Many workspaces are changing as we move through the 21st century, and one of the biggest changes we are experiencing is the massive shift to remote work environments. People are beginning to realize that remote work meets the majority of in-person work expectations and needs, while also providing increased flexibility for people to work from their own personal environments. Virtual work environments meet most of these needs, but not all of them. Some things need an extra boost, one of them being the collaboration process. This can be boosted through various visual collaboration advantages.
Without working in person with one another, collaboration needs to become more creative and streamlined in order for people to effectively work together. Visual collaboration tools are the missing piece to the remote work puzzle. They enable people to collaborate on a greater level than ever before while remote, which means people can function at full capacity while working remotely.
Remote work options are increasing drastically, and there are a lot of visual collaboration tools to accommodate for these different opportunities. Below we will outline some visual collaboration advantages and how they truly make a difference in how you collaborate.
If you are interested in learning more about visual collaboration, check out our comprehensive guide, or read more about the different types of visual collaboration.
Advantages and Difference Makers
Pricing
The first advantage we discuss is a simple one, and for those who are used to coordinating and organizing events, an important one. Visual Collaboration tools obviously cost money to use, and this cost is usually charged as a subscription for the number of users or the size of your team.
While these costs can add up, they are nowhere near the cost of holding the same event in person. Travel, staff, lodging, venue, and equipment bills all add up very fast and can force people to change their events altogether. Visual collaboration tools give people the ability to both host and participate in an event remotely, which completely eliminates the vast majority of these expenses.
Hosting conferences and meetings has been possible through video conferencing tools for a long time, but visual collaboration allows you to take it a step further. You can create engaging, meaningful, and lasting events rather than a business facetime call. If hosting events is a common occurrence for you and your team, then pivoting to a virtual format and using visual collaboration tools to facilitate them can be a great option. Not only does it save immense amounts of money, but it means these workshops can reach more people and leave lasting impacts on everyone involved.
Diverse Teams
Visual collaboration tools allow people from everywhere in the world to work together on the same platform, something that is rarely found outside of a cellular connection. This global connection is formed not only by communication but through participation and visual engagement. This means that whatever project you’re working on is not limited in the scope of who it reaches and who can participate. This active engagement of team members means you can create ideas and new possibilities where previously impossible.
Visual collaboration not only enables experts and teams to connect where they would never have been able to before, but it adds a layer of collaboration and integration of thought that takes their participation deeper than possible just over the phone. When you have multiple people actively contributing to the same visual workspace together, it unlocks another level of ideation and realizes another huge advantage for visual collaboration.
Living Workspace
Visual collaboration tools don’t only seek to replace workshops and replicate collaboration, they offer new possibilities as well. These dimensions were largely inaccessible due to the physical restrictions of the workplace, but when your workplace is replaced entirely, these restrictions are removed as well.
One of the features visual collaboration employs that traditional methods cannot replicate is unlimited board space. It seems simple, but virtual whiteboard tools allow you to zoom in and out at large ranges. When using a traditional collaboration space, you only have a finite amount of room and there is no extension unless you choose to erase your previous work and replace it with something new. This is where visual collaboration allows you to create more content and possibilities than before, without the restrictions that come with a physical workspace
Not only can you simply create more than before, one of the principal advantages of visual collaboration is that when you create your content, it comes with you. Everyone can take it with them. When the collaboration session is done, the document is not relegated to pictures or folders, it exists as a living workspace that can be constantly manipulated, edited, and referenced.
This is a game-changer for collaborators, and this effect can be felt from a variety of different applications. If you are holding a large conference meeting, for example, most of the data and important takeaways from those meetings are not retained in any permanence for the participants. However, when you are having people interact and use a visual collaboration tool, they can reference what they learned and participated in at any time in the future. Another instance could be if your team is brainstorming for a future product and someone forgot to add a key feature they were thinking about during the meeting. Instead of getting in an email chain with someone trying to explain their idea, they can simply add their change directly to the board and explicitly add anything they need.
These changes are critical when using visual collaboration tools and open up a world of possibilities for people who are looking to diversify and update their collaborative reach. They offer game-changing functionality that takes collaboration to an entirely new level.
Conclusion
Visual collaboration can be a complex minefield of do’s and don’ts, but just like anything, with the right guidance, it can blaze a path to success. Through multiple new functions and unique processes, you can engage your entire team with these visual collaboration advantages.
