Blogs, Twitter, social networking: your new business tools

Our efforts to increase collaboration through the use of social media has been picked up by Construction Magazine, and is featured in the current issue http://tr.im/rdR2

Collaborative Programming

It turns out that our site manager at Wyke College, Mark Kelsey, updates his programme every day with MS Project. All we need to do now is find an effective way of him sharing this information. Printing to PDF is a waste of time, a blog update would be better. I'll get a copy of Project and get his programme and test out the interchangeabilitywith GanttProject. I'm sure the project team, college, students and parents would like to have access to real time updates and programme.

Google Calender Sync

As demonstrated earlier. This will sync your Outlook calendar with your Google a/c Calendar.

You can set permissions for different people depending on whether you want them to see the actual entry or just a 'busy' marker for that slot.

The five minute website - an example of free tools

Here is an example of a website put together in under five minute using free tools. It isn't glamorous or sophisticated and there isn't a gram of Flash to be seen. In minutes a page can be posted for general consumption.

This raises an interesting and very understandable corporate concern - control.

There is a genuine concern that if tools are available to anyone who wants them then who is controlling what they are saying and doing? Who can stop somebody saying horrid things and posting embarrassing photographs from the Christmas party? The free five minute website give you the answer - nobody. By logical extension anyone can do anything and if they are motivated enough they will do it anyway in under five minutes.

We must to remind ourselves that we are using the web to make things better, not to stop people griping when we make things worse.

unsheffield

I'll probably be attending some of this event. I hear that the geek will inherit the earth.

Open source project management; a brief response (because I had switched off new post comments ;)

Andrew, you've raised some really important questions about what people actually get out of the tools that they are using and MS Project is a good case in point. Bloatware is a term that is used too often in my opinion because it of uses on the tools rather than the output. But it crystallises the issue nicely. I have no idea how H&P implement and use MS Project but it is a good case in point to discuss the topic of collaboration in general.

MSP is HUGE and EXPENSIVE to implement and train up for. I've used it on and off since the 90's and despite persevering I now find that I can't justify the energy that it absorbs. The future for now does seem to be applications that integrate simply into (browser) platforms like Internet Explorer, Chrome and to a lesser degree FireFox. MS and Google seem to have applications in their sights in the way that Apple App's have revolutionised handheld computing.

There is an important question to be asked with every so called solution; Why are we doing this?

So you need to ask why you are using MS Project, and I'd suggest that it being a de-facto standard isn't a good enough answer to prevent you looking at other solutions.If a single member of the project team doesn't use it as fully as everyone else then its strength fails at the weakest link.

A paper and pencil diary and task system might be the answer if a project/ construction/ design/ cost manager is the only person using it. If the MSP gannt charts never really leaves his desk for any constructive purpose then you are probably wasting time and money, making you less efficient than if you ditched it today. It might be more productive (and much cheaper) to buy a few dozen copies of Dave Allen's Getting Things Done.

That's not to say that you should throw the baby out with the bathwater but project information is no use if it isn't of some use to more than one person. Shared and open use of the tools encourages collaboration with the information. Collaboration encourages the best solutions. The best solutions encourage excellence and usually profit! We all like profit. :)

Open source project management tools the way forward?

We've just spent a load of cash retraining contracts managers on the use of MS Project. Every time we do a quality based tender submission we get asked to show how we develop and update programmes. But how many contractors actually update all their programmes on a regular basis? The problem with MS project seems to be that you need the software to open it, so how can it be used in a truly collaborative way. After all, collaborative programming and integrated teams are supposed to be the holy grail of continuous improvement (if they're not then tell me what is so I can put it in my next bid). Open source gizmos that interface with MS Project and other applications are being developed, and these must be the way forward. The main criticisms seem to be that they have less functions than MS Project, but my Toyota has lots of functions and i don't use any of them. Shouldn't the main point here be not how flashy your programme is (or could be), but who's actually using it as a useful project management tool. I'd be interested to hear about any contractors currently using open source tools, and on what size of projects.

Google in construction

Just been talking to Martin at Fairsnape who told me about this story - it looks like they are putting all their drawings on Google docs and saving plenty