The email two-step – Better Document Collaboration
With the obvious tracking and efficiency benefits provided by document collaboration applications, why do so many companies continue emailing documents back and forth for review and editing by different team members?
From such basic programs as Google Docs to more sophisticated offerings like SharePoint, collaborators can easily and efficiently share and comment on one centralized draft. It can eliminate the confusion that emailing drafts back and forth can cause.
Following is some food for thought regarding reasons you may still be doing the email shuffle instead of streamlining and centralizing document review and editing — and recommendations for rethinking your position:
Change sucks. You've been getting by emailing documents to and fro, and it's working well enough. Why change? Here's why: The volume of information we have to deal with is only going to increase. Finding ways to make the process more focused and accurate will serve you well, and it doesn't have to be daunting. Experiment with one of the simple services such as Google Docs and/or ask for a demo of a SharePoint-type service to compare and contrast.
Learning curve. It takes time and resources to learn something new. If it ain't broke…? Here's the reality of many of today's document collaboration applications: They can be very simple to learn, there are many ways to get up and running (affordable training options are all over the place).
It becomes an amoeba. Ultimately, it's not just document collaboration. There's a whole suite of services spanning the continuum of document management services that will continue to spread out and lengthen the learning curve and resources required to learn. Here's the refreshing reality: You don't have to eat the elephant in one bite. Regardless of the options in the application solution, you can pick and choose to limit the initial learning curve.
Document collaboration doesn't have to be a hairball. Once you discover a document management solution that meets your needs, you well may see that the real hairball is the way you've been doing the email shuffle.
