. When the digital age first emerged, hard drives, floppy disks, CDs and flash drives were handled the same way as hard-copy files, with the added security potential of using password protection on files and the benefit of not taking up room in filing cabinets. However, the risk of loss and duplication, as well as the time and cost of transportation remained read more.