Bees do it, Why can’t we? - Collaborative Technologies Conference
Yesterday my colleague Jade and I went to “Collaborative Technologies Conference” in Boston. This was the most educational and the best organized event out of hundreds I have been to. Too expensive to my liking, but they were very much worth the price; we did use free passes. Presentations are available here (for free!). Very valuable for telecommuters and companies promoting telecommuting and collaboration.
If you are still at the very start of the road to collaboration and telecommuting, and wonder what this is all about, do glance at this one: Virtual Team Spaces. Slide 14 will tell you the story. People are Important. Technology is only the means.
We ‘interviewed’ every stand in the pavilion about what products they were offering and at what price points. In the next post I will write about those that impressed us, and I guess those that did not.
Lessons learned or reinforced:
1) Lots of very similar collaboration technologies and products are mushrooming all over.
Just glance at this list of vendors. Forty or so. Notice GoToMeeting and WebEx are not even there. Needless to say, many more are not on the list but are out there.
2) The choice is overwhelming, differentiation is undervelming.
3) It is going to be very hard for organizations to make “the right choice”. As often in a saturated market, buyers will be choosing based more on emotions than rational. Only those sales people that will listen and that are sharp in knowing their product may have a chance.
4) Switching from one vendor to another will continue to be costly for big companies. As such, once settled, most probably, they will continue with the choice, even if the choice is “not that right”.
5) Switching from one solution to another is inexpensive for small businesses where there is less concern about infrastructure, compatibility, security. Pricing and simplicity (’usability’ in web 2.0 terms) will make a difference.
Example: Webex, GoToMeeting, Convenos — All three let you meet virtually, share docs, exchange opinions. So far, we found Convenos to be the best one — less expensive ($30 vs. $50 a month as in the other two cases), cleaner interface, combined with VOIP to let you talk vs. to make you add Skype to your presentation.
6) Most important lesson:
People matter. Develop and employ technology to empower them, but take the focus off technology and do listen to those who work for you, who you work with. At the end, they are the ones who do the work and can make it or break it.