SocialWyo Collaboration

Collaboration essentially means working together and sharing knowledge. There are many tools available online that let you do that work more efficiently whether your team shares an office building or even the same Zip code.

Among those tools, and the obvious place to start, is Google.

From Gmail to Docs and Reader, Google makes working together with tech pretty darn easy. Sign up for a Gmail account and see how much better collaboration and communication can be for you.

Google Docs allows you to create and edit web-based documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Because the materials are stored online, the group can work from one document and you can work from any computer.

Google Reader allows you to flow all of your favorite blogs and updates on your favorite Web sites into one place. A quick scan reveals what you need to know, and lets you choose where you want to spend more time.

The Google suite is enviable, but Slideshare is a great place to share presentations (in just about any format) and embed presentations on blogs and on web sites.

Delicious (formerly del.i.cious) Ever wonder how to easily share your bookmarks? Ever wonder what other people are bookmarking? Social bookmarking is a way to do that and more. Delicious, and other similar sites, let you store, share and find others’ bookmarks. In fact, by one count, the 5.3 million users have stored 180 million unique URLs. Set up a free account, save sites, and find them later by tagging them with key words. Find others’ saved sites by searching for key words (called tags).

Digg is another social bookmarking service. Use it by submitting links and stories and then voting and commenting on the stories and links submitted by others. That voting piece is a the key function of Digg. The community either “digs” or “buries” stories. The most well liked stories (those with the most digs), appear on the front page. Thanks to a feature called Facebook Connect, those who choose can log into Digg with their Facebook account, bypassing the normally required Digg registration.

Scribd has been called “YouTube for documents” because it truly is a place to find anything in any form on any topic in document form. See something you like? All of the content is embeddable in web sites and blogs. Downloading documents requires an account, but you can look all you like without registering. Use Scribd’s feature “Readcast” to share news about what you’re reading on your Facebook and Twitter social networking sites.

Slideshare lets you share PowerPoint and Keynote presentations, Word and PDF documents. It also lets you add audio and create webinars. You can search for presentations by category.