The Crabby Office Lady

Collaboration is currently a hot topic in the workplace. Groove is a cool word that brings up lots of swingin' images. Put them together and you have one friendly solution.

Today is the first day of spring. Are you feeling groovy? Do the crocus, tulip, and daffodil buds poking their soft little heads out of the ground make you want to do the same? Or are you heads-down, mired in a project that's inundated with other people, their comments, their issues, and their...lack of communication skills?

Consider this column a little springtime breath of fresh air. I'd like to tell you about the most recent addition to our Office family, a collaboration tool that, despite not having any spring gardening ability, can make your collaboration woes a little less woeful. Introducing Groove Networks, a company that Microsoft recently acquired.

What exactly is Groove and why is it groovy?

In a nutshell, Groove Virtual Office is software that allows your team to work together as if you were all in the same physical location. One of the key differences between Groove and other Office collaboration tools is that there's no need to set up secure servers or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Groove meets the needs of teams who:

• Are increasingly virtual.
• Are geographically distributed.
• Work across organizational boundaries.
• Need to be productive whether connected to a network or not.

Now, the basic message that Microsoft and Groove give is this: "Anytime, anywhere collaboration." While that sounds fabulous, what exactly does it mean?

• Everyone has access to the same info as if they were in same location.
• All participants are aware of each others' presence.
• You can work from anywhere: Home, office, hotel, airport — even if you're disconnected from the network.
• Keep projects, files, and meetings automatically in sync on your home and work computers. (This is something I have been awaiting for a long time.)
• Work when you want, from wherever you want, even when you're offline.

OK, so that sounds enticing. Want to know more about the features Groove offers?

Groove features

• Create workspaces  When you create a Groove workspace, everyone can share information and work together. You can participate by posting messages and responses, sharing files, and tracking projects and meetings on your shared space. There are three kinds of workspaces:
  1. File sharing, which is a workspace for synchronizing a selected Windows folder across computers.
  2. Standard workspace, which is a workspace with a Files tool and a Discussions tool.
  3. Template workspace, which offers a workspace with tools you select from a list, such as Calendar, where you can mark important dates and build collaborative schedules with workspace members; Sketchpad (where you can use drawing tools); and even Chess Game.
• Tools   Tools represent "activities" in a workspace. When created, Standard Workspaces are prepopulated with two commonly used tools: Files and Discussion. There are 25 different application tools available that you can add to any workspace, and any space member can add additional tools at any time.
• Invitations  After you've created a workspace, you can invite people to your workspace either by group instant message or e-mail. Enter a name or e-mail address, set the role, and click Go. Pretty straightforward, really.
• Chat/Talk  When in a workspace, use a text-based chat pane (real-time or different-time conversations that persist as long as the workspace time does). Also, audio chat is another option for real-time communication (when not in a group workspace). Users can send IMs to one another. For longer, real-time conversations, invite one or more people people to chat outside a workspace, or if the conversations getting a bit lengthy and complicated, you can turn a chat into a workspace.

So you're getting the idea, right? You can customize Groove to work the way you and your coworkers want to work; you can pick and choose options and make it as simple or complicated as you'd like depending on our needs.

Get your company on board

Now that you have a basic idea of how Groove works, you're asking "why should I encourage my company to get on board?" Crabby is one step ahead of you here: Explain what's in it for them. Your company can:

• Cut costs by reducing travel and telecommunications costs.
• Increase productivity by helping workgroups work across departments, organizations, and geographic locations.
• Empower workgroups to get work done flexibly, without compromising security. Groove security is "always on" and better than a VPN, and requires no setup or configuration by users or IT staff.
• Maximize network bandwidth by cutting back-and-forth e-mail with large attachments and by only sending file change data over the network (not the entire file) when someone makes an edit.

And one more thing, you can try Groove Virtual Office for free

It's spring; try something new

I downloaded Groove for the first time when I was writing this column and it was incredibly easy to set up, get started, and get to work, So easy, in fact, that I thought I'd done something wrong. And after I started inviting everyone I knew into my own little Groove-y world, we had ourselves a good ol' time (not that we didn't work mind you; we just had fun doing it).

"A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King." — Emily Dickinson

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.