Online Collaboration

Having recently completed a group assignment using Google-Docs, I am new to the concept of online collaboration software and websites. Apparently there are many of them. I had mixed reviews of working on this assignment with this technology because I felt as though there were not enough means to communicate with the group. Each person logged on to edit and add their parts, but there was not really a sense of collaboration. However, this project was also completed without ever meeting in person which save a lot time. The article from BusinessWeek addresses these issues. One aspect to a successful site is ease of use. The article is sure to address the importance of that. The reading gives an example that says productivity was increased to such a degree that some projects that would have normally taken two months simply took minutes. It is impressive that tasks that are completed on such a regular basis can be so drastically impacted by a relatively simple technology.