Finding Collaboration Solutions in a Hyper–Collaborative World

Chris Low, Product Manager, a la mode , inc.

I remember the first time I saw a cell phone. It was during halftime at a basketball game I attended while in college years ago. Representatives from a company I'd never heard of called "Cellular One" walked down the aisles of the arena carrying a device the size of a copy of "War and Peace." They passed the huge phones to fans and demonstrated that you can actually make a phone call – right there in the gym. I marveled.

Later, when I was a young employee, I was told one day that my job qualified me for a cool new tool: "Voice Mail." Before it could be activated, the company required me to attend a one hour Voice Mail Training Session. It covered how to create and change my access password, how to record a greeting, and the cool part – how to access my mailbox from any phone, even from home.

Since those technological advances have gone mainstream, I've often wondered, "Is this actually making my life easier?" Before voice mail, a secretary filtered calls for me and wrote messages from the important ones on little pink pieces of paper. Now I have to filter through all my messages on my own. I have to set aside time for it. That's not making my life easier.

Now e–mail comes straight to my cell phone. I hear the distinctive chime as the messages come in at all hours, between the constant phone calls, even in the middle of the night. And of course, we all constantly struggle to filter through the junk to find the legitimate messages, as well as the guilt when it's time to turn the phone off. It's a constant battle. Is that technology really making life easier? Sometimes I wonder.

Now this all may sound strange coming from a product manager at technology company. But my point is that technology only has value if it really makes the job easier, faster, and more efficient. E–mail, text messages, voice mail, cell phones – all of them are forms of collaboration technology that make doing our jobs much more effective, but many times they really don't make our lives any easier.

At a la mode labs, we're currently exploring technologies to help appraisers collaborate better. If you stop to think about it, the appraiser is really a full time "collaborator." Just about everything appraisers do has a collaboration aspect to it.

Collaboration takes three forms for appraisers:

• Team Collaboration – working with appraisers in your organization, trainees, or other appraisers in your area.
• Client Collaboration – sending information, status updates, and reports to your customers.
• Vendor Collaboration – communicating with your software vendor (that's us) to allow you to become as productive as possible.

Think about it. While you were working today, was there ever a time when you weren't doing one of those three things?

So we're looking into better ways to route reports for review and signing, better ways to share and access files and data regardless of its location, and better ways for appraisers to get information into customer's hands.

But the tricky part is making the collaboration technology more efficient than the way it's done today. If it's easier to just pick up the phone, then the technology won't be used.

While we don't have anything to show you just yet, we're excited with the possibilities. And that brings up some questions:

• Which part of the "collaboration chain" bogs you down the most?
• Do you see a greater need to gain access to remote files?
• How do you assign appraisal tasks to other appraisers?
• How do you bring the data together from all the involved parties?
• Would you be willing to share comp data with other appraisers?

We'd like to hear your thoughts. Click the link above and send us feedback on your collaboration needs and frustrations. Send us some "what if" scenarios. We promise we'll read it all.