Ready to review the newest File Storage? Check these new cool features: improved tree-view of your file storage, ability to  move files  or folders by drag-and-drop, track files versions, upload many files at once by easy-to-use drag-and-drop upload. Read more at Files, Multiple Drag & Drop Upload, Versioning.

Here is how it looks like now. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed as usual! Advanced permissions for files are now in beta-test - be ready to see this feature released soon!

We are happy to announce that from now on Comindwork is integrated with two wonderful microblogging tools: Twitter and Identi.ca.


Twitter has already become the synonym of microblogging. It has millions users around the world who use it for many different purposes. By integrating it with Comindwork we strive to make our users' online collaboration even more fast-paced and intuitive. The first cool feature of Twitter integration is that you can log in to Comindwork using your Twitter credentials. That way you don't have to remember different logins/passwords and free you memory capacity for more useful things.


This is how log in with Twitter credentials looks like


The next feature is a Twitter widget inside Comindwork system. After you specify your Twitter username in your account preferences, this widget will appear throughout the system. Surely, you may customize it like any other widget in our system. The widget contains your current Twitter status, your Twitter avatar and links to your profile. You can tweet right from Comindwork, using this widget. Your colleagues, who set their Twitter accounts, have special widgets associated with them. From this widgets, you can read their tweets, even if you are not following them on Twitter. You may also instantly reply to their tweets without leaving Comindwork.


  Twiter widget


Identi.ca is young, but promising microblogging platform. It has a few key differences from Twitter, that can potentially make it the king of microblogging. These differences are as follows:

• Identi.ca is based on Laconi.ca open-source engine. If Identi.ca manages to gain momentum, its developers base will become much larger than that of Twitter. This will allow Identi.ca team to develop new features much quicker than the competitors.
• Identi.ca is distributed. Everyone can install Laconi.ca software on his server and thus increase the resources behind Laconi.ca platform. Such a system doesn't have a single point of failure - a thing that plagues Twitter and considerably slows it's growth. As Michael Arrington states in his article, the only way for Twitter to scale is to decentralize it. Identi.ca is decentralized by design, so it seems to be a potential Twitter-killer.
• It introduced Twitter-compatible API. This cunning move made the huge Twitter developers community applications automatically compatible with Identi.ca (with a few tweaks).

That's why we added Identi.ca integration to Comindwork. Right now it supports the same set of features as it Twitter's counterpart: log in via Identi.ca credentials, widget etc. But, watching an amazing page of Identi.ca development, we are looking forward to implementing some Identi.ca-specific features, using its native API.

Identi.ca widget


We are working on other innovative features that will deeply integrate microblogging into our online project management and collaboration suit. Currently, Comindwork is the first enterprise 2.0 tool on the market to offer Identi.ca integration, and one of the first integrated with Twitter. We believe that bringing our enterprise software to the cutting edge of web 2.0 technologies will give our customers a competitive advantage in the ever-changing world.

Some time ago our team was big, and our projects were small. Whole project scope was fitting into one man's head, each requirement change and each important decision was distributed "from heart to heart", with belief in e-mails.

As projects complexity grew, e-mail box had been flooded, and then the new savior appeared: corporate wiki! We can now store all documents and knowledge in one place! To be precise, in two places: one visible for all participants, and one visible only for top-managers. Well, one way or another. Tasks are tracked in Rational ClearCase by that moment, and we were writing the plan in MS Project. This scheme worked, but there was no integration between these three systems. Decisions made by managers were distributed to the team in the format "real-life meetings + emails". The person who missed the message, lost track of whole project. Client was notified by heroic efforts of team, especially the most miserable person - project manager. He was responsible for creating visibility to the client, in form of different manually generated reports. The amount of systems was changing, but the essence stayed the same: incompatible data and problem of connecting all aspects of a task very quickly.

The issue was aggravated by the fact that delimitation of participants on "thinkers" and "implementers" was not working any more. We had to agree that each team member has needs to:

• Understand the task, seeing whole track of previous decisions
• Make decisions, being able to track connections to other tasks
• See what people are doing right now and synchronise their actions (which leads to process transparency)
• Store and share the results of their work, mostly decisions and the background for decisions.

In knowledge-intensive organisations (KIO), every task and every project is actually knowledge transformation. Knowledge is needed for action, action is creating new knowledge. Imagine you're building a cottege. Say, there's a task to dig the basis. Even such a 'standard' task generates knowledge: which subcontractor fits best, what specific issues were found etc.

Therefore the need in common platform for knowledge appears. There are minumum three processes in typical organisation that are eager to use new tools for increasing preciseness and effectiveness. These are: finances, CRM and production process. And they should be tightly integrated to run good. Big companies use ERP systems as a platform for knowledge-for-action, but what's available for small and medium businesses? Price matters.

We took the idea of connecting task management and ECM (enterprise content management) as a basis for collaboration system. "People and interactions over processes and tools", as Agile Manifesto declares. Meanwhile, researchers say that a knowledge worker spends up to 80% of his time searching for information, and only 20% on actions and creating new knowledge. Thanks Google for resolving this issue for Internet scope, but businesses require something else. The power of business data is in connections between elements.

Connecting people, knowledge and actions to increase the effectiveness of a project or a company - that's the main goal of Comindwork. In such a model, time is a gap between three components, narrowing the gap leads to increase in project speed.


We divide knowledge into several categories, on the criteria of lifetime.
1. Pure todos, tasks that do not require additional communications to be solved. Samples of a todo: "call client", "agree about a meeting".
2. Incidents, cases, action items - knowledge that is collected for a task that will be hardly performed again. A case is actually a history of solving the issue, track of all messages done during collaboration. Samples of cases are: "share responsibility between team members", "create content for site main page", "write business-plan".
3. Wiki pages have the longest lifetime and are potentially the most useful knowledge. They may be used both in scope of single project, or across projects. Often wiki pages are deliverables of a case. Samples of wiki pages are: "list of servers", "marketing strategy", "project plan".

There's a lot of tools to choose from. The main issue is to ask correct questions, and generate answers quickly.

Когда-то наша команда была большой, а проекты – маленькими. Весь обьем работы помещался в голове каждого человека, и каждое изменение требований клиента, каждое важное решение доносилось «от сердца к сердцу», с надеждой на электронную почту.
Сложность проектов росла, почтовый ящик распухал от писем, и вот появилось новое веяние: вики! Можно теперь складывать документы и знания в одном месте! Точнее, в двух – одном, видимом для всех сотрудников, и другом – видимом для топ-менеджеров. Ну, как-то. Задачи и время в то время мы отслеживали в Rational ClearCase, а план рисовали в MS Project. Все бы ничего, но связи между этими тремя системами не было никакой. Решения, принятые менеджером, доносились до команды в режиме «летучки + почта», кто пропустил тот упустил. До клиента же решения доносились героическими усилиями команды, чаще всего самого несчастного человека на свете – менеджера проекта: через вручную сгенерированные отчеты. Количество систем менялось, но суть оставалась той же: трудно совместимые данные, сложность моментально связать все аспекты задачи.
Все усугубляется тем, что в современной компании деление людей на «исполнителей» и «мыслителей» больше не работает. Приходится признать: у любого человека в команде есть потребности

• Быстро вникать в задачу, охватывать любые аспекты
• Принимать решения, видя все связи между требованиями и другими задачами
• Видеть, что делают другие люди прямо сейчас и синхронизировать свои действия (прозрачность процесса)
• Хранить и делиться любыми результатами своей работы – решениями.

В организациях, основанных на знаниях (KIO, knowledge-intensive organisations) любая задача, любой проект, это фактически трансформация одних знаний в другие. Знания необходимы для действия, каждое действие создает новое знание. К примеру, вы строите коттеджный поселок. И даже задача «сделать фундамент для дома» создает новое знание: какой подрядчик подходит лучше всего, какие характеристики местности были обнаружены в процессе, что-то еще.
Именно поэтому возникает необходимость в общей платформе знаний. В типичной организации есть как минимум три процесса, которые жаждут использовать новые технические возможности для увеличения четкости и эффективности. Это финансы, отношения с клиентами и «производственный процесс». И даже между этими тремя должна быть тесная интеграция. Крупные компании используют ERP как платформу знаний-для-действия, а что же делать малому и среднему бизнесу: price matters, цена имеет значение.
Мы взяли за базовую потребность, базовую идею связывание задач (task management) и знаний (ECM, enterprise content management). «Люди и их взаимодействие важнее процесса и средств разработки», как говорит манифест гибкой разработки, Agile Manifesto. Исследования показывают, что работник умственного труда тратит до 80% своего времени на поиск необходимой информации, и только 20% - на действия. Спасибо Google, он сократил время поиска в Интернет. Но бизнесам этого мало. Сила бизнес-информации – в связях между элементами.
Связывание людей, знания и действий для повышения эффективности проекта и компании – вот это основная задача системы Comindwork. Время – это зазор между этими тремя компонентами, уменьшение зазора – это повышение скорости проекта.


Знания мы делим на несколько категорий, по времени жизни:
1. Чистые задачи, todo, которые не требуют дополнительных коммуникаций для решения. Примеры todo: «позвонить клиенту», «договориться о встрече».
2. Инциденты, кейсы – знания, которые собираются для отдельной задачи, которая вряд ли повторится. Задача – это её история решения, обмен сообщениями. Пример задач: «разобрать зоны ответстветственности», «создать наполнение главной страницы сайта», «написать бизнес-план».
3. Вики-страницы как самое долгоживущее и потенциально полезное знание. Полезное как в рамках одного проекта, так и меж-проектное знание. Примеры страниц: «список серверов», «маркетинговая стратегия», «план проекта».
Есть из чего выбрать. Главное, задавать правильные вопросы, и быстро генерировать ответы.

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in their book "The One Minute Manager" in an easy way demonstrates three management techniques. I will not go into details, but here is a short summary of these three "One Minute Manager" secrets. 
 
 
First Secret - One Minute Goal Setting
 
1. Agree on your goals.
2. See what good behavior looks like.
3. Write out each of your goals on a single sheet of paper using less than 250 words.
4. Read and re-read each goal, which requires only a minute or so each time you do it.
5. Take a minute every once in a while out of your day to look at your performance, and
6. See whether or not your behavior matches your goal.
 
I don't think that I need to add anything, it is very true, very needed, very simple and very hard at the same time.
 
 
Second Secret - One Minute Praisings
 
1. Tell people up front that you are going to let them know how they are doing.
2. Praise people immediately.
3. Tell people what they did right-be specific.
4. Tell people how good you feel about what they did right, and how it helps the organization and the other people who work there.
5. Stop for a moment of silence to let them "feel" how good you feel.
6. Encourage them to do more of the same.
7. Shake hands or touch people in a way that makes it clear that you support their success in the organization.
 
This is a wonderful technique that helps you to unveil the potential of the people you manage, you will get more this way. The key in developing a good employee will always be on catching them doing something right instead of something wrong. The worst scenario is when people are basically left alone in their work and manager notice them only when they make some big mistake. How ling will a person work in the environment like this? I bet that not too long.
 
 
Third Secret - One Minute Reprimands
 
1. Tell people beforehand that you are going to let them know how they are doing and in no uncertain terms.
 
the first half of the reprimand:
2. Reprimand people immediately.
3. Tell people what they did wrong-be specific.
4. Tell people how you feel about what they did wrong-and in no uncertain terms.
5. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel.
 
the second half of the reprimand:
 
6. Shake hands, or touch them in a way that lets them know you are honestly on their side.
7. Remind them how much you value them.
8. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation.
9. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it's over.
 
I would use this third management technique very carefully, because if you are going to reprimand an active learner, that might beat him out of his track, but if he has done similar tasks successfully in the past then it's definitely worth it.
 
It was fun reading this book, because it is written ...differently then other management books, I found a lot new things for myself and I hope that you will too, it  was time well spent. Share these secrets, use them as you think needed and keep CoMindWorking .