Enterprises these days cannot afford to be technophobic. Most of them realize and recognize the importance of a common platform that provides social networking within the office that increases communication and collaboration and thereby enhances productivity in daily activities and projects.

The space, however, is divided into two camps:

Beyond the firewall: Companies opening their firewalls to available networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn.

Behind the firewall: Companies wary of a “social” networking site being adopted for intra-office communication purposes.

Know thy cubicle neighbour

For the first camp, we can look at Serena Software Inc., a Silicon Valley company, and their “Facebook Fridays”. Serena recognized the latent potential that lay in social networking sites like Facebook and announced a policy last year urging its employees to join Facebook and increase interaction and strengthen its 800 employee-strong team.

As Mary Heen Waldo, Serena’s vice-president of global HR puts it - “From a cultural standpoint, bringing together a lot of disparate corporate cultures can be a challenge, and we see Facebook as helping that effort. How do you communicate when people never see each other or, if they do, it is just once or twice a year? It has been borne out in my years in HR that when you know each other as people — what makes you tick, how you make decisions — you can work together more effectively.”

Burton, Waldo’s boss, says Facebook can be a virtual water cooler.

Make work simpler

Moving a little away from mere water cooler conversations, to the work desk; companies are increasingly using employee-generated applications like blogs and wikis to map categories of information and enabling easy and a more wide-spread information access culture for everyone in the organization.

Eric Miller, president of knowledge management company Zepheira and a former head of Semantic Web Initiative for the World Wide Web Consortium at Massachusetts Insititue of Technology had this to say about an intra-office communication/collaboration tool portal – “… (An intra-office communication network) transforms the way enterprises share, collaborate and exchange knowledge, providing a huge competitive advantage. It will be a differentiator among businesses in the next three or four years.”

Simpler -> Easier to abuse?

While intra-office networking tools are a great way to increase employee interaction, bring the team together and up the productivity levels, skeptics (Those belonging to the second camp mentioned above) are also concerned about security and regulatory compliance issues as the communication most often occurs outside the firewall, where an employer has no control over what’s said.

The common sentiment frequently brought to debate is “Networking tools available online are social tools and do not guarantee any security for my company’s confidential data.”



Whether or not this fear is justified is debatable and subjective.

However, where the fear of proprietary information leaking takes priority over a strongly connected and communicative team of workers, commercial tools like SharePoint Server 2007 step in to provide similar functions within the protection of the corporate firewall.

Microsoft, which claims to have around 300,000 internal blogs and wikis, forayed into the space with SharePoint Server 2007. The service, however, has a substantial installation and maintenance cost attached to it and is fit for enterprises with significantly large employee strength.

Using Web 2.0 to your organization’s advantage, smartly

Other organizations like TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications LLC, a recruitment advertising agency in New York City, are still choosing to stick to utilizing the latent potential of the Web 2.0 space. They recently launched an application that its clients’ employees can use to promote job openings from their Facebook profiles.

While tasks such as job postings (TMP) and team building (Serena) can be accomplished through sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and even MySpace, there is still a need gap that exists for a network that fulfills not only the intra-office networking needs but also gives the users a secure online portal to collaborate on tasks.

An online space that not only helps you collaborate on projects but also keeps you connected with your friends at work. So, how do you stay connected with your colleagues?

Sources:
Businessweek
CIO-Today
BNet

With the feature release today, Remindo becomes widgets-enabled. Your Workpage can now host HTML and XML widgets from GoogleIg, Widgetbox, Labpixies, Widgipedia and the likes.

We are all really excited about this release as it brings us a step closer to our final vision of the Remindo API which will house the Remindo Developer network. This will give developers the opportunity to build gadgets and applications targeted at the working professional (the Remindo user). It will have everything from a widget sandbox to a forum and a host of other features we will like to keep under wraps till it releases the end of this month.

For now, have a look at this presentation to know more about our latest release

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It’s as simple as that! So, start adding widgets to your workpage and let us know your comments (the bouquets and the brickbats). We’ll be eagerly looking forward to everything you have to say.

We have upgraded the speed and performance of Remindo and it is now at par with Gmail and other top performers i.e. amongst the quickest products on the planet. We will again revisit speed in 3 weeks with a fresh mind and then again & again regularly to ensure that we are always delivering performance ahead on any other product on the Internet.

With this performance upgrade, Remindo is officially in Beta. Unlike other products that have launched across the Internet in 2007, we were public with Remindo alpha and there was no veil of secrecy or any kind of pseudo hype built around Remindo. This enabled us to get frank and free opinions about Remindo and we used these to improve the current features and future feature sets.

The next step is Remindo 1.0, which is expected mid March. At that stage we should be able to present a polished dashboard and excellent content. There will also be a new shorter sign-on process and other tweaks that should make Remindo a pleasure to use thus encouraging users to login everyday at work as soon as they hit their desk. Last but not least, we will create necessary architecture to enable Remindo to scale up rapidly as and when required.

The vision of Remindo is to fill the important gap that exists in today’s world: a simple and easy tool that helps me work better. To plug this gap we looked at the very office we work and made note of all that could be better done.

We hope to be able to provide most if not all these features by end of July when we expect to roll out Remindo 2.0.

Till then, Happy Using!

There are a host of start pages online which provide users with a lot of gadgets. When we started working on Remindo we decided on focusing on the working professional instead of trying to pander to all and sundry. The aim of the Remindo workpage is to get all the work-related information you need in one place.

The Remindo workpage helps you keep all the information you need organized in one place. Here are a few ways to start organizing your work-life through your workpage:

1. Add feeds and widgets: Once you sign-in to Remindo and land up on your workpage you see a list of feeds on your default page, which have been customized according to your location. You can add more feeds to your workpage by simply clicking the “Add stuff” link at the top of the page. This takes you to the default editor-managed directory containing a host of other feeds which you can add to your page by simply clicking on the link. If you do not find the feed you are looking for in the directory. You can add the RSS or atom feed you require through the “Add feed” pop-up by copy-pasting the URL of the feed in there.

Pretty soon with our gadgets API being launched, we will also update our directory with a select set of gadgets which will save users the trouble of separating the wheat from the chaff. Besides this you will also be able to add external widgets.

2. Access the address book: The sidebar on the workpage contains a link to the Address book. Anyone who has ever attended a conference is well-acquainted with the trouble of having to return with a stack of cards, which if left unorganized, are often misplaced. You can:

a. Add the card details through the “Add a contact” tab on in the address book and sort them as personal and business contacts.

b. Subsequently organize the contacts you add manually or import through the “Address requests” feature mentioned in the point below, through the “Manage groups” tab. The groups feature allows you to mail specific contacts or a selected group of your Remindo contacts.

3. Sending address requests: You can also send address requests to your professional and personal contacts through the “Send address request” link on the workpage, which takes you to the address book tab. You can send personalized invites to a select group of contacts or use the import contacts feature to import the e-mail IDs of your contacts and send group invites.

These are just a few of the features on our workpage. We will keep this blog constantly updated with any new feature that we keep adding to Remindo. Till then we’d like you to explore the site and keep us updated with your comments and suggestions regarding the current and upcoming features.

Yup, we are now GoogleGadget API Compatible. I’ve just returned from a meeting with the tech-team where they showed us the GoogleGadget API compatability. Being GoogleGadget API compatible is an important first step in being OpenSocial compatible since OpenSocial is an extension of the Google Gadget API.

Did I mention this it was an internal presentation?? Which means you have to wait a wee bit longer till we roll it out on Remindo.com. Of course, we are a little away from full compatibility, and having to iron out the last few glitches is always going to be tiresome.

So what exactly does this mean? To begin with, you can add a Google widget(or any other widget for that matter) by simply copying the HTML/XML code into the little box provided for adding a widget. That’s the easy part. Soon, you’ll also find that we’ve created a widget directory which contains widgets that we think you are most likely to find useful in your day to day work. Additionally there could also be some widgets like a Sports tracker that all of you would find useful even though it has nothing to do with your work 

In the meantime, developers would also have created their widgets that they would like to see on Remindo. This too will go into the Remindo widget directory where other users will be able to add them to their page and be able to rate it and give feedback and generally make the developers’ life miserable. Of course, we will have a support and feedback forum to help out the developers and you can always join in for a quick look-see.

Good times ahead !

Old friends, new acquaintances, family, clients, future bosses, etc, etc , etc. I can’t even begin to count the number of times conversations have ended with those four words ‘Let’s keep in touch’. Sure it sounds simple enough to do, though I’ve found in recent times, can get pretty darn complicated.

Take just family and friends for example. I’ve got about a dozen diaries containing several people named Aunt Mary and hundreds of crossed out and rewritten numbers and addresses. Just sorting out who’s who is enough to make a grown man cry. Add to that, having all their e-mail addresses scattered across my Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL address books, and you get a situation I’m sure all of you’ll are a familiar with.

And let’s not forget all my business contacts. The latest pile of business cards I’ve managed to gather from the recent convention, the numbers and e-mail id’s of my clients, associates and future business partners, spread across my palm top, and my e-mail accounts. If this is how it’s going to be, then I would rather not keep in touch at all.

But then there came Remindo. It was ray of sunshine in the chaotic world of numbers and addresses. It helps me keep all my friends, families and business contacts organized in one place. So I can finally get rid of all those diaries and definitely will never have to go hunting through a mountain of business cards ever again.

Also, it makes it easier than ever to simply import all my contacts e-mail id’s and other information from my different accounts and have it all in one place. Plus, with the unique and simple messaging system, it lets me send messages, to anyone or everyone on Remindo with the click of a button.

So, if you ever need a better way to keep in touch and keep organized, Remindo is the perfect solution. Take it from me!!

A while ago I read an interesting article which said the average 21^st century individual is exposed to more information in one day than an average 18^th century individual was in his entire lifetime. While I don’t know how true that piece of statistic is, I only have to take a look at Sarika to know that she’ll beat entire nations (18^th century of course) in information overloading.

Given that she has 12 tabs open at any given point (not to mention I make it worse by sending her more links) Sarika’s probably more eager for the customizable workpage to be launched than Rehan himself. Hopefully then, she’ll stop scrolling through her numerous tabs and muttering to herself (which, considering I sit at the next bay, is a little spooky).

If you’ve been enjoying our numerous feeds from the feed directory, be sure to drop a line to Kris who’s worked really hard on it. I’m sure you should find the most popular feeds in the directory. Otherwise, you always have the option of adding your own feeds onto your workpage. Kris has also spent time figuring out the most popular feeds for each state which is what you see as default widgets when you log in for the first time. The flip side however, is his facebook status “I’m feed-up”

What Sarika and I are impatiently waiting for is the time when we can finally add more stuff. Rehan dubbed this “use-cases” and has a whole list of things neatly listed out. The development team has promised to meet cases 1 and 2 by Jan 30^th. The use-cases are basically addition of widgets independent of user data. Which means apart from checking feeds, you will also be able to do a variety of tasks such as track packages, make your sticky notes,play games and message the world.

We are eagerly looking forward to this because it means we finally get started on what we want Remindo to be — a “digital work-tool aggregator”.

The great rate at which users are accepting widgets and applications is heartening. According to a report published by JupiterResearch in November 2007, from a familiarity level of less than 5% widget users online, the end of 2007 saw the numbers swell to 26% of users adopting and using widgets. The increased popularity of sites such as Facebook, GoogleIg and others have helped increase user awareness levels.

Scrabulous has become a constant fixture on most desktops in my bay. Working for an online media firm does have its own warped perks, discounting the caffeine-supported late nights and the frequently lost fights against time.

With sites like Plaxo and LinkedIn coming into the applications scene, we are seeking to find better ways to connect with the Remindo user, the 9 to 5-ers.

We are but one of those anyway, and it’s quite inconvenient, to put it very mildly, alt-tabbing your way between 15 different windows just to check your FedEx tracking number, stock rates, to-do lists, hunting for addresses to ship important little parcels to, playing the next move on Scrabulous, squeezing in a “Hello” to our respective loved ones or not so loved ones, etc… So yeah, that can get quite exasperating.

Currently, we’re busy collecting at least a few of the above in one location, viz., the address book, the messaging system, the latest news in politics, business, technology, sports, entertainment and offer the user editor-selected location-specific feeds.

This essentially means that I’m saved the hassle of looking for all the feeds related to Mumbai since the system does it for me. Special.

Am eagerly awaiting the first launch the Remindo API, which will be later this month, so that we can make the content richer and more useful for the user with them being able to add richer work-related gadgets from the Remindo directory.

Howdy, my name is Ryan and i’ll be your link to the API of Remindo.com.

If you are reading this early on, it means you are one of the few developers we invited so Welcome!!

What I want to do is tell you about the API that we’ve been breaking our heads over for the past few days. Ok, not really about it so much as we hope it will be. Listed below are some points we think are essential to an API we want to make real popular.

Feel free to add your own points in the comments and we’ll update this blog with the really good ones!

Characteristics of a good API:

- Easy to learn.

- Easy to use, even without documentation.

- Hard to misuse.

- Easy to read and maintain code that uses it.

- Sufficiently powerful to satisfy requirements.

- Easy to extend.

- Appropriate to audience.

Now you’ve probably taken a look at Remindo so I really dont need to tell you what its about. What I do want to tell you is what we are hoping it will be and that is your one stop for everything work related. So we’ll have you checking your mail, your feeds, your podcasts, your business news, your stock, do your chatting, your <insert online activity>… all in one page. Not to mention we’ll help you keep track of your friends, their addresses, their phone numbers, the birthdays and soon, we’ll be setting up sms alerts for all reminders that you require.

Remindo supports a strong work culture, but that doesn’t mean we don’t believe and encourage having fun. From ‘Dare games’ (*see below) to Christmas parties, from day long treks in the great outdoors to water fights in the office, from basketball (that’s right we have a basketball hoop, take that Google!!) to team outings, there’s always something happening to remind us that there is more to life than codes and numbers.

What is the Dare game:
Each member of the team draws a card from a deck and holds it face down. At the count of three each member slaps their card face up on their forehead. This means they can see everyone else’s cards, but not their own. Judging by the other’s cards and what you perceive your card to be, dares are thrown forward. A bit of haggling a little higgling and eventually a consensus is reached on the dare. Now each member displays their cards and the one with the lowest card has to perform the dare.

This game is a lot of fun though may backfire. An example would be of one member who thought she had a very high card, but ended up losing, and had to walk to the CEO’s cabin and scream YABBA DABBA DOO!!

Don’t worry, she was not fired!!!