The concept of how we collaborate is changing. Better tools are being developed that help workgroups put together documents, quickly schedule meetings and chat with each other. Today’s collaboration environment includes tools for text chats, bulletin boards, video conferencing, screen sharing and scheduling meetings. Among these are a number of lightweight products that offer quick and near-real time collaboration. I looked at three of the newcomers: Flow, Glip and Slingshot. (A screen from Flow is pictured above.)
While all have some things in common — all three seek to enable collaboration and can be used either on desktops/laptops or on mobile devices — they all do somewhat different things in the collaboration space.