Once upon a time, businesses used to be confined to a closed space. All the team members arrived at a particular time, worked together or individually, and went back home when their shift time got over.
The advent of internet has changed this to a large extent. Even if one or all the teammates are not in office, you can still work together and complete tasks. It is possible to share files, folders, and computer screens with individuals or teams from across the world. Two or more people can work on the same document or do a brainstorming session remotely.
Digital collaborations are not limited to businesses; multiplayer games are the best example. The internet has made these online associations possible.
What is online collaboration
Online collaboration is when one can work with individuals or teams in real-time without being in the same room at the same time, over the internet.
It gives employees the flexibility to work from anywhere they prefer and not travel to and from the office everyday. It also enables global collaborations by letting individuals and teams from different states/countries work together without being restricted by distance and time zone.
By sharing the data in real-time, the delay of sending files back and forth can be avoided, thereby making processes faster. It also makes tracking of project and reporting of updates easier. The efficiency of work can be increased this way. Isn’t this every person’s dream!
Tools for online collaboration
Online collaborations involve three aspects — communication, coordination, and collaboration. Communication tools enable the exchange of information. Collaboration tools assist in organizing the different elements and people/teams to achieve the jointly determined goals. Collaboration tools are usually used to bring individuals/teams who don’t work for the business on a regular basis, and make use of their knowledge and expertise.
There are several tools that fulfil one or two aspects of online collaborations. Instant messaging, shared whiteboards, shared drives, video conferencing, workflow systems, group calendars etc come under this category. We also have platforms such as G Suite, Huddle, and Basecamp to make business and team collaborations easier. These are usually for members of the same team or organization, or working on a specific project.
Even Wikipedia and GitHub are collaboration platforms, but free and accessible to the public.
Partnering with freelancers and hobbyists
The above mentioned tools and platforms are either unpaid collaborations or don’t have payment options integrated with them. What if you are a freelancer or hobbyist looking for projects you can work on, or an entrepreneur or business looking for freelancers to work on your project?
One option is to find the freelancer/business through networking platforms like LinkedIn and make/receive the payment of the work through traditional financial institutions. This involves a lot of trust between the parties involved. An entrepreneur/business has to hope that the freelancer would complete the work and submit on time after the advance has been paid, and the freelancer has to hope that the entrepreneur/business would make the complete payment after the work has been submitted. It is a risky transaction.
This has led to the development of several collaboration platforms such as Freelancer, Upwork, and Truelancer, targeting the freelancing scenario. These platforms match businesses to freelancers based on their requirements and skills, and give the users a basic guarantee of getting the work done and being paid.
How effective are they?
The aforementioned websites solve some of the issues one faces when working as or hiring a freelancer. But they have some disadvantages, too.
The terms and conditions agreed upon by the associated parties are arbitrary. For example, even if a freelancer has agreed on a maximum two iterations for the work, the client can refuse to issue the payment until more iterations are performed.
These platforms take a cut of up to 20% from both the freelancer and client. Online transactions through bank deposit, PayPal, Skrill etc would incur an additional transaction fee. This way, the entrepreneur/business has to spend more money and the freelancer would receive less money.
Another issue is that multiple people cannot work on the same project posted on these platforms. So, if you want to scale your business, these collaboration tools might put a limit to it.
What if we have a global collaboration platform that takes care of all the above issues? That’s exactly where Enkidu comes into picture.
