COM 656 6-2 Short Paper
Abstract
Discussion of three different PR collaboration tools, considering feature set, suitable environments, advantages and limitations, and third-party reviews.
Keywords: collaboration, Skype, Padlet, Project.net, Microsoft, Office 365.
This paper discusses the use of three different collaboration tools that PR professionals can use effectively: Skype, Padlet, and Project.net. One key limitation of the following discussion is a lack of unbiased reviews of the two latter platforms.
Discussion
Skype
Skype heads the list of collaboration tools because of its long-standing history and widespread adoption by entities ranging from private individuals and organizations: the application was first released in 2003 (BBC News, 2005), and has at various times been owned (partially or in full) by large investors such as eBay, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and most lately, Microsoft (BBC News, 2011). The aforementioned widespread adoption is aided largely by Skype’s adoption into the Microsoft environment and the replacement of a number of Microsoft’s legacy communications systems, including Windows Messenger and Lync (Solomon, 2015); Skype for Business is now integrated into Office 365 (it is significant that as of 2015, Office 365 topped the list of similar deployments, with Salesforce, Box, and Google Apps for Business trailing behind (Bort, 2015)). All this speaks to its widespread use and availability, and with features like group video calling now included in the free version (Skype), and with cross-platform presence, this means that the number of people and organizations that can use Skype easily and quickly is immense. Skype aids collaboration efforts with features like screen sharing, file sharing, and session recording. Limitations (of both the paid and free versions) include a lack of whiteboard features and session broadcasting, and so Skype is more useful for one-to-one or small group conversations. Case in point: NPR uses Skype extensively as a cost-effective way to conduct interviews (NPR, 2016), and makes it a point to inform listeners whenever Skype is used.
Padlet
Padlet is a whiteboard collaboration app that allows users to incorporate a multitude of formats including YouTube, Word files, images from smartphones (Ventimiglia, 2013), text, and links. The “boards” can be shared on various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (Conway, n.d.), which makes it a particularly valuable tool for PR professionals to publish created content quickly and easily on a variety of platforms. When using it to collaborate, however, it must be noted that version tracking is not an included feature, and the opportunity to disrupt or otherwise amend another’s work on a board (whether intentionally or otherwise) is significant. The limitation suggests that Padlet, while significantly more flexible than and without as many barriers to entry and adoption as other similar applications, should be used mainly by smaller groups within which team cohesion and trust already exist.
Project.net
Project.net is an app that launched almost two decades ago, in 1999 (King, 2002), and as such has enjoyed significant time, engineering, and testing infusions. It is open-source software, and the Community edition is available free of charge (Project.net, n.d.). This results in a reduction of the barriers to entry: cost and control (or proprietary software tools). The application is enterprise-grade (Ventimiglia, 2013), which suggests that the quality of features is high and that the application itself is relatively stable, which are significant advantages over competitors in a PR environment, in which reliability and feature-set are both crucial. Features include standard project management tools such as scheduling, milestones, and workplans, resource and workflow management, and project phase review and planning (Project.net, n.d.), also document management, time reporting, dashboard GUIs, activity logs and issue tracking. All these features aid collaboration in both small and large organizations, and speaks particularly to the more intensive requirements of larger organizations. Where Project.net excels—beyond this feature set, that is—is in its implementation of group discussions with viewing management (e.g., who has or has not read a discussion post); it is the author’s opinion that the ability to visually converse with other team members is what makes the application shine in comparison to its competitors, as collaboration is enhanced by open, free-flowing conversation and communication.
It should be noted that there are limitations to and disadvantages of open-source software: since a large number of people usually collaborate and work on such software (which allows most bugs to be detected and resolved quickly), quality and consistency may suffer as a result, and does leave software open to malicious intent (Yehuda, 2018). That Project.net is enterprise-class (Yehuda, 2018) and has a relatively trouble-free history spanning two decades suggests that in this case, the advantages of open-source software outweighs the disadvantages thereof.
Limitations of Discussion
It should be noted that with the exception of Skype, of which the author has extensive experience in both personal-use and enterprise environments, she has not personally used and evaluated the other two collaborations discussed above, and has had to rely on third-party reviews and the applications’ own descriptions of features.
Conclusion
The three applications discussed above are represented in this paper because they hold various competitive advantages over other, similar software: cost, widespread existing usage and adoption, quality, reliability, and small learning curves. Not all of these applications are suitable for all environments, but as a general starting point, all three support the sorts of collaboration and social media presence PR professionals rely on.
References
BBC News. (2005, September 12). EBay to buy Skype in $2.6bn deal. Retrieved from BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4237338.stm
BBC News. (2011, May 10). Microsoft confirms takeover of Skype. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-13343600
Bort, J. (2015, April 15). Here’s more proof that companies are jumping on Microsoft Office 365 like crazy. Retrieved from Business Insider, Australia: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chart-shows-the-rise-of-office-365-2015-4/
Conway, P. (n.d.). Padlet. Retrieved from Common Sense Media: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/padlet
King, N. (2002, October 15). Project.net. Retrieved from PC Mag: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,543677,00.asp
NPR. (2016, March 7). Is That Cut From A Skype Conversation? Then You Must Tell Listeners. Retrieved from NRP Ethics Handbook: http://ethics.npr.org/memos-from-memmott/is-that-cut-from-a-skype-conversation-then-you-must-tell-listeners/
Project.net. (n.d.). Community. Retrieved from Project.net: http://www.project.net/community
Project.net. (n.d.). Scheduling & Resources. Retrieved from Project.net: http://www.project.net/content/scheduling-resources
Skype. (n.d.). Calling mobiles and landlines. Retrieved from Microsoft Skype: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/fa10613/how-do-i-make-a-call-on-skype
Solomon, S. (2015, June 18). Why Skype for Business is More Important Than You Thought. Retrieved from BetterCloud: https://www.bettercloud.com/monitor/skype-for-business-cloud-office/
Ventimiglia, M. (2013, October 23). 25 Great Video Collaboration Tools for Business. Retrieved from GETVOIP: https://getvoip.com/blog/2013/10/23/video-collaboration-tools-for-business/
Yehuda, Y. (2018, June 7). Minimizing Open Source Software Disadvantages & Maximizing Advantages. Retrieved from DZone: https://dzone.com/articles/minimizing-open-source-software-disadvantages-amp