Pankaj Taneja

Overuse tends to a suck a phrase of meaning, and the same may be said of “collaboration”. As an executive, you’ve probably been inundated with articles on “collaboration software” and its business possibilities. But it seems to mean different things at different times. Sometimes it means email, other times document sharing with Google Drive, and still other times managing projects with Basecamp. And when the social network Google + was launched, you were told enterprise collaboration was forever changed. You probably experienced what may be described as information induced paralysis. OK, so “collaboration software” amazing. What next? Time to take a step back and structure our thinking. Collaboration software evidently has something to do with collaboration – or to work together. One might say that every business reduces to collaboration – humans working together t... (more)

Google Plus for Business?

I can barely control my indignation when I read articles about Google Plus as a tool for “social collaboration”. These articles sometimes come from writers I respect. I guess we have a difference of opinion on this. Here are my reasons why I think Google Plus is not a tool for social collaboration (even remotely). 1. You can’t paste horns on a dog and call it a bull The last I remember, social collaboration was supposed to be about learning from the design concepts of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, and adapting them to a business environment to spur productivity an... (more)

Should Your Business Take the Google Drive?

After years of rampant speculation, Google has finally released its cloud storage service, naming it quite what everyone had expected – Google Drive. For those forever on the lookout for the next exciting internet thing, Google Drive is not an unprecedented new product out of Google’s hat. Google Drive is Google Docs rebranded, plus added functionality. That is why your Google Docs (Documents) tab now redirects to “Google Drive”. Google Docs, I am guessing, will only refer to Google’s web based office authoring tools henceforth. Though not totally new, Google likely saw Google Dr... (more)

The Three Pillars of Collaboration

Do you have a funny feeling that you seem to be doing the same work over and over in your office? Grand projects are initiated with a flurry of meetings and earth shaking intentions, but amnesia sets in as soon as everyone steps out of the conference room. Or responsibilities are handed from person to person like a baton in a relay race, with a loss in context at every step, till they end up in the lap of someone who has scarcely a clue about the original intentions. Or files sent back and forth, till they settle in an obscure corner of the business never to be found again. And y... (more)

Be Social (and Productive) at Work!

It is a great moment in the history of social collaboration. The moment of social business is here. The idea itself is not new. Much has been written over the last 2 years about what enterprise software can learn from the principles of “social” design of popular consumer tools like FaceBook and Twitter – the impact on user adoption, on information access, on time saving, on productivity, and indeed, on the fundamental structure of organizations. There are also scores of solutions in the market which specialize in “social collaboration” – Yammer, Chatter, Podio, SocialText and so... (more)