Thousands of users all over the world contribute to the communication and improves ideas of the co-partners they meet. Distance does not matter any more. Nationality does not matter either. You can be anyone and be anywhere. The only thing you need to make you part in the world idea development is your laptop and internet connection.

Comapping company designed a special application called comapping for such creative online surfers especially. This software allows users to extend and share ideas within a group, using the Internet and a browser-based interface that calls to mind the neural pathways of the brain. It is completely web-based with nothing to download. It gets you on the map, from any Internet-connected Mac or PC, anywhere. Application is specially designed for uniting people online i.e. giving them a chance to give a birth to something new while developing creative ideas.

Comapping software designed to combine mind mapping with real-time remote collaboration, as well as project development and management tools. The software is functioning online in the real time meaning users are free to make collaborate and get the respond at once.

Comapping prevents delays disallowing idea capturing and gives uses a chance to organize and retrieve their thoughts visually and graphically. This application was especially designed for on-site or geographically dispersed creative teams — in business process planning, academia, government and healthcare — that need to propel and capture their brainstorms.

Comapping application contains such important features as: the map automatically zooms in and out as you move around it, making it easy to add “branches” to the Comapping tree without scrolling. It allows real-time collaboration. 20 users can simultaneously brainstorming through the application to share, publish and chat features. Users can also share maps via e-mail, and publish them to the Web as well as export Comapping content to .rtf files, to facilitate creating presentations and sharing with remote users.

Developers made the application useful for all kinds of users – computer experienced and newcomers. Online application has its search tools for the comapping maps to be searched on word strings. Presentation is made up an easy one for the user friendly look. A user can lead an on-site or remote audience through a sequence of topics and branches in a slide-type presentation. Easy to remember, collaborate online and understandable commands allow to navigate maps quickly and efficiently.

There is a possibility to assign tasks, establish deadlines and measure progress through a Comapping map. For the security purpose maps are stored securely and user privacy is assured. Anyone trying the software can find one-to-one or one-to-all chat. Just simply click on the name of a person rooting around in the map and send him a chat message, within the program.

With the addition of the word “collaborative” to the field of computing, the information technology has acquired a new dimension. The word collaborative computing refers to the distributive computing technology which supports collaboration or helps people to exchange information mutually. Here, a complete sharing of applications takes place enabling the use of collaborative resources. The sharing of information does not just takes place between human resources dubbed as a synchronous communication, but an exchange of technical information other than the traditional tools like telephone too exists today.

Also called as groupware, collaborative computing allows the team spread geographically to develop or use a common database. With such a kind of innovative technology, the concept of team-work has acquired a new meaning.

No doubt that collaborative computing is the future of almost all the organizations as it is set to remodel the working styles. But, till today, its use is limited in organizations.

More so, the collaborative computing has been mainly found to be useful in SMBs.
All the information from financial to marketing to any other data can be stored and shared by collaborative computing. This kind of computing is giving rise to a less hierarchical organization while pushing the organization towards a more flatter side.

The need for collaborative computing arises from the fact that every time all the physical resources can not be in one place.

E-mails are a good mode of two-way communication, but can it share a large volume of data is an important question.
What collaborative computing does ?

A common setup here would be done by every organization enabled through LAN (Local area Networks). And further, LAN servers are connected via WAN (Wide Area Networks). Organizations can connect thousand of users using this technology.
Enables quicker response time: Paper mails were replaced by emails but even emails today can not handle large database where interactive features are required. The collaborative computing due to more horsepower enables integration within groups by handling larger database. The business relationships are being maintained by EDI using this technology.

Enables complete documentation: Even if the database is not so high-speed, the collaborative computing enables organizing, distributing and routing of data across various departments and teams. The virtual teams can have real-time discussions through this technology support. Connects all office software automation tools by scheduling programs.

Can be used as an application development interface: can create all applications and also combine with other computing functions.
All this reflects that even the complex work-group processes can be maintained ensuring a smooth transaction and workflow.
Utilising the Grid infrastructure, the modalities of collaborative computing is being developed. Companies who have utilized this technology to increase their productivity and efficiency are Microsoft, Lotus, DEC etc. All the products of these companies are based on the client/server networking model of computing. The best part here is that full security is maintained in these enterprises while the groupware is exchanging the information.

Whenever an enterprise is faced with some emergency situation addressing the business issue the problem needs the attention of all the employees distanced geographically. Then, forms and templates via collaborative computing are held in place and a common database using the spreadsheet software is established by the teams with in an organization. Later, it is monitored and the actions are taken
The benefits of using collaborative computing.

The biggest advantage that the enterprises have with collaborative computing is it lends cost-effective solutions. Since, the teams are not required to be at one place to share information, remote teams can be accessed through this technology and hence reduction in costs. Other benefits are saving of time, less wastage by avoiding the paperwork and the workplace satisfaction.
Above all, collaborative computing supports tools and applications which can create, store, display and enable exchange of information within groups so that people can collaborate online.

For effective document management collaboration, companies are always in search of tools that could help them in this endeavor. Now, with the advent of document management software companies could easily collaborate on document management and that too in the most secured way. It saves a lot of time for the companies who waste a lot of man-hour in managing their physical documentation. With its help office documents like contracts, purchase orders, customer statements, patents, formulation records, etc can be digitally archived. Document management collaboration commonly provides storage, versioning, metadata security, as well as indexing and retrieval capabilities. It provides end-to-end document life cycle, enabling collaborative document creation, auditable information management and providing easy user-access options that enhances enterprise-wide efficiency.

Document management collaboration becomes a secured affair for the companies as sophisticated permission management and editing features of document management software provide customizable view and edit rights to meet document management need. There is additional security layer for very secure document management system in which users need appropriate permission to access it. It also ensure senstive documents are kept secured, without being tampered at the file system level. It also enables administrators to give read or edit access to selected individuals or groups for particular documents. With the help of its unified metadata, company can define, as many sets of data about documents as per it needs and it makes it possible to link a single document to multiple file locations, so that the same version controlled document can exist in multiple locations in the file system and when updates are required, they only need to be made once rather than in multiple copies of document. Its powerful search functionality enables users to search through document contents as well as metadata, providing fast, detailed results.
For effective document mangement collaboration, document management software provides check in/check out functionality that ensures only one user can update a document at a time, while its comprehensive reporting functionality includes document inventory, import/export outcome and physical disk storage structure reports. Its document disposal functionality helps manage disposal at the end of the document life and it maintains document version automatically, enhance information management and provide authorized users with audited revision history and rollback ability. So, all these functionality offered by document management software helps the companies in better document management collaboration and makes it the most sought after tools.

The Legal Industry & Information Technology

Like all other industries, the legal industry is not insulated from the tremendous changes in information technology over the past decade, and the challenges and opportunities it presents. If anything, the changes have more bearing on law firms & departments because information management is at the core of what they do â?? consulting with clients, colleagues or experts; increasing compliance & regulation demands, wading through a constantly expanding sea of legislation and case law; managing outsourcing partners; keeping abreast with latest developments; or managing a mountain of matter files.

Recent Trends

Perhaps the most significant change in the legal services industry the decline of â??relationship lawyeringâ?.

Recent times have seen increased competition, & changes in underlying market structure. There has been a continuing trend of decline of â??relationship lawyeringâ?. Traditionally strong relationships between law firms and corporates are eroding, with more companies opting for in-house legal departments, or â??shopping aroundâ? for the best deal. Another significant trend is the increasing convergence of legal markets, where competition is as likely to come from a firm in another state or overseas as from a local firm. These & other developments are exerting greater pressures on legal firms to be more efficient, an it is imperative that attorneys spend their time analyzing information, rather than organizing or managing it. 

Drivers of Technology Adoption by Legal Firms

Possibilities of Technology â?? The primary driver of greater use of information technology by legal firms is developments in technology itself. New technologies & greater bandwidths allow great possibilities in the arenas of information management, productivity and remote collaboration. Information can be moved over the internet with greater security. And unlike yesteryear, law firms can access these technologies without hefty costs and the need to set up specialized IT departments.  

In 2004, Forrester Research Inc estimated that some 39,000 legal jobs will have moved offshore by the end of 2008.

Outsourcing/Offhsoring â?? Legal firms are now increasingly open to legal process outsourcing of tasks they traditionally held close – research, transcription, coding and even legal research and the drafting of legal documents. It is commonplace to see a NY based law firm, subletting research work to a team of professional lawyers & paralegals in Bangalore, India. This enables firms to majorly cut down costs & concentrate on core legal functions. But it also necessitates a greater need to communicate, collaborate & monitor the functioning of outsourcing vendors hundreds or thousands of miles away. Security is also an issue, since performance of the services often requires access to regulated consumer data or other sensitive data.

In 2004, almost 60% of lawyers worked at multi-office firms and over 10% of lawyers work at firms with ten or more offices.

Geographic Diversification â?? As mentioned before, there is a distinct movement towards multiple office firms, with offices spread both nationally and globally. US based companies are now serving many foreign clients, or serving foreign interests of domestic clients. There was a significant presence of international clients in even the smallest law firms of 1 to 20 lawyers. There has also been a spate of global mergers and acquisitions of law firms in the new millennia. All this necessitates a greater need for communication, collaboration and information exchange between branches.

Regulatory Compliance – Since the implementation of Sarbanes Oxley Act came into effect, records management has become an essential requirement. Organizations are required by law to retain certain documents for predefined periods. Also, the amendments to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect on December 1, 2006, and apply to any firm involved in litigation in the U.S. Federal Court system. The amendments mandate that companies be prepared for electronic discovery. Firms have to drastically alter the way they preserve, retrieve and produce electronic data.

Competition is coming both from firms spread across the nation & the globe, as well as consultants & advisors who were traditionally not considered part of the â??legal industryâ?

Competition â?? Because of the death of relationship lawyering, and â??one stop shoppingâ? by clients, firms cannot afford to be complacent anymore. Moreover, competition is as likely to come from the opposite end of the country or globe, as from local companies. Competition is also coming from other quarters, consultants and advisors who offer services that were previously the purview of lawyers.  In this arena of intense competition, lawyers have to double up as â??rainmakersâ? & networkers (legal business development) in addition to traditional roles.  

IT Needs of the Legal Industry

Centralized Document Storage â?? The legal profession generates a tremendous amount of digital information in the form of case files, contracts, court filings, exhibits, evidence, briefs, agreements, bills, notes, records and other office activity such as email. This information is the firmâ??s collective knowledge & learning which sets it apart from competition and needs to be retrieved again and again. Compliance also requires certain documents to be stored & retrievable for extended periods of time. Attorneys across different offices need to access and collaborate on this information.  

In 2007, 53% percent of lawyers used a PDA outside of the office, 32% to check e-mail.

ABA Law Tech Report 2007

Remote Access â?? Ready access to crucial documents and information can sometimes be all the difference between a favorable or adverse judgment. Lawyers now have wings on their feet visiting clients, interviewing experts, or attending outstation court proceedings, and are often out of office. It is important that they are able gain LAN like access to documents from the firmâ??s repository even when theyâ??re not at the office premises.  

Document Collaboration â?? It is not enough to only be able to access documents from the firmâ??s storage. A single case file may need multiple inputs from attorneys with different expertise, clients, experts, researchers, and other associates spread over the country or even the globe (in case of outsourcing). Therefore it is important to have the ability to concurrently access and work together on the same file, from right where everybody is.  

Remote Conferencing â?? Sometimes the ability to collaborate on a document may not suffice and actual discussion and knocking together of heads might be needed. Web conferencing allows multiple people to get together in a virtual meeting room and discuss issues as effectively as being there in person.

Security â?? A lot of the information a legal firm handles is highly sensitive client information, which it is bound my business ethics and contracts to protect. Since this information is mostly accessed and distributed over the public network of internet, and often distributed to third parties at some page, security is right at the top as a concern.  

Access Control â?? Another level of security is the ability to manage who sees what information and what they can do with it. Since multiple parties like attorneys and associates across the company, outsourcing partners, and multiple clients access information from the firmâ??s central storage this is of prime importance.  

Productivity Applications â?? Although managing documents and information is one of the most important things a law firms IT systems need to do, it is not all. They also need the ability to manage and share schedules, to maintain lists of important contacts, to manage and track different tasks and litigations teams or individual attorneys may be involved with, or billing management.  

What They Donâ??t Need

41% of lawyers had no IT staff at any locations for their firm, while 17% have one person, 8% have two, and 38% have three or more 

ABA Law Tech Report 2006

IT Hassles â?? If getting all the above goodies requires setting up a specialized IT department, installing expensive hardware, and managing ongoing maintenance and upgrades, it might just not be worth it for a small to mid sized law firm. Bigger firms have the deep pockets and incentive to set up dedicated systems, but it might not be sustainable for smaller firms.  

Complexity â?? To ensure that attorneys embrace the IT system, attorneys should be able to concentrate on the information itself, rather than grappling with the nitty-gritties of the system.

Costs â?? Cost, of course is a top consideration for small to mid sized companies across industries. The ongoing costs and hefty capital investments needed for custom and enterprise systems are just out of reach.

The Software-as-a-Service Advantage for Legal Companies – HyperOffice as a Case in Study

SAAS allows firms to pay for using the software rather than owning it

About eight to ten years back, it was true that access to the above technologies was available only to huge firms whose budget and scale justified dedicated IT departments. Times have changed since then. The software as a service (SAAS) approach, allows even small to mid sized firms easy access to big business technologies, but without having to deal with the messy underbelly and huge costs associated with them.

Benefits of SAAS Solutions

-          Low Implementation

-          Cost Effective

-          Flexible

-          Mobile Access

-          Enterprise Class Features

-          Backup & Security

-          Updates & Enhancements

Software as a service (SAAS) is an approach where the software vendor undertakes the burden of creating, hosting, maintaining and securing the application upon himself, and further lets it out to customers over the internet as a service.   Customers do not pay for owning the software itself but rather for using it. Some specific benefits of the SAAS approach are as follows:-

No Implementation, No Dedicated IT Department â?? Since the backend is taken care of by the vendor, users donâ??t have to bother about hardware, software downloads, server security, configuration etc. Implementation cycles of months are cut down to just a few days. For example, HyperOffice just requires a sign up, and customers can get it up and running within minutes. 

Cost Effective: Scale Up & Down as Needed â?? The cost structure of SAAS solutions is usually a reasonable monthly per user fee. This ensures that minimal costs are locked in, unlike enterprise solutions where tens of thousands of dollars are committed. Moreover, there is no cost uncertainty, as terms are clearly laid out, which allows for greater predictability.

Big Business Features â?? A range of big business functionality is available to users, but they donâ??t have to bother about the complex backend which goes with implementing this functionality, since that is the vendorâ??s headache.

Flexibility & Mobility: Keep Connected Always â?? These solutions are developed with a view to delivery over the web. This ensures that the system with full functionality is available over simply a web browser, saving users from tiresome downloads or implementations on local workstations. Moreover, since these solutions are children of the internet & mobility era, they also allow access over mobile devices. HyperOffice allows almost full functionality over many mobile device with internet access including iPhone.

User Friendly â?? Ease of use is of prime importance to a non techie attorney. SAAS solutions are out-of-the-box. Emphasis is on ease of use, with the messy backend taken care of. The entire HyperOffice solution can be managed from a central console and needs no technical expertise at all â?? truly childâ??s play!

Backup & Security: Let the Experts Handle It â?? Ensuring security and disaster preparedness requires effort. Antivirus software needs to be purchased and implemented, the system needs constant monitoring, and physical security of the servers needs to be ensured. Disaster recovery plans also have to be put in place in case of events like fire, natural disasters etc. Backup servers and magnetic tapes have to be maintained, frequency of backups has to be managed etc. Whew!

With SAAS, all this is a part of the messy backend taken care of by the vendor. Moreover, these vendors have developed an expertise hosting and securing applications, since this is their core operation. This is an expertise a mid sized law firm can not, nor would like to develop.

Updates & Enhancements â?? Since it application resides on the vendorâ??s servers, the vendor can simply add updates, enhancements and new features at his own end which are instantly available to the users of the application.

Executives and department heads of large enterprise companies today are faced with a bigger challenge than ever before. In huge companies of thousands + employees and the lightning paced real-time availability of information on the Web, organizing all online communication, team members, plans, projects, tasks and company data in an organized manner seems nearly impossible.

Some enterprise companies turn to Microsoft SharePoint as the solution – but not only is SharePoint extremely expensive, but it takes months of planning, deployment and generous IT resources.

Most companies, especially with the economic landscape today, don’t have that kind of budget, time or manpower to spare.

Luckily, there are alternative online collaboration solutions for the enterprise. Alternatives offer collaboration and online project management at lower costs, easier and shorter deployment times, and greater user-friendliness so even the most non-tech savvy members of a corporation (because there are bound to be some within large companies) can adopt and begin using the solution immediately.

Two of the biggest ways that Online Collaboration can help the Enterprise:
First solution: Workflows –

In large companies, there are certain tasks that need to be carried out on a regular basis. Individually, they might only take a couple minutes to complete, but when you’re doing them ten, twenty, fifty times a day, the minutes add up to days and weeks of precious time “wasted”.

The answer? Workflows.  With online collaboration solutions like Central Desktop, you can create workflow triggers, and when activated, each trigger onsets an automatic sequence of preconfigured steps or actions.

Here’s a real life example – a property management group set up a workflow so that every time a tenant submits a work order request (that’s the trigger), an email is automatically sent to an independent contractor with the details and location of the work order request. The tenant is then sent back an automatic email letting him or her know when the work order was placed and when it will be filled. The property management group saves thousands a year in phone bills and time saved from just that simple workflow.

Second solution: Intranets –

Every enterprise company probably already has a crude form of Intranet set up already, mainly to share communication and important files. But full Intranet solutions offer rich features like document management, online calendars, task management, customer portals, extranets, contact management, client management and project management that allow team members to share schedules, assignments, project updates and more.

Intranets take team communication to a whole other level, by connecting every single department, independent contractor, vendor and partner of the company in a secure online platform. Companies find that this open, transparent infrastructure promotes hard work, teamwork and productivity.

Those are only two of the ways in which enterprise companies are using online collaboration. The days of disorganized and chaotic enterprise management are long gone – get started with enterprise online collaboration today!