- Not only are there better ways
to share information but there's
an ever growing ability to work together
on content.
Many tools give you the ability
to work with others on files simultaneously,
some even let you see exactly who is doing what
live as it happens.
Why does this matter?
Well, let me give you a very simple example.
Team X has a status report that they fill out
every week, there are four people on the team
and each one only edits one area of the document.
Now in the good old days, everybody had to
wait their turn to work on the document.
Person number one had to check the document out
of the system so that it would be locked,
otherwise if two people worked on it
at the same time they could over ride
each others changes.
So person one needed to make their edits
then save and check the document back in,
then send a message to person two
that it was their turn and so on, and so on,
and so on.
Even if everything went right,
like people remembering to check their
documents back in being a major sticking point,
it was a time consuming job.
Welcome to the modern world.
Google was probably the first to fix this.
Google Docs allows for up to 50 people
to be working on a single document
all at once.
That's a lot.
You can see how this could speed things up
considerably.
If people don't have to wait their turn
but can just go and do their work
when their ready, the entire process
is going to move much easier.
Office 365 has the same type of functionality
although not as many people can edit
at once.
However you do get to use the online versions
of the Microsoft Office tools
that a lot of people are already using.
And the real time participation is very
noticeable.
You can quite clearly see exactly
who's working in a file with you
and exactly what they're doing
while they are doing it.
You can also have text conversations
about the work while you're engaged
in getting it done.
So if you have questions, you can get them
answered immediately.
And by the way, even with live co-editing
you still have the ability to go back
and check out earlier versions.
If the file gets messed up, you can
step back in time a little to the last good one.
That's a lot better than having to start over
from scratch.