The endless chase for productivity

Web-based tools and On-demand applications are fast becoming a matured method of online software delivery, providing more usability, convenience, flexibility, mobility and value in the enterprise space. While encouraging constructive social interaction and driven by its users and data rather than specific features, the vast number of new innovative online tools is spurring serious interest from early adopters in the business community.

Many of us, consciously or not, are doing more and more of our daily work in the browser, using On-demand hosted applications and web technologies. But, are Enterprise Web 2.0 and On-demand applications really making us more productive?

Well, with the (increasingly) massive number of online "services" available to date, the biggest loss of productivity is sometimes coming from the chase for productivity ... My advice would be to focus on the “critical few”, not the “trivial many”. Apply the “Pareto Principle” (80/20 rule) and find out which ones are the 20% online services that will deliver 80% productivity, performance and value to your business.

Lists of Web & Enterprise 2.0 softwares now swirl around the Internet practically beyond count so I referenced two great resources that focus primarily on the Web 2.0 in the enterprise space.

Mashable.com recently published an “Online Productivity Toolbox” and identified 30+ resources to get things done. I do have to agree with their statement that “Being unproductive on the web is easy: click over to YouTube, surf Facebook profiles or go on a Wikipedia binge for a couple of hours.”

Jeff Nolan also compiled a rather impressive (and inevitably incomplete) list of enterprise-usable Web 2.0 softwares hosted on a wiki that any registered user can edit. 

Leave us some feedback in the comments section! Share notable and measurable gains in productivity you have recently experienced with the implementation of these online applications. Also, let us know the tools that you are using on a daily basis and from which you have reaped immediate benefits in terms of business performance and productivity.

Comments

[Richard Friedman]

Thanks for pointing out the lists, very useful.

Is productivity the measure of the work you do or the work it would take to have these services available within your company.

a. startup mode - it's cheaper then hiring my own IT, loading the tech, managing the hardware (or virt machines).

b. company with IT - I got my request on the IT list, but its quite far down :( if I just use google docs, well then I would be done.

The biggest challenge talked about is security. Would be nice if a doc, a blog, a file store could be linked into corp security. For example...
a. create doc
b. is this a company doc?
c. select protection
.... only accessible via company IP
.... company LDAP
.... company url security validation

just thinking out loud on these last points.

[Sahil Parikh]

You are right, the choices are many! The advantage with a saas-based product is the free trials - you can measure the value it offers your company before you commit to it. Being web-based the time to try and evaluate multiple products is much less than on-premise software.