collaborator

For organizations with few resources or widely dispersed members, collaboration is often limited by the weakest link in the chain. Trello is a free online service that makes it much easier to keep track of who needs to do what, resources they need, deadlines, notes, and more. Its no-frills visual design is actually a strong feature, keeping you focused on tasks and notes. Here's how to get started with Trello:

Create a free Trello account. (You can sign in using your Google account if you'd like.)

You start out with a Welcome Board that's full of cards … Read more

Cisco Systems has acquired Versly, a private startup that specializes in developing software and solutions for more effective collaboration and productivity.

Versly's primary tool is a plug-in on Microsoft Office applications that enables collaboration on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and e-mail.

So far it appears all of Versly's employees will be moving over to Cisco when the deal is complete.

Cisco has said that collaborative solutions will be a top focus for the company as it continues to reprioritize--especially as the San Jose, Calif.-based enterprise sees this field as an addressable market worth $45 billion. Consumer devices don't meet these requirements … Read more

Back in 1999 and 2000, when I was writing Catch of the Day, a daily column about start-ups for Red Herring, my co-worker Jeff told me I needed to launch a new column called "That's the Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard" to cover all the boneheaded pitches I got for companies that were too sickly to write about.

A few months ago, as this second Internet bubble began to inflate, Jeff told me I needed to really--finally--launch That's the Stupidest Thing, specifically so I could write about Zaarly, based on the coverage it got on TechCrunch.

Zaarly is a well-hyped community gig marketplace, competing in many ways with GigWalk (story), FetchMob (story), and TaskRabbit.

CEO Bo Fishback is a big, twitchy man who seems uncomfortable sitting still. He is enthusiastic and eloquent about the idea that Zaarly is based on. I'd fund him if I was in a position to do so, even if I wasn't convinced (and I'm not) that Zaarly will be as big as Fishback says it can be. And how big is that? "It's the first idea I've seen in my life that will be bigger than a $50 billion company," he says.

Fishback calls Zaarly a buyer-powered market. Other markets--eBay, Craigslist, Macy's, Wal-Mart--are seller-powered. People with things to sell offer them up, and if you're looking for something, you check out what they have. On Zaarly, if you want something, you broadcast that desire; if someone has it, they find you.… Read more

It wasn't all that long ago that digital collaboration meant a constant stream of e-mails, or even handing off flash drives from colleague to colleague--hardly a revolution. Lately, though, we're starting to see the promise of collaborative file sharing really start to shine. This means we need to change some habits, but once we've started to make the most of these tools, our workflow can speed up dramatically. Here's a few of the best collaboration tools out there:

Dropbox: This free tool makes file sharing incredibly easy, both between users and across platforms. It starts at … Read more

Office 365, announced today, gives professionals and small businesses a subscription service that lets them work from anywhere using familiar-feeling Web-enabled applications. Combined with hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, Office 365 is designed to enable users to share, collaborate, and communicate in the cloud. In our testing during the beta, we found that the tools worked well across the board (with some hiccups), and expect that many people who use Office on desktop Macs and PCs will appreciate the familiar look and feel, which should help them get up and running quickly.

Obviously, Office 365 is going to … Read more

The long-awaited Google Docs Android application lets you create, edit, and share documents right from your Android mobile device. It's minimal and intuitive, and shuffling through your documents and collections is as easy as on the full-blown site. Also, the app comes with some nice touches like an optional home screen widget and integrated Google Cloud Print, which enables you to send files to connected printers from your handheld.

When it comes to creating on the go, the Google Docs app is limited to Document and Spreadsheet types. However, this doesn't seem like much of a letdown since … Read more

SugarSync, the popular solution for browsing, backing up, and syncing your files across multiple devices, is now available on the Android platform. If you're not familiar with the program, its concept is simple. Download SugarSync on all of your computers and mobile devices, and select which files and folders to sync. Then voila, access your files and folders from any of your devices, or through the SugarSync Web site. It's a super convenient service that you probably won't truly appreciate until you try.

The mobile app installs and syncs in seconds, provided you already have a SugarSync … Read more

Cisco has "disappointed our investors and confused our employees," CEO John Chambers said earlier this week in a kind of mea culpa about the company's weak performance recently. But, he promised, fundamental changes are ahead.

Revealing his thoughts in a memo sent to employees on Monday and published yesterday on a company blog, Chambers pointed to Cisco as a business that has lost some of the credibility that was key to its success. Seeing both the marketplace and his company as in transition, he said that it's time to focus to help define those transitions.

Chambers … Read more

The ideas behind Google Wave, a real-time communication technology the Net giant ditched, are making something of a comeback as a collaboration tool in Google Docs and Gmail.

Google announced discussions in Google Docs today, a new ability to automate the communications part of collaborations. Google Docs already let multiple people edit a document at the same time and to append comments to a document, but the discussions feature advances those abilities.

For one thing, comments now can be hidden once they've been addressed, not just deleted, and they can be resurrected if necessary.

For another, comments are adorned … Read more