CMU School of Drama


Monday, September 08, 2008

9 Tools to Keep You in Sync With Clients and Colleagues

FreelanceSwitch - The Freelance Blog: "These days the idea of a design team is usually wide open to location. Your creative director could be in LA while the designers work in New York, and the client lives in Texas. To keep in sync and get all the work done on time, I’ve found that I can’t work without certain tools. Here’s a small list of applications and websites that aid collaboration over long distances that and are either free or very affordable."

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are a few more apps out there they didn't mention, for whatever reason. They say to use AIM for video conferencing, but there is a free program I have had a lot of success with called Skype. It has voice, video, chat and a number of plug-ins that can be useful or fun. If you want to get a bit more from a meeting, there is Gotomeeting.com. They do not have voice service, but they do have video. The really useful tool they have is your can give control of the presenting desktop to anyone in the meeting. So in conjunction with skype or a phone conference it is very useful.

Some other programs I have not use much are Yousendit. I think it works the same as dropbox. The only time I have used it, I have not had any problems.

Finally, in the mobile world, Opera is the best but the industry is waiting for the firefox and Skyfire releases. All we can do is wait and see.

MBerger said...

Of what was on this list I think that one of the most overlooked for a theatrical production team is that of video conferencing. Too often distances impede productions from moving forward. Video conferencing can allow designers to "sit in" on rehearsals if they are out of town, and production meetings can now take place even if members are across the country or the world.

aquacompass said...

I would also suggest an application Daylite for Apple users. You can create accounts for everyone attached to a given production which allows them to view, add, create, or edit: Meeting notes, meetings, appointments, tasks, pipelines, projects, personnel, time sheets, budgets, etc. etc. etc. Its also incredibly useful because it syncs with all the native Apple applications such as Mail, iCal, and Address Book.

Anonymous said...

Cody, I'm so glad you mentioned Skype. I kept scrolling dwn through the article waiting for it to be mentioned. Skype is a convenient, easy to use, FREE means of communicating which I suggest for to all of my peers. I speak to all of my friends living abroad for absolutely nothing besides what it costs to have internet access on my computer.

I thought this article was really insightful, however and, being slightly technoligically challenged, relished the chance to get updated so quickly.

Derek said...

Yeah, I have found with my iPhone that getting everything Synced has been a challenge. Less because everything won't sync, and more because every time I hear about a new app i have to check it out incase its better than the last. I just started using Spanning Sync instead of NuevaSync. Seems to be working better, and it lets you relate Google calendars with iCal calendars.

Anonymous said...

The only one of these things I use fairly regularly is Yousendit.com, which Cody has brought up. It does work just like drop-box and is such a huge help when you have to send huge files or several medium or HUGE files.

I've found too, though maybe it doesn't work for this application, that having a jump drive or using my ipod as a hard-drive has sometimes saved me in a bind when I needed to get something from one place to another in order to even ATTEMPT to send it to the person who needed it.

Anonymous said...

I'm personally a big fan of a program called Pidjin when it comes to keeping track of people. Its not really different from programs like AIM, it just lets you acces every known instant messaging system (skype, yahoo, ichat, you get the picture) all at once and from one program. Adium is the Apple version, and a couple other things similar float around the internet, but I've found Pidjin does the best job of keeping everything organized.
I was fairly suprised that "the phone" was the last item on the list and things similar to FaceBook out ranked it. I have a smart phone (Moto Q, highly recomended) and honnestly I have no idea how'd I'd go back to living without it. Besides containing my entire (and I do mean entire) schedule for the rest of the semester it's has a built in memo and task application that now I use more then I think I use email.

Dave said...

Skype is definitely a good one to add. I know iChat has a limit on the number of people you can conference call. I know skype does not with audio, and I don't think it does with video either. I just downloaded Things and it looks like a great app, especially if I can get it to sync with iChat and my iPhone.

Anonymous said...

Skype Rocks. Really a wonderful tool thats been out for a while now.

Found "Remember the Milk" off one of the earlier life hacker posts. It's a pretty amazing online task manager. I have it setup to interface with my desktop, Gmail, Google calendars, and my phone so I'm constantly reminded what i forgot to do everyday. And I can add to the task list via, the calendar, phone, desktop, email, etc. as well. Also interfaces with Google Maps so if you have tasks through out the city, you can see them in it. Been using it and so far, so good.

Anonymous said...

I was really hopping that this would do me more good than it did. I use most the the apps listed, and the ones I don't I have a better alternative. I do like dropbox. It could be really useful in an actually production when people need to share files fast and have the most recent file possible.