Taking advantage of real-time collaboration tools

The I'Net age (the combination of the Internet, intranets, and extranets) supports real-time or synchronous interaction. Synchronous interactions are those in which a response typically occurs in less than 10 seconds. Relying on a standard Java-enabled 4.x browser, many organizations are collaborating in real time on decisions, proposals, customer service, e-commerce, marketing documents, and more. As defined by our consultancy, Collaborative Strategies, the functionality of a real-time collaboration (RTC) tool resides between the phone and email. RTC tools help communicate graphical and text-based information in a synchronous fashion. To date, users have typically run interactive sessions in conjunction with a conference call, since voice over IP can have unreliable quality, especially over the Internet.