User talk:Singhal.16

1. Introduction to Collaborative Design & Development

For Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) the establishment of business relationships and collaborations is becoming increasingly important in the face of market globalization. Individual firms cannot be good at everything. They must specialize and learn to combine their capabilities with those of other firms and organizations. These collaborations consist of identifying possible partners (e.g. clients or suppliers), providing them with appropriate information, setting up a common environment for communication and finally starting commercial operations.

Advantages of employing Collaborative Technology in Industries

The Economist Intelligence Unit found that more than 50% of executives believe collaborative working “will either form an important part of their firm’s competitive advantage or will actually be central to its survival over the next three years.” Business models are already changing to take advantage of these collaborative partnerships. Many organizations viewed collaboration as a faster way to achieve these goals.Companies collaborate for the following reasons:

* To increase market share by developing relationships which lower prices, increase quality of products and services, reduce time to market, enhance customer services or reduce order fulfilment time. * To increase company income by developing relationships that help reduce cost, increase asset utilisation, share investment cost, reduce inventory, share business risk, eliminate duplication and waste or achieve economies of scale. * To increase flexibility and capabilities by developing relationships that increase skills and knowledge, enable easier product development, allow access to new technologies, reduce time to market and simplify production processes.

Advantages of Collaborative practice

* Collaboration enables organisations to focus on their own competencies within the overall supply chain. * Reduce lead times and increase market responsiveness * Good information systems between partners who are structured to maximize efficiency across the supply chain helps reduce lead times and improve responsiveness. * Successful supply chain collaboration results in the development of extended enterprises designed to leverage joint capabilities and resources across the supply chain. * Increase innovation capacity and capability- key feature of collaboration is to reduce risk, such as the avoidance or sharing of the risk for necessary investments.

Benefits of Collaboration Companies collaborating together typically share resources, share & exchange information and complement weaknesses & competencies. Various studies have shown the collaborations lead to sale growth and risk reduction when they are successful. Why many Collaborations fail With so many perceived benefits, it is worthwhile to wonder why so little collaboration takes place, especially among small companies and organisations. Unfortunately, many relationships based on collaboration fail.Not enough care is taken to select the right partners, to match inter-organisational needs and capabilities and to clearly define standards, metrics, goals and implementation procedures over a medium to long-term planning horizon.Collaboration is not just some over-hyped buzzword, but an essential part of business life.

use of collaborative technology in your bussiness
How Collaborative Technology Is Useful In Marketing Your Business ?

Things change fast in the world of technology, and if you want to be a successful business, you have to be able to keep up with the changes in pace. If you are not on the Internet or are not using the Internet to the extent that you should, your business may not survive. Collaborative technologies, such as the ones used in social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and others, are vital marketing tools that many companies overlook when developing their marketing strategies. There are many advantages of using collaborative technology to market your business:

1. No Financial Risk. Since most social networking sites are free to join, you can potentially reach millions of people without touching your marketing budget. By blurring the line slightly between personal and business, you can reach more people on different levels in less time, than with standard marketing techniques. 2. Business and Brand Identity. The minute you create a profile on Facebook or MySpace, you become search engine optimized through the power of the network you've joined. Collaborative technology solutions can do as much for your web ranking as your own web site, because of the rank and power of the collaborative site. 3. Expanded Reach. Since you can see friends of friends, your access to people increases exponentially with each new contact you form. You not only gain access to that person, but you also gain access to every person who appears on their friend list – adding up to millions of new contacts each year. Your business can become a household name, without ever being advertised on TV or in the newspaper.

A Specific marketing plan should be prepared that will not only help you place your business in the midst of collaborative technology, but thrust your business, brand, and identity into the viral world, too.The Services should include:

* Profile development and launching; * Marketing analysis and planning; * Brand image and awareness; * Consultation and training for using social network sites; * Development of industry connections; * Target and niche market analysis;

Collaborative technology is a fabulous tool that allows you to quickly and relatively inexpensively market your business and reach a large audience.Businesses who don't take advantage of the latest technological trends will find themselves left behind and forgotten.

Collaborative product development
Collaborative product development (collaborative product design) (CPD) is a business strategy, work process and collection of software applications that facilitates different organizations to work together on the development of a product. It is also known as collaborative product definition management (cPDM) Technologies and methods used in CPD. Clearly general collaborative software such as email and chat (instant messaging) is used within the CPD process. One important technology is application and desktop sharing, allowing one person to view what another person is doing on a remote machine. For CAD and product visualization applications an ‘appshare’ product that supports OpenGL graphics is required. Another common application is Data sharing via Web based portals. �Synchronization

Collaborative projects constantly negotiate the delicate balance between autonomy of partners and the interdependencies between partners. A careful synchronization of activities and results bonds the collaborative process. Periodic synchronization of the entire team in frequent intervals, for example every 6-8 weeks can help in shared understanding of the project. In addition, smaller task groups can also synchronize more frequently (3-4 weeks) or for specific phases of project. This may be in the form of telephone conference, workshop or email discussion. Long periods of silence or intense activity at one partner while other partners are relatively unoccupied can lead to loss of momentum. When outputs of one partner become inputs to other partners, slippage of deadlines can upset the schedules and cause friction. Therefore, wherever possible, it may help to work in parallel with close communication.

Virtual Teams
There are several different definitions of virtual teams, but what these definitions have in common is that, in addition to being a team, virtual team members are physically separated (by time and / or space) and that virtual team members primarily interact electronically. This researcher defines virtual teams as teams of people who primarily interact electronically and who may meet face-to-face occasionally.

Type of virtual teams

Four basic types of groups of people exist:

* Task groups * Friendship groups * Command groups * Interest groups

These groups also can exist as virtual groups. For example, an example of a virtual command group would be a national sales team distributed throughout the United States. An example of a virtual task group could be a small software development group of people telecommuting to their office. A virtual interest group could be a group of investors sharing strategies and outcomes. A friendship group might be represented by a virtual community. Certainly other examples exist and some groups overlap as well. Formal teams Vs virtual teams There are a number of differences between a virtual team and the traditional formal team. The most important difference between the two is the geographical location of the team members. With the traditional formal team, all the members of the team will work within the same geographical location, generally in the same physical building while in the virtual team, the team members might be in the same geographical region or in the different part of the world.

In formal team, the group must work on the same schedule, meaning everyone must be at the same location at the same time but virtual teams involve advanced global communication technologies, workers are not restricted to one physical location. They can use communication tools to work together over long distances.

The advent of the virtual team has allowed many team members to work together despite the fact that they may have never met each other in person. In some cases, the members of the virtual teams may have no idea how the other members of the team look.

In contrast, formal team members actually thrive on the ability to see and work with each other in person. Another powerful aspect of the virtual team is the enormous amount of money which is saved through its implementation. For instance, with a virtual team, there is no reason to worry about parking space, since the members of the team have no reason to park in one location.

Managing virtual teams

Managers of virtual teams can support their teams by:

* recognizing the team and their importance

*

encouraging members to explore questions that matter including questions about how they are working together

*

supporting the creation of some kind of shared space (the feeling that there is an infrastructure where people are working together)

* facilitating the coordination of the technology, work processes, and the formal organization *

recognizing reflection as action and as legitimate work (getting the infrastructure of the organization to support the learning process)

* supporting activities which make the informal network visible

history of photo sharing
History of Photo-Sharing

Photo Sharing goes back to the 1800’s when photography was first invented

- taking photos of friends and family took place In a short sitting where a

photographer could capture your likeness through the photographic process. The

Photo would then be developed and could be purchased. Multiple copies of the

photo could then sent to friends or relatives.

Today with the development of digital cameras, the Internet and web.2

technologies photo-sharing has become very easy. Simply take a digital photo,

upload it to your PC or Mac, then via the Internet upload it to your favorite photo

sharing website.

Share Your Photos

Using our Photo Sharing options you can choose to share your Photos by

opening your folders to family or friends. Then using the pioneering product

linking process you are able to share your Photo folders and finished Photo

Albums via personalized URL links that utilize dynamic flash show presentations!

How safe is photo sharing?
There has been a corresponding increase in the number and popularity of

publicly hosted Web sites for sharing digital photos. But is it safe to share

personal photos ? After all, personal photos contain personal information about

you and your family, your interests and hobbies.

Safety in this context means that the personal information, which can be

identified and extracted from these photos, is both private and secure.

Private means that access to the information can be restricted to the use

of a particular person or group of people. The owner of the information

should control who has access to it.

Secure means free from danger and risk of loss, i.e., making sure that the

bad guys out there cannot access your information.

A photo-sharing Web site lets members upload and annotate photos that are

posted on its site.Some sites offer these services for free, while others charge

a fee, sometimes only for additional storage. In general, these sites make

money by charging for prints, cards, and gifts such as calendars or coffee

mugs imprinted with the photos. Members can share their photos by sending

friends and family the URL of their photo site. Sometimes, visitors must enter

a username and password in order to view your pictures. Sometimes, this

information is embedded in the URL. As more people post their pictures online,

others are finding ways to exploit them.

TRAVEL photolog
TRAVEL PHOTOLOG ( START A VIRTUAL JOURNEY)

Travel photography is a broad category that encompasses all the imagery

involved in telling the story of a place. landscapes, environment portatitures, food

and architecture are all considered travel photography.

Travel is in fact one of the most consistent and top-selling categories of stock.

Images might be used by the travel industry itself (magazines, tour brochures,

guide books, etc.) or by advertisers using imagery of sparking, oceans and

sweeping vistas to sell their products (think retirement planning, ads or

pharmaceutical "after images")

Photography Webrings (an interesting concept)

Travel photographs unifies here…..

High quality family friendly travel photo sites from all over the world have united to form

the “webring”. Amateur and pro photographers share their impressions and give useful tips on

travelling with a camera. This ring will especially concentrate on scenery and nature in various

countries around the world, the people, cities and towns, farms, rivers and streams, waterfalls,

rocks, coasts, harbors and ships, sunsets, mountains, buildings and architecture, religious

buildings, people engaged in worship activities, gardens and parks, a simple detail or pattern,

homes, whatever will give us a sense of the different parts of the world. The perfect place to start

a virtual journey...

A site where you can find great landscape, nature, travel, fine art, digital

photography and more !!. The webring concept is not new but what is unique

about Photography Webrings is that it is only for photography sites. Therefore

there is a greater concentration of visitors who are only interested in finding

photo galleries like yours.

The advantage of this is that you get interested visitors to your photo site and

become a part of a community of photographers with similar interests.

For the surfer Photography Webrings provides a convenient way to find photo

sites of similar themes and explore new genres of photography they may not

have yet discovered. All sites are reviewed before inclusion to ensure they are

relevant to the ring and you find the types of sites you read.