Ginger – Work Smarter In a Virtual Environment

The type of team collaboration that occurs when people work side-by-side in a traditional office setting just doesn’t happen for teams with telecommuters and other remote employees. Virtual teams have to work smarter if they want to work better, and they have the use the right tools to foster collaboration in an unorthodox environment.

Ginger is a team collaboration platform that groups of people can use to work together in a virtual world. Start opening up the lines of communication with your virtual teammates by registering for a Ginger account and inviting your colleagues to join. Start office-wide conversations, and include files that relate to the topics under discussion. Your teammates can “like” or “dislike” your messages, and they can reply with their own opinions at any point in time. By holding discussions in an open forum, and posting everything in chronological order, you can make sure everyone is on the same page. New comments and other group activities shows up on your dashboard page, and you can track comments as they’re posted in real-time.

Ginger is a great tool for groups to use when brainstorming new ideas or voting on company-wide decisions. Larger teams can split off into smaller groups (to avoid bombarding the entire company with details from their individual projects), and people who work across multiple time zones can contribute to ongoing conversations in their own time (without fear that the conversation will be over by the time they log-on at 8 a.m.).

Practical Uses:

• Take a group vote on a new company mission statement
• Ask colleagues for their help with an important project
• Brainstorm ideas for a new marketing campaign
• Contribute ideas to a group conversation whenever you have time

Insider Tips:

• Upload files to add context to the messages you post
• Mark all messages as “read” to clear your dashboard page
• Ginger shows the name of the last person who contributed to a conversation
• Up-vote or down-vote a message to make your opinion heard

What we liked:

• Ginger cuts down on unnecessary emails and instant messages
• Ongoing conversations give people a chance to think about their answers before they respond
• People can collaborate on their own schedules
• Conversations can be “forked” to prevent side-discussions from becoming a distraction

What we didn’t like:

• Ginger doesn’t include as many bells and whistles as some competing collaboration apps

Alternatives:

• Chatter – http://www.salesforce.com/chatter
• Convo – http://www.convo.com
• Yammer – https://www.yammer.com

Company Info:

• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
• Founded by: Lincoln Loop
• Web site: https://gingerhq.com

Costs:

• Free plan
• Small plan is $19/month
• Medium plan is $49/month
• Large plan is $119/month