If you live in the Western world in the 21st century, odds are you feel caught in the 'busy trap'. Professional and personal demands, complicated by an ever-increasing tide of communications technologies, converge to present us with a challenging list of projects and tasks to manage and conquer. Juggling family life with my role as UK head of a growing business, I'm no stranger to the fight against project overload. But without the ability to squeeze a 25th hour into the day, I used to surf the project wave much like the next person - with energy, grit, and a mix of corporate technology and social media tools. Until, that is, our organisation decided to do something about it and created Kona. Welcome to social, with purpose.
Kona is a free, cloud-based social collaboration platform designed with people and conversations in mind. It was created to empower collaboration for any group to privately organise, discuss and get things done together. For people involved with multiple groups--like project management teams at work, community-based volunteer organisations, and social life of families and friends, Kona can keep track of everything they're responsible for and talking about across all spaces in one personalised hub.
You might be wondering why on earth anyone would need yet another social tool for collaboration purposes? The truth is that we all know sharing information is easy. But consuming, organising and managing that information, especially across different groups of people and departments, is difficult. Most of us undoubtedly use email to coordinate work teams and projects, Facebook for friends, LinkedIn for business connections, Twitter for our wider personal and professional networks and any number of other technology tools in-between. But that simply creates project silos. Why not take the best features of these tools and use them in one project-centric environment?
In the perfect storm between social media, connectivity and task management, mobile devices and apps crossed the boundaries of work and home--and propelled adoption and engagement. Which is why bridging the divide between work and personal life in a social collaboration platform simply makes sense.
Ultimately, life is any person's biggest project and it spans many groups, tasks and events. Focusing project management around the individual and the groups of people across their lives from a centralised dashboard makes life easier. Especially if that dashboard integrates with existing calendars, lists and data like Google Docs, while still letting you use and share local files, and can be accessed via smartphone or tablet.
Now I, like our customers, can juggle a typical week with a greater sense of ease and purpose. Whether it's customer and prospect interactions, board reports, conference calls and team meetings at work or making arrangements for my wife's surprise birthday party and researching school options for my kids.
Everyone in life can benefit from a less complicated way of living/working. As they say, less is more, so when it comes to planning your next project - either at home or at work, perhaps take a moment to ask yourself - is there a simpler way to manage this?
Neil Davidson is UK MD at Deltek, a global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms