Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis, and Dropbox

I've used both Google Docs and Dropbox before and they are easy, useful, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin tools. And yet I still associate them with feelings of frustration, because using them in any meaningful collaborative way at work doesn't look like happening any time soon. The way we share documents as a team is through a massive sprawling shared network drive. The way we cowrite/edit documents is usually through the 'review' features of Word - everyone will make comments and suggestions and then one person will try to incorporate them in a final draft. Everyone knows there are problems with this way of doing things, but nobody really has the will (or, to be fair, the time) to change it, or even to try out other things. There's also an institutional distrust of free tools and 'the cloud' - all large organisations are wedded to proprietary systems to some extent, and understandably risk averse. Having said all that, I haven't made any real effort to introduce alternative collaboration tools myself, so maybe I just need to jam that advocacy hat down a bit harder on my head and take the plunge...

As for wikis, I think they could be a great way of sharing, updating and presenting work that we're doing as a team, but again I can't see anything getting off the ground when we're all flat-out doing things in other ways. I don't mean to imply that suggestions of how to do things differently aren't welcome, but unless you can do it a) on your own, b) without using any resources and c), without taking up any time, it's probably not going to happen. I do want to try creating a wiki myself but a wiki that nobody else contributes to just seems a bit too lonely and sad...

Ho hum, a fairly downbeat post, but in difficult times there's a world of difference between exploring some new tools for your own professional development and actually implementing them in a busy and complex workplace.

Photo by AlphaChimpStudio on Flickr