Chapter 4: Collaborating and Sharing with Others

Overview

The phrase effective collaboration strikes me as one of those corporate-speak terms, like synergy or think outside the box. They’re terms that became popular because they meant something important, but are now used so much for so many different reasons that you might begin to wonder if they really mean anything at all.

So, what does effective collaboration mean in the real world in which you live? Literally, of course, it just means working productively with others. But, for this chapter on collaborating and sharing with others, effective collaboration means much more than that. It means:

• Sharing ideas and content more easily.

• Having more dynamic ways to communicate about projects.

• Getting better results with less work.

• Managing and tracking content more easily.

Collaboration in business so often takes the form of documents-from project management to budget planning, business pitches, or legal matters-that not introducing at least some of the improved collaboration solutions in the 2007 Microsoft Office system would be neglectful. This chapter will introduce key solutions for more effective document collaboration and provide a quick reference for getting started with the method of your choice.