Educating Professional Communication Teams on the Use of Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

In today’s business world, communication teams are regularly faced with the task of sharing documents and information. In the past, practicing teams were forced to either use physical devices, such as USB drives or external hard drives, or transmit documents as email attachments. Documents and drives can become corrupted, so these methods pose risks, as well as efficiency and productivity issues since team members cannot access information simultaneously. Today, work teams have a number of new information-sharing options which come in the form of cloud computing tools. Cloud computing is a Web 2.0 technology that allows companies and individuals to store data and documents on global servers. These servers are accessed via the Internet and are equipped to store almost any type of file platform. Team members can log into the server and access, edit, and post various document. Many collaborative programs also allow team members to use integrated calendars, email, and instant messaging tools. Two of the main providers of collaborative services are Amazon and Google. Amazon has developed a program called Simple Storage Service for companies looking to collaborat