Work Together

We’ve been nominated. The 2013 Silicon Valley Business App Awards (SVBA Awards) are coming up (November 13th) and Teambox is excited about being recognized, along with some other amazing applications, for our productivity app.

The SVBA Awards was created to recognize leading app developers. More importantly, this event is also a platform for assisting the developer community improve their innovations by highlighting new strategies and best practices.

The awards are given for both individual and collective efforts, selected by an eminent Jury comprising leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

What’s the number next to your email inbox icon? 100, 1000, 1500, more? Can you find the email you need for that big client project? Are you collaborating on a project and utilizing email to communicate?

Stop! It is just not a good way to collaborate. Conversations get lost. Things get missed.

We’ve got fantastic news today and are excited to share it with all of you whether you’re a customer, partner or just interested in ‘working smarter’ with Teambox. We are thrilled to announce that we have closed a $5 million Series A round of financing, which was led by Avalon Ventures, and Data Collective Fund, a previous investor who “re-upped” as the saying goes.

We also completed our “flip” from Spain to the US, incorporating in Delaware. We will still build and develop our product in Spain, where we have a great team, but our company HQ is now located in Redwood City, closer to our strategic partners and investors.

It has been an amazing two years for Teambox. Not many companies can claim 1,273% revenue growth over a two year period! We have also seen a huge increase in user activity, which is up more than 650% since January 2012 and our consistently rabid fan base sports an average of 30.59 comments per user inside of Teambox!

This was no time for play.

This was no time for fun.

This was no time for games.

There was work to be done.

— From Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”

Is your team feeling a bit like Sallie and her brother shoveling mountains of snow with no end in sight? Maybe so. Are they chugging along? That’s good.

Maybe the team needs to get to know one another better. Maybe an issue arose that needs to be highlighted and resolved in a clever manner. You may say ‘ok’ but what do you do? Be the Cat! But, instead of unleashing “Little Cats A-Z,” you should pull out a timely and appropriate team building activity.

“Many hands make light work.” English proverb circa 1300s

The origins of this proverb are somewhat muddy, but the American Heritage Dictionary indicates it first appeared in the early 1300s.

Just think… what did working together in the 14th century look like? It was necessary for survival. To simply exist – to have food, shelter, clothing was made easier through collaboration.

What does collaboration look like now? Certainly societies continue to collaborate for survival, but we do so now in different ways and it’s not just for survival. There are far more people working together from far greater distances. The web has played a major role in changing how we work together. Wonder what’s going on now in the 21st century?

We’ve all heard the horror stories. Listened to frustrated colleagues ranting about the latest problem with a team project. Wanted to throttle a “person who shall remain nameless” for acting like a one-person army instead of a teammate.

Survived our own 9 PM panicked conference call over a misread email that launched Edna into orbit because she thought Barry didn’t deliver on a task resulting in 25 more emails to everyone on the team. Egad!

Right about now, you may be wondering what a person has to do to ensure successful online collaboration. And, after diving into some of the research, we found there are six things you can do to boost your chances of success.

USER SPOTLIGHT: We all learn from others stories. And this story is about how you can manage your projects in boom times. Teambox user – Essential Print Services – shares how they improved collaboration and project management during their recent growth and expansion.

Most companies would probably envy the position that Essential Print Services found themselves in. The UK company, which was founded in April 2011 by Yvonne Gorman, was having a banner year. With over 14 years of experience in the print industry, Yvonne was able to turn the hassle of print buying into a range of cost effective, expertly executed, print solutions for hundreds of companies throughout the UK.

We are living in exciting times. People around the world are integrating new technology into their daily lives. Businesses are harnessing the power of these IT inventions to increase productivity.

Cloud storage has turned out to be a very valuable tool. It allows people to store files virtually, usually through a third party host like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive.

Collaboration platforms like Teambox have integrated cloud storage into their software to allow greater connectivity. As a result, we are seeing major increases in productivity. Here are 5 ways cloud integration helps increase productivity.

It’s Monday morning, and as you read through the emails, you discover you’ve been tasked with managing a project. Feel like a deer in the headlights? No? Been there and done that, have you?

No worries, either way we’ve got some useful resources that can help you whether it’s your first time out or you just need to knock down the cobwebs and shake off the dust.

I see you just received an invite to be a part of a collaborative project. Hang on, what’s this? A bit of snarl? You’re not leaping for joy? I’m sure you are as excited as Steve Martin in “The Jerk” when he makes it into the phone book and runs about screaming “… I’m somebody now!”

So you’re not quite chomping at the bit and ready to leap out of the starting gate? So you don’t like working on a collaborative projects? Oh dear…