These platforms are examples of tools that can be used as part of knowledge level systems in an organisation, but when would users gain an advantage by sharing documents through these platforms? Sharing for collaborative working is one use, but also simply for sharing information with other co-workers while travelling or in branch offices is another. They are particularly useful for collaborating between offices and between organisations for working on projects and can be an invaluable service as part of a thematic social networking system. Both ThinkFree and Google Apps can publish to blogs and Google Apps can be configured to push content via RSS feeds automating delivery of change history to authors and invited key viewers.

Collaborative content for:

Publications, research papers, reports

presentations

training materials

promotional materials

Remember these systems are configured with sharing privileges allotted by the owner of the document which is private to the group rather than publicly available on the web. A finished document may then be uploaded to a website or simply into an organisation’s document management system.