For many organizations, Skype for Business (formerly Lync, and before that, Communications Server) has been a staple communication and collaboration platform. This type of application — one that provides the ability to communicate quickly and effectively through instant messaging, check someone’s availability via presence status, place a phone call and spin up an ad hoc…

Sometimes, when I’m speaking with IT managers about how to build out video collaboration systems for their organizations, they want to start the conversation by talking about a particular high-end Logitech camera, or a specific, slick Samsung video panel. Often, these technology pros have a mandate from on high: A leader within the company has…

Almost all of my closest colleagues are remote. On my team, I work directly with people who are based in Wisconsin, Texas, Pennsylvania and even India. But judging from our easy rapport — not to mention how much we accomplish together — an outside observer would probably assume that we all sit next to each…

If you have evaluated or use Office 365 for any of your collaboration and productivity needs, I don’t need to tell you how popular Microsoft Teams has become in the marketplace, even recently surpassing Slack in user adoption. However, many organizations have been more tentative about moving to Microsoft Teams for calling and meetings. This…

My team consists of people who carry out their day-to-day business responsibilities as individuals. They talk with customers, make notes about the conversation, write up business proposals and create paperwork that may eventually become a statement of work document for a services engagement. We each keep our documents in locations we can easily access from…

Collaboration means different things to different people, but everyone has to work with others some time. For many of us, this is more of a challenge than it has to be. Our collaboration often involves speaking with a colleague or a partner on the telephone, then following up via email. Later, if a colleague is…