Effective Collaboration: Tools to Make Any Team Successful

As a creative firm, collaboration is part of our daily routine. Finding ways to streamline this practice, while achieving better results, has been its own project for us. Outlined below are four great online products that our team uses regularly. Whether it’s an internal initiative or a major client pitch, the following tools are great at keeping teams organized while collaborating:

Basecamp – monthly pricing plan, internal collaboration
This is a great alternative to the million email threads used for every project and incorporates personal to do lists, discussion forums, and delegation tools. Not to mention, it also has a time tracking feature for client reports and larger management needs.

CageApp – free, beta version, internal collaboration
CageApp is helpful for design and visual projects where comments on specific design elements are necessary. As a free application, CageApp makes it easy to add comments to specific areas of a design and facilitate discussion.

GimmeBar – free, internal or external collaboration
Similar to Pinterest, this allows you to bookmark sites and visuals into collections. What’s great about this inspiration-keeping site is its ability to show your collections or keep them private, unlike the behemoth social site, Pinterest. Put the applet in your browser to make adding content a lot easier. Multiple collaborators can add their own inspiration to libraries and include comments.

Pinterest – free, external collaboration
Pinterest is first and foremost a social site. However, it’s perfect for collaboration and inspiration. Set out to follow specific designers, blogs you read, ideas that influence you or your company. This is also a great way to get feedback and get a feel for style and trends. And we don’t mean fashion styles, but whatever style and trend your industry might be picking up through repins and other’s boards. It’s helpful for designers and other creative professionals who frequently search for inspiration to get the creative process started.