One thing, I’ve noticed is that people think the implementation of tools will suddenly make “collaboration” happen. From my experience, before engaging in any of these tools, it’s worth considering the engagement factors (Motivation, Opportunity, and Capability).

For example, I had a request from a sales group looking to use a Wiki to update and maintain their sales manual. The logic was that if Sales people are closer to the customer, why not have them update the info instead of Marketing which is 1 step removed… When you think through the engagement factors though, you can see some big challenges to make this work. Sales people were not being motivated to engage in the wiki. In fact, they were penalized from the compensation model which would reward the top sales people more. The Sales people had demanding schedules forcing them in front of the customers as much as possible and time away from customers was seen as bad. Sales folks were excellent at selling. They lived for it. They didn’t live for updating documents.

Although it’s a private sector example, the concepts of “design” shouldn’t be overlooked before looking to use these tools from a collaborative perspective. I dig a bit deeper into this on my blog if you or your readers are interested.

Cheers,
Rex

my team and i use the skype version all the time. but when we start getting to the 8 and 9 persons per skype call, it seems to be at about the max for bandwidth. i don’t necessarily have bandwidth issues with the regular yugma, so i’m thinking it’s because skype is a relatively large bandwidth hog.

i recently noticed that the skype version of yugma has single app. sharing too, instead of just the entire desktop.

i think this yugma company is on the right track for where collaboration services are going!

hope that helped!