CharityVillage® Research: Online collaboration and the death rate of dot-coms

Resources & Library

Path: Main Street : Resources & Library : Research Articles : Feature Article

Online collaboration and the death rate of dot-coms
By Gillian Kerr, Ph.D., C.Psych.

Many of the free web-based services we've recommended on goodenough.ca have closed down in the last few months. Other services have started charging monthly subscriptions, and others have jacked up their prices. We're getting sad notices every week about closures and mergers, and the surviving companies are all trying to figure out how to make money.

For a couple of wonderful years, it seemed that we would be able to get anything on the Web for free. No more.

However, there are still many terrific services that nonprofits can use for little or no cost. Before you actually use any of them, I suggest you check out our article on ASPs and Webware describing the advantages and risks of web-based software. The main things to consider are backup and security; in other words, making sure that your data is protected from loss or breach of confidentiality. The second level of issues to worry about are the amount of training it will take to get everyone familiar with the tools, and the risk that you'll have to start all over again with a new system if the old one doesn't work out.

Coincidentally, those are the same issues you have to worry about for software on your own computer networks. We're still believers in Webware — we use it all the time to run our own business — but we're getting more cautious about it. We now look for services that have some financial stability (so they have a better chance of sticking around), and that have been through a few versions to get the bugs worked out. This is not to discourage those of you who like to play with new programs! But if you do install new and untested programs, you'd better not mind spending hours waiting for technical support while a recorded voice says "Your call is very important to us", or reformatting your hard drive every few months as your computer gets increasingly confused with incompatible plug-ins.

All that is an introduction to the next section on collaboration tools, but it's also a warning and disclaimer about any recommendations that we make in these columns. Some of the services I suggest may be closed down by the time you read this article, and they may not be as functional as they say they are on their web sites. You need to have some tolerance for churn and instability to play in this arena.
Online collaboration tools

Online collaboration usually refers to some form of continuing communication among a group of people using computer-based tools, mostly on the Internet. It includes discussion boards, videoconferencing, file sharing, listservs and lots of other options. Last month I described how to use telephones and teleconferencing for virtual meetings; this month, I will focus on tools that let people work together when they are not communicating at the same time. In other words, they let people work on their own time, like email, rather than making them all be available at the same time, like a telephone call.

There are hundreds of online collaboration tools. Two good sources for finding them are Cnet's Webware and David Wooley's conferencing site. Most of these services have a core of people who find them very useful — in fact, some of the old discussion groups have an almost cult-like following.

Online collaboration can be used for public advocacy (it was used very successfully in the Citizens for Local Democracy movement against the Toronto Megacity, with strong facilitation by Liz Rykert) and building long-term virtual communities. We at Good Enough Information Systems are interested in how it can be used to make nonprofit organizations more effective, which may include advocacy and community-building, but can also involve small project groups, connecting with volunteers, working from home, and cutting down on travel time while working effectively with colleagues.

The main elements of effective collaboration tools are:

Email. Most people already have their own email addresses, but if they don't you have to provide email for them. If participants don't have their own computers they can use web-based email at a library or a cyber-café. Many people will only interact with your group using email, occasionally clicking on a link within an email message to go to your collaboration group and review a file.

File storage. Groups need a place to store documents such as Word files, spreadsheets, or plain text messages so that everyone can work with them. And there should be a way that you can send email notifications when you've posted an important file.

Discussion groups. There generally is some way to store discussions for future reference.

There may be other options like polling, chat groups and shared applications.

After testing and working with dozens of different tools, we have a few suggestions about how to set up online collaboration for your agency:

Use email as the primary communication tool

People won't reliably go to online discussion groups unless they are nagged. They are just too busy. That's why listservs are so popular — comments are distributed as emails, and participants don't have to remind themselves to go to the site to see the latest conversation. On the other hand, lots of people hate getting masses of emails every day, and would prefer to pick up messages only when they feel like it. A good collaboration tool will use email, but will allow members to choose how they want to be notified.

Start with a small group of champions

Every new technology should be tested by a small group of users who have a high tolerance for frustration. Even the best services take some time to learn, and they might fit the needs of one agency but not another. You don't want to insist that everyone learn a new tool before checking it out carefully. When it has been tested and approved by the enthusiasts, expose it to some people who are less comfortable with technology and see what they say. They will be very helpful in identifying problems and training issues for the rest of your users. New technology programs are like antibiotics — if you prescribe the wrong one, it creates resistance in the population.

Be aware of your needs for security and privacy

Security breaches on the Internet are very hard to prevent. For many collaboration tasks, security is not a big concern. Your discussion about menu planning for your next committee meeting is unlikely to end up in the newspaper even if some maladjusted hacker wandered into your group discussion. However, you have a responsibility to protect sensitive information, especially about your clients. We all take security risks every day, just by living. We can't entirely prevent theft and fraud in any aspect of our lives. Online security precautions should be handled the same way we handle real-life security — we need to be aware of what we are protecting, and how to minimize the risk. (For a wonderful book about online security, see Secrets and Lies.)

The moral here is to choose online tools that meet your needs for security, and then make sure that your users follow security rules. It makes no sense to invest in a big steel door that people keep propping open so they can pop out for a smoke, and it makes no sense to pay for a state-of-the-art encrypted system if people create passwords that can be broken in a few seconds by a dictionary attack. (In a dictionary attack, the attacker's computer tries all the words in an English dictionary. If your password is a person's name or a word in a dictionary, you're propping open the steel door.)

There are always tradeoffs between convenience and security. For example, a convenient intranet will ‘recognize' you when you go to the web site and let you in without a password, using cookies that it has left on your hard drive. A secure intranet will force you to log in with username and password every time you enter it, to prevent non-members from sneaking in if they use your computer. You have to decide what's important to you; most users will object to the constant sign-ins on a secure site unless you have clearly communicated organizational values around privacy.
Recommendations:

There are two solid, well-designed services that we like for nonprofits. One is free, and the other is a full-powered secure collaboration tool. In addition, you may want to test a third service that we've heard good things about.
Yahoo Groups

Yahoo has a set of terrific free services, including Yahoo Groups (formerly eGroups). Once you've signed up for a Yahoo account, you automatically have access to one of the best free email services (you can access your email on the Web, or with your regular email program. You can even pick up your email over the telephone, as long as you sign up at yahoo.com, not yahoo.ca). You can also get a calendar, web site, messaging and so on. This package of integrated services means that you can implement them easily for your staff and volunteers — they just have to register once. And Yahoo Groups is one of the most powerful and user-friendly collaboration programs we've seen. It enables various levels of privacy, allows members to set their own preferences for email, and even provides a simple database program that will allow members to create shared information resources. However, it provides no personal customer support, and doesn't even describe its security procedures. I've used it many times for community work groups, but wouldn't trust it to share highly confidential material. Many French groups use the service, but the interface is in English only.
Critical Path Secure File Services

Critical Path specializes in providing secure and reliable outsourced email and file services. The collaboration service provides several levels of security, right up to encrypting files so that even if you send them to the wrong person she can't open it without the correct individual digital certificate. It seems to be well designed and robust, it's been around for several years, and it has good customer service. Critical Path adds new features slowly, after lots of testing, and emphasizes reliability and the protection of your data. The shared file system is slower than Yahoo Groups, probably because it uses SSL and encryption. It is for serious work groups who want to protect their data — informal community groups will dislike it because it is not designed to be friendly and quick.

We've started using it for our own consulting projects because we can set the level of security according to the clients' needs and preferences, and we just couldn't be sure about the protection given by other services. The cost varies, but starts at about $10/month U.S. for each team member. If you're working with confidential client documents, this is a good choice. We are setting up some trial accounts to let nonprofits play around with the service; if you're interested, contact us. We are working on an upcoming CharityVillage article about privacy and security, and will be describing Critical Path's services in more detail along with firewalls and security processes.

Critical Path also sells email and messaging services, starting at about $3.50US/month. Or you can get its email for free — we just found out, while we were researching this article, that Yahoo Mail uses Critical Path as its email provider. Critical Path sells its services throughout Europe and Latin America, and it can be customized for various languages. We didn't test this in depth though.
CommunityZero

We have read good reviews of CommunityZero (formerly Vicinities) and many communities are using them. CommunityZero is free for up to 5 megabytes of storage. They offer a more complete service with enhanced security that may be suitable for nonprofits, starting at $125/month US for up to 100 users. You can customize the elements of your community site (getting rid of the American news feeds and the ‘photo gallery', for example), and the look is more professional than Yahoo Groups.

You can create communities in any language you wish by customizing the menu items and welcome text, though some elements and the help files will be in English.
************

Gillian Kerr, Ph.D., C.Psych.

President, RealWorld Systems

gkerr at realworldsystems.net
Read my weblog at http://blog.realworldsystems.net

Disclosure: We have affiliate relationships with some of the services we describe in our columns, but we do not recommend or review services based on their affiliate programs. Among the services listed in this article, for example, we have a referral agreement only with Critical Path, and that was arranged after we had decided to buy their services for ourselves.