The more I work with Group Mind Express as an on-line collaboration platform in daily activities with my clients, the more I appreciate the benefits it offers throughout the entire process and the value it brings to our projects and relationship.
Initially, my clients and I found great value in collaborating together on-line, both synchronously or asynchronously, using the individual tools that are available on the platform such as, idea sets, surveys, rankings, etc. However; the true power of the platform was not realized until we began grouping and using the tools together to create complete collaboration processes. For example, while and idea set is a powerful tool to use to brain storm an idea, its real power surfaces when it is combined with a check vote to flush out a group's thoughts on the most pressing issues, the results moved into a discussion forum to get group feedback and agreement, and finally the data imported into a matrix to create action items that drive specific change. In short, it becomes a quick and effective way to go from brainstorming to action and create change instead of just an “interesting time.”
Furthermore, while I find myself using many of the already available templates on the platform, I also find it nice to be able to create my own process templates that match my business processes and can be used over and over with different customers. This really makes my job easier and allows me to stay focused more on the customer and the process rather than the platform and the technology.
