I believe CO19 will accelerate fundamental shifts in our labor pool, reskilling talent within and across industry sectors, making working from home (WFH) more prevalent. As such, CO19 is forcing all of us to become more digitally competent, capable, and collaborative.
In the past month, I’ve made a commitment to explore 2-3 new virtual collaboration platforms each week. Partially because I’m naturally curious and a lifelong learner. Increasingly because I’m being asked to deliver my content virtually for various speaking engagements or executive education workshops.
The list below is by no means exhaustive. Many of the platforms I explored offer a free trial period before you’re hit with a paywall. Some even offer a freemium model where certain basic functionality is available for free, before paying for enhanced features.
Unfortunately, I found several to be incredibly cumbersome, require extensive installation/integration, and offered little to no support/customer services. They were promptly uninstalled and I’ve since unsubscribed from their barrage of follow on marketing emails.
A good place for you to get your bearing is this market map by CB Insights. Although they focus on the viability of these startups with references to their capital raises or sources, as well as competitive viability, I’m interested in comparing functionality/focus. I also found several that I believe they’ve actually misunderstood/miscategorized.
Feel free to add others you may be working for, are using or are aware of in the comments:
Messaging & Chat
Alternatives to Slack and Microsoft Teams:
- Threads – Software tools to inform, discuss, and make decisions collaboratively
- Quill – Messaging software for collaborating
- Dialpad – Enterprise voice and telephony solutions
- Yac – voice-based enterprise chat tool
- Discord – Video, text, or voice chats most known for the gaming community
- Spike – Conversational email, chat, video calls, and collaborative tools
- CloudApp – Screen recording, screenshots, and GIF creation
- Mattermost – Messaging platform that focuses on team collaboration
- Troops – A salesforce automation platform with real-time transparency
Video Conferencing
Alternatives to enterprise video apps like Zoom and Skype:
- Fuze – Cloud-based conferencing platform
- Around – Enables video meetings
- Loom – Asynchronous video messaging in workplaces
- Lifesize – Video/Audio meetings
- Daily.Co – Adds video chat to any website
- Owl Labs – 360° video conferencing devices called the “Meeting Owl”
- Starleaf – Voice, and video conferencing for conference rooms, desktops, and mobile
- TechSmith – Screenshooting, screencasting, and video editing
Documentation & Knowledge
Software to track internal processes or make wikis, similar to Atlassian’s Confluence:
- Notion – Documentation hub for teams
- Dynamic Signal – Mobile-first company communications program
- Bloomfire – Virtual knowledge-and-insights-sharing
- Slapdash – Navigate, organize and take action (file tasks, create documents, etc.) across your apps
- Slab – Team wiki and knowledgebase platform with a real-time editor
- Aodocs – Cloud document services platform
- Fireflies – AI-based transcription of calls/web meetings
- Airtable – Database for CRM, task management, project planning, and inventory tracking
- Humap Software – Pre-work and post-work discussions, polls, assignments, and management consulting activities
Virtual Office
Tools that act as a “digital water cooler” where workers meet and collaborate:
- Tandem – See what your colleagues are up to in real-time and jump in on a project
- Spatial – Digital workspace with the addition of AR/VR capabilities
- Teemly – A virtual office for distributed teams
- Pragli – Virtual office for remote teams
- Sococo – Online workspace for distributed teams to work side-by-side
- Remotion – See your team’s selfies and availability so you can jump into quick video chats
- Taskade – Unified workspace for distributed teams
- Basecamp – Teams to keep track of priorities and actionable items
Project Management
Tools to manage tasks and to-dos:
- Monday.com – Work OS for teams to run projects and workflows
- Asana – Help teams organize, track, and manage their work
- Mavenlink – Project management platform for services organizations
- Hive – Project management and collaboration software
- Unito – Optimized collaboration across tools, teams, and projects
- Paymo – Modern work management
- Wrike – Full visibility and control over your tasks
- Teamwork – Project management tool that delivers projects on time and on budget
Productivity & Workspace
Light tools and add-ons that can make office work more efficient:
- Clockwise – Calendar assistant software
- Mixmax – Scheduling software
- Calendly – Online appointment scheduling software
- OneLogin – Single Sign-On (SSO) to help save time on logins
- Focusmate – Virtual coworking
- Motion – Tools to help eliminate distractions
- Woven – Calendar application
- Workona – OS to organize web work
Collaborative Design
Design tool with real-time collaboration as alternatives to Photoshop, PowerPoint, and Final Cut:
- Figma – Collaborative interface design tool
- InVision – both prototyping tools
- Frame – Enables collaborative video editing
- Pitch – Better presentations collaboratively, effectively
- Miro – Online collaborative whiteboard
- Mural – Digital workspace for visual collaboration
- Framer – Interactive design workspace
- Webflow – Build better business websites faster without coding.
Collaborative Software Dev
Help software developers to work more efficiently:
- Clubhouse – Specialized project management suite
- Linear – Issue tracking system
- Codestream – Extension to help take the pain out of coding
- Gitlab – Collaboration tool for DevOps
- Repl>it – In-browsers collaborative workspace to code
- Jet Brains – Intelligent development tools
Team Analytics:
Track and provide high-level insights around engagement and communication
- Range – Strengthen culture by tracking check-ins
- Bonfyre – Employee experience platform to measure and drive engagement
- Multitudes – A plug-and-play tool to get culture insights
- Happeo – Unified intranet, collaboration, and social networking
- Remote Team – Automated Payrolls, Time Off, HR Tools, and Compliance
Keep in mind, none of us are born with the skills and knowledge to use these tools. I’d submit, the only way you’ll remain relevant in our dynamic work environment is if you make a commitment to continuous learning and growth.
Good luck,
Nour
p.s.
Justus Nour contributed to this research.
He’s available on Upwork and is currently working on a handful of CO19 competitive landscape engagements for marketing teams looking to pivot their tech value propositions.