My mantra for quite some time has been "They key to successful collaboration is neither tools nor culture, it’s purpose.” With that in mind, I’m excited by one of the latest events in the social business market, Fuze's acquitision of LiveMinutes. Fuze, which describes themselves as "visual communication and collaboration” is one of the popular new video conferencing vendors taking on market veterans like Cisco WebEx and Citrix GoToMeeting.
Over the last year or so I’ve had the opportunity to use Fuze several times and have always been quite impressed. It was easy to use on computers and mobile devices. It has an attractive modern looking user experience. But to be blunt… it always felt like just another video conferencing product. It was an accessory, not a place where people would go to do work. It did not fulfil a specific purpose, such as helping close sales deals or creating marketing collateral. Until now.
Enter LiveMinutes with their collaborative workspaces where people can create and share content. Combining Fuze and LiveMinutes together results in Fuze Spaces, a hybrid of online real-time content creation, file-sharing, task management, chat and video conferencing all weaved into one. While there are several collaboration platforms out there that offer a plethora of collaboration tools including blogs, wikis, file-sharing, task management, web conferencing, etc. what I like about Fuze Spaces is that they focus on the core idea that people get work done around projects. Those projects have a defined purpose. They are not just a "social stream" where people can post updates, nor just a web-conferencing tool for sharing slides. Instead Fuze Spaces seamlessly combines the features people need such as document co-authoring, file-sharing, text chat and video.
Of course Fuze is not looking to pivot away from their sweet spot of meetings, but rather improve the entire meeting experience, from preparation (before), to participation (during), to follow-ups (after). What the combination of Fuze and LiveMinutes allows them to do is redefine what a meeting itself is. Rather than sticking to the cliché “60 minute scheduled event on everyone’s calendar”, Fuze Spaces helps blur the line between meetings and projects. Some work may be done collaboratively in real time while other parts could be worked on separately by individuals. Everything will be collected and available in the Space, providing all members access to everything related to the project.
One feature I particularly like is their in-context commenting system, where in stead of posting feedback at the bottom or side of a page, people can comment right inline on the object being shared.
If your organization is evaluating new tools for team productivity, I suggest you add Fuze Spaces to your list.