You’re missing out if you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the first two webcasts in our series on Unified Communication and Collaboration (UCC). These took a look at current trends, shared some insightful data, and provided opportunities to kick your internal collaboration into gear while seeing that return on investment.

The final two webcasts in the series are now available, focusing on the financial industry and on mobile collaboration across multiple mobile platforms. BlackBerry® devices play a major role in many financial organizations due to the security, connectivity, and infrastructure. A correctly implemented layer of UCC on top of a smartphone deployment can make a difference in the quality and quantity of employee communication and collaboration – and this is what the BlackBerry UCC portfolio seeks to accomplish. When it comes to cross-platform UCC, common enterprise challenges and concerns are met with the fact that you don’t need to throw out a unified communications strategy when you embrace a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy in your organization.

But within this practice, there are resources, best practices, and key differentiators to be aware of when kicking off a cross-platform communication project. Check out the webcasts below to learn more!

• Webinar #3: Banking on BlackBerry: Achieving Regulatory Compliance
• Webinar #4: Supporting Cross-Platform UCC with BlackBerry

If your organization employs the BlackBerry portfolio of Unified Communication and Collaboration solutions to increase productivity and cut costs, we’d love to hear about it at success@rim.com. You can also share feedback on our LinkedIn® recommendation page, and discuss in our group while you’re there.

What mobile UCC topics are you most interested in learning more about? Share in the comments below.

Correctly leveraging Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) in your company can result in a massive return on investment. Rapid sharing of information, consolidation of document management, mobile access, and even Wi-Fi® calling all ladder into the idea of a productive workforce supported by an efficient infrastructure. One of the unique ways that we support enterprise customers is by providing a portfolio of tools, apps, servers, and systems that sit as a layer between your existing infrastructure and the activities of your employees, acting as an enabler for cost effective communication and collaboration.

We’ve got bright ideas already available and some on the way when it comes to supporting the diverse needs of an enterprise employee base. In the pursuit of continuing this support and adapting it for specific industry-based requirements, today we’ve made two webcasts available covering an overview of UCC, with one catered particularly to the healthcare sector.

• Webinar #1: Mobilizing UCC with BlackBerry Smartphones: Creating a Mobile Office
• Webinar #2: Healthcare with BlackBerry UCC: Improving Patient Care

Communication within any organization is crucial to business operations. And these days, email may not be enough – it can even bog you down with a loaded inbox and wasted hours sunk into reading and replying. With the introduction of voice technology such as BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System, as well as rapid communication and collaboration software like enterprise instant messaging, communication becomes efficient, streamlined, and unified. Employees can be reached at a single number whether at their desk or on the road. Calls can be transferred from the mobile network to your Wi-Fi network seamlessly and without dropping – representing significant cost savings. Instant messaging can be used for quick questions.

Clearly, the benefits of streamlining your organization’s unified communications and collaboration are numerous, not only for the bottom line in terms of cost savings, but also for keeping employees mobile, accessible, and collaborative.

What tools does your organization use to communicate and collaborate? Share in the comments below.

We’re buried in email — it’s the simple truth. Many organizations and individuals default to email as the primary mode of communication, and it’s seen as the “work” channel. You might use text messages, instant messaging, and social media in your personal life, but “work email” is a familiar phrase and is used to describe how we get things done in the office. But technology has moved far beyond this, and what we should be doing is efficiently utilizing the appropriate modes of communication within our professional lives to reach the desired outcome with the lowest amount of effort, server load, and time. Utilizing your organization’s investment in mobility and collaboration technology can go a long way to solving this issue.

If I’m not watching my inbox like a hawk, I don’t feel like I’m working. If I leave my inbox unsupervised for even a short amount of time during the day, I feel like I’m neglecting my responsibilities. The other day I heard it referred to as “watching your inbox closer than you watch your kids”, and it hit home. The amount of time that we waste (yes, waste) checking, sending, and receiving email is astronomical. This doesn’t just strain your personal efficiency; it can also have implications on your company’s mail servers, particularly if you’re a heavy user of large attachments such as presentations.

Speaking of using attachments, this is a particular aspect of the issue that I see time and time again – individuals and teams mistakenly using email as a tool for workflow: reviewing, approving, and firing attachments of different document versions all over the place. This is not what it was meant to be! There are a ton of fantastic alternatives for managing communications and workflow. Let’s take a look at a few scenarios and solutions that can help to break apart how we communicate so that we can engage effectively.

Use the phone

Particularly with younger generations (of which I am a part), this is often not the go-to method of communication even concerning quick questions. Sending it in an email gives you the feeling that you can strike it off of your to-do list. But really, you can’t – not until you get an answer. All it does is add to the clutter and open up the potential for it to get lost either on your plate or on the plate of the individual you’re reaching out to. Mind you, hitting someone’s voicemail isn’t always the best thing either – and that’s why I love BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System for allowing me to be reached at a single number whether I’m using my desk phone or BlackBerry smartphone.

Enterprise instant messaging

I’ve come to love this over the past few months. Many organizations have enterprise instant messaging implemented internally, and even better, hooked into an employee directory. Even if I’ve never met or spoken with an individual before, I’ll often shoot over a quick IM if it’s something that can be resolved with a “yes”, “no”, or simple response. This way, even if they’re on a call, they can often multitask to give me what I need quickly, without leaving a trail of messages all over the place. These solutions often include file sharing or again, in the case of BlackBerry Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solutions, you can one-click to start a call from an instant messaging conversation. Better yet, you can take your internal IM solution mobile on your BlackBerry smartphone by utilizing these solutions. Quick questions and quick answers follow me wherever I go, without causing pile-up in my inbox.

Centralize document storage and management

Instead of emailing documents as attachments, loading down mail servers, and running the risk of confusing versions, it’s important to centralize document storage and management. Does your organization have a solution for this? Is it mobile-friendly, and feature-rich? Microsoft® SharePoint® is an example of one that fits the bill for many companies. With the BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint, you’re able to download documents, open and edit them with Documents To Go®, and send them back up into SharePoint with full version control. The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet browser is also a fantastic vehicle for accessing internal web apps, whether connected via Wi-Fi® or through BlackBerry® Bridge™ on your smartphone for true mobility.

BlackBerry Messenger for business

BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) isn’t just for organizing weekend BBQs with friends; it’s also a fantastic tool for mobile communication on work topics. Organizing colleagues and teams into BBM groups can help keep things clean in your contact list, and you can even send files and voice notes up to 6MB. If you don’t have access to mobile enterprise instant messaging, this is a great way to get in touch with your coworkers quickly and efficiently. Knowing when someone has received and read your message allows you to operate and communicate confidently on this platform. We use it constantly here at RIM® (I’d hope so!) and I’ve certainly felt the benefits of having quick and simplified access to everyone on my team.

Third party apps

There are a ton of collaboration and communication apps available in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, including cross-platform apps. Figure out what works best for your particular style of work, and based on the pain points in your current communication structure, and go wild trying some of these out. Cloud storage solutions are great examples of available apps that can help make your life easier at work, especially for small businesses.

Bonus: Easy scheduling across organizations, and one-click conference calls

Worth mentioning in this type of post are Tungle.me and BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing. Tungle allows you to share your availability, and view the basic availability of others, regardless of what platform you’re using and whether or not you’re in the same organization. This is great for sales teams in particular who are working to set up appointments with external contacts. With BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing, you can save multiple conference profiles on your BlackBerry smartphone and never worry about adding in your conference details to an invite, or having to input them by hand when you’re an attendee. Just hit “Join Now” and you’re off!

The point is that there are so many more modes of communication available outside of email. Email should be used effectively and certainly holds a foundational purpose in our collaboration, but the myriad of available apps, instant messaging solutions, document management, and workflow tools shouldn’t be ignored. I’m willing to bet that you could shave off hours from your workweek by engaging in thoughtful and efficient communication in your workplace.

To find out more about BlackBerry communication and collaboration solutions, head over to www.blackberry.com/collaboration. Specifically, take a peek at the BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint, BlackBerry Mobile Voice System, and BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing.

How do you manage workflows and collaboration while on the go? What are your favorite tools, apps, or solutions? Share in the comments below.

Today we’ve published a guide designed for CIOs looking to streamline collaboration and communication within their organization. The contents include:

• Communications, Mobility, and the 21st Century Workplace
• What to Consider When Choosing a Mobile UCC Solution
• BlackBerry® Enterprise – the Nuts and Bolts
• Useful Links

Take a look at the guide below, hosted on our BlackBerry SlideShare™ channel.

How has your organization unified communication and collaboration? How is mobility involved in the process? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Anyone who has ever marked up a contract or presentation – or has had to manage inputs from a number of different sources – can benefit from using Jotsy. On the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, Jotsy users can load and easily annotate files, and save their modified documents back to personal or shared folders.

Jotsy is an innovative app designed to address the market need for an easy means to annotate documents on a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Jotsy allows users to annotate documents offline and synchronize local files with PC, enterprise or cloud storages. Jotsy provides an intuitive “Bear Paw” menu specifically designed to optimize the tablet experience. The first release of Jotsy supports PDF files on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, with future versions of Jotsy providing further storage options and other features such as collaborative annotation workflow, managed document distribution, improved navigation, and a few other surprises. Check out the video below to see a Jotsy demonstration that took place at BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

How it will impact your business

BlackBerry® remains a leader in secure enterprise collaboration and information sharing. In keeping with these important requirements, Jotsy provides the enterprise user with the on-board annotation features they expect in addition to unique server-side document management capabilities. Jotsy is also designed to allow customers to synchronize with documents stored locally on their PC, or on third party cloud storage services.

Jotsy fills the need for ready access and easy annotation of PDFs that are shared amongst people in a workgroup. Design efforts were focused on developing a very simple UI that provides users with immediate access to the most common annotation types, along with file transfer processes that support remote storage. Building with HTML5 technology gives Jotsy the unique ability to manage inputs from each contributor as discreet pieces of information, similar to transparencies on an overhead projector (remember those?!). With these pieces in place, Jotsy will be uniquely positioned to support the back-and-forth kind of interactions that take place when many people work on the same document.

The structure and mechanism behind Jotsy is designed to allow for direct distribution and management of multiple inputs to a common source document, whereas previously multiple versions of notes were sent over multiple emails to everyone for review. Jotsy provides the right combination of efficient annotations on the BlackBerry tablet and collaborative document development. Abilities to support different document types, manage inputs from different sources, and manage document distribution are also on the Jotsy roadmap.

Features

Jotsy 1.0

• Ability to sync and access documents stored locally on your PC
• PC-based access to documents stored on any of your Box.net accounts
• “Bear Paw” navigation within the app for easy access to text boxes, highlight styles and pen colors
• Pagination, jump-to-page-number, and “dogear” current page for future reference

In future releases, Jotsy plans to further develop the ability of the Jotsy application to access cloud and enterprise storage devices directly from your BlackBerry tablet without the support of PC connectivity. In addition, Jotsy has been designed to manage annotations and enable collaboration amongst work groups, so look for the following in future versions:

• Management of annotation layers generated from several sources on a single document
• Managed distribution and access of documents and document sets

Visit Jotsy on the BlackBerry App World™ storefront for a full list of features.

Straight from the experts (interview with the Jotsy team)

Biz Blog: Thanks for joining us! Tell me about the vision behind the Jotsy app.

Tim Dinesen (Jotsy): Developments such as cloud computing and the proliferation of smart wireless devices are starting to combine and create new ways of working and sharing media. As a result we’ve seen movement away from desktop computing and email as the main means of communication, as well as the emergence of web apps and social media as increasingly important technologies. HTML5, the technology upon which Jotsy is built, will accelerate the utility of these technologies by further enabling “anytime, anywhere, On Demand” access to services of interest not just to consumers, but to Enterprise users as well. Jotsy is currently oriented towards document management, and the underlying technology can be easily applied to a number of interesting product ideas.

How do you see this type of collaborative work tool integrating with and improving existing workflows within organizations?

Just as we see a shift away from desktop to smart mobile, we see a shift away from the traditional views of “integration” and “workflow”. We take the view that Jotsy will be associated with any number of core document management and storage platforms through web services.

Do you see the tablet form factor as an opportunity for these types of collaborative tools to increase productivity for businesses?

Without question, tablet form factors with Wi-Fi® or mobile connectivity is game-changing technology that will not only substitute desktops as the principal means of web access, but will enable new ways of doing work. And these applications aren’t limited to businesses – imagine evidence to the point of care in hospitals, a textbook-free school curriculum, or remote sales teams having immediate access to documents. These new ways of doing things are made much more practical with tablet form factors and HTML5. This is the space that Jotsy occupies.

What does the future hold for Jotsy?

We want Jotsy on every BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, to start. Beyond that, Jotsy will be a family of document conversion and managed distribution services, with the purpose of supporting collaborative workgroups using a diversity of solutions.

Where can businesses or end-users get a hold of Jotsy?

The latest version of Jotsy for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is available on BlackBerry App World, and the required PC synchronization component is available for download at jotsy.com. Both of these are free, and have full annotation functionality. Future paid versions will have some of the more advanced collaboration, security, and document management capabilities we’ve described above.

Do you regularly review and annotate documents in your work? How would you see Jotsy contributing to your productivity? Share in the comments below.

The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet browser is far more than a simple application for viewing web pages. It has been carefully designed to provide an enhanced tablet experience, complete with options for customizing the browsing experience, private browsing, bookmarks management, HTML 5.0, Adobe® Flash® and JavaScript® capabilities, location-aware features, and so much more. Consider this powerful tool to be a window into not only viewing and interacting with a variety of web sites, but to also access powerful enterprise web applications.

There are a number of complete and secure web app solutions that you and your business can take advantage of – apps that are designed to offer new ways to collaborate in real time. Access to your internal enterprise network may also be possible from your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet through supported VPN suppliers.

Research In Motion® (RIM®) has a large number of enterprise software partners in the mobile industry, and we are constantly working with them to deliver apps and access to web-based hosted solutions optimized for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. This means that employees will be able to use existing tools while on the go.

I’m sure at this point you’re looking for examples. Well, here are seven of our favorite enterprise apps that are BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser-ready!

IBM® Connections (IBM®)

IBM Connections is social software for business that is designed to allow you to “access everyone in your professional network, including your colleagues, customers, and partners” (via IBM Connections overview). IBM Connections was designed to be supported on a wide variety of platforms, including the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser. Through this interface, you can engage with communities, files, wikis, profiles, bookmarks, forums, and much more. It’s as good as it sounds, especially through the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet experience.

BusinessObjects Dashboard (SAP®)

SAP offers a web tool called BusinessObjects Dashboard, which is designed to allow you to create interactive analytics and dashboards with connections to SAP backend data sources among others. These interactive dashboards can be shared via Microsoft® Office, Adobe® PDF, web sharing, and SAP sharing solutions. You can then create, view, and share these dashboards using the the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser with Adobe Flash support.

Chatter® (Salesforce®)

Salesforce.com offers a private, and secure social network for your business called Chatter. This service allows you to increase collaboration within your organization as well as assist with planning and project management. Not only did I test this service using my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, I actually completed the entire registration process using my BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphone.

Basecamp®, Highrise®, Backpack®, and Campfire® (37signals®, LLC)

Back when I was running my own small business, the 37signals services were a huge relief to find. This suite of HTML5 web apps allows you to manage projects, contacts, communications, and collaboration – all through extremely user-friendly web apps. While testing this one on my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet this morning, it was hard to put it down. Check out an overview of the suite on the 37signals web site.

Zoho®

On-demand CRM software is available from Zoho, among other services, and is widely used by businesses large and small. The entire Zoho Suite, interacted with via the dashboard, is available as a mobile web application designed for tablet use and is easily accessible using the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser.

Confluence® (Atlassian®)

The tagline for Atlassian’s flagship product is “More Than Just a Wiki”. This statement is true, as I’ve had personal experience working with the Confluence product, which allows for contribution, discussion, collaboration, and indexing of a wide variety of content within an organization (among other great features). Want an efficient workforce? Pool the knowledge and make it accessible. Speaking of accessibility, this one is also available via web interface using the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser. Have Confluence set up on internal corporate servers? No problem – use the BlackBerry® Bridge™ browser.

So as you explore all that the BlackBerry App World™ storefront has to offer, don’t forget to take advantage of the wonderful world of web apps. As you can see, the sky’s the limit with the award-winning BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and its unique browsing experience, which opens up a whole world of possibility for engaging in enterprise apps online.

Are you using enterprise apps, either native or web-based, on your BlackBerry PlayBook? What apps do you find particularly useful?

Salesforce.com, Chatter and all associated logos are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. Other names and logos used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Improving collaboration is a key priority for organizations large and small, and one of the most popular applications for enterprise collaboration right now is Microsoft® SharePoint™. With more than 100 million licensed SharePoint users around the world, SharePoint gives organizations the ability to easily collaborate on documents, projects and more.

So you’ve decided to use SharePoint in your organization. Great! Now, to get the most out of your enterprise collaboration efforts, you need to take it mobile. If you’ve ever tried to access your SharePoint portal using your mobile web browser, you may have found that it’s a bit difficult to navigate and doesn’t offer a great level of integration with your phone’s operating system. So what do you do?

Today, we’ve got the answer: We’re releasing a client application to help improve your enterprise collaboration experience. The BlackBerry® Client for Microsoft SharePoint is designed to mobilize the key features of Microsoft SharePoint, enabling you to collaborate productively from anywhere you can use your smartphone. This affordable and easy-to-use client application helps your organization leverage your investment in Microsoft SharePoint, keeping your mobile users connected and up to date at all times. Here are some quick details about some of the key features:

BlackBerry Universal Search Integration

Integrated with SharePoint’s Search engine, BlackBerry Universal Search quickly finds exactly what you need on your device or across global SharePoint sites.

Document Management

The BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint is designed to allow you to manage your documents and libraries on your BlackBerry smartphone. Easily check documents in and out, mark favorites, and edit files thanks to integration with Documents To Go®.

Shared Calendar Support

This client application will also give you access to your SharePoint calendars. You can easily stay up to date with meetings and milestones for your key projects, and copying items to your BlackBerry smartphone’s calendar (or vice versa) can be done thanks to integration with the built-in calendar application on your device.

All you need to get started with SharePoint is BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0 or higher, a BlackBerry smartphone running OS 5.0 or higher, the SharePoint Social Networking Application Proxy (SNAP) Server, and SharePoint CALs. Take a look at the SharePoint Client for BlackBerry web page for more information including details about technical requirements.

Does your company use SharePoint? If you do, let us know how you use it in your organization and the value that taking SharePoint mobile would give you!

So far I’ve covered setting up my mobile office and how I use the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet for presentations, but another powerful use case of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is to support collaboration.

The first in my arsenal of collaboration tools is Adobe® Connect. Simply attending a hosted Adobe Connect meeting isn’t the only thing you can do; it also allows for a variety of other features. If allowed by the host, you can turn on video and audio and utilize the camera to attend the meeting via video and audio. I’m also able to chat with anyone that is in attendance. You can send a message to the host, presenters or attendees, and if you touch and hold on an attendee’s name, you can start a private chat.

Wait, did the host just ask a polling question? No problem – the polling feature works from your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and even displays the results. I’m also able to utilize pinch to zoom on the slides if I want to focus in on some text or a picture. As you can see above, it is nicely set up into quadrants with the ability to bring each function to the full screen.

Another essential application in collaboration is Video Chat. With my team spread out over most of the United States and Canada, I’ve started to utilize Video Chat for my team’s 1×1 meetings. Being remote doesn’t always offer the good face to face time that is sometimes needed, so I find that Video Chat helps to close that distance.

Video Chat on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is very easy to set up so that you can connect with your fellow coworkers who are BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users. Besides the standard features, I can switch which camera is being used by tapping on the screen and selecting the camera icon in the lower left corner (1). You can also change the position of your video box by touching the box and swiping it to the desired corner (2).

However, there are times when you need a little “me” time, and because you don’t need the Video Chat application running to receive a call, you can hit the “Do not disturb” button at the top of the screen.

Talking about ideas and projects is only one part of collaboration – sometimes you need the ability to work on something of a more visual nature. When it comes to that type of sharing, I turn to Shared Board, which provides a shared white board for collaboration. Essentially a shared white board, it allows me to open a group room so anyone who is invited to that group can contribute their suggestions visually on the white board screen. Each user who attends the group has the ability to mark up the screen as well as send chat messages. With a swipe down motion on the screen, you are able to select your marker color, sponge (erase) and add text. Like SketchBook, you can add an image or take a photo and use it as the background image on the screen. Once you are finished, everyone can save the board as an image on their BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

So, how are you collaborating with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet? I’m very interested to hear what you use today, or if you would like to comment on a “wish list” item!

Check out Paul’s previous posts in this challenge:

• Paul’s Challenge: No Laptops Allowed! – BlackBerry PlayBook Edition
• Paul’s Challenge, BlackBerry PlayBook Edition: Setting Up the Mobile Office
• Paul’s Challenge, BlackBerry PlayBook Edition – Presenting with the Mobile Office