When you think of real-time digital tools, you might think of stock trading, ride-sharing, and weather apps. The needs of today's society to do everything in real-time has transformed almost every industry. With so many mobile-mindful technologies advancing, educational publishers now have the same opportunity to evolve, shorten their development and production timelines, and recoup a greater ROI.
If you're a content producer considering the shift, or if you're feeling overwhelmed at all with the ‘how’, we've got you covered. Here are the three key benefits to digital transformation in your world.
It’s no secret that content development relies on teams: authors, editors, learning design specialists, proofreaders, production, etc. But communication can be tricky. Real-time collaboration tools are ushering in the next frontier for content producers, especially in larger companies with international contributors. According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), integration of more social tools in the workplace could increase productivity by 20-25 percent. Digital content tools that allow for simultaneous task assignment, commenting and editing disrupt the traditional email-centric work culture that accounts for almost 28 percent of the traditional work week.
We’ve all been there - that moment you're trying to find the most up-to-date version of a file, but your shared drive has countless similarly-named versions of the same document. In a version-prone industry such as publishing, files are frequently differentiated by their naming conventions, most likely designated by dates and/or contributor initials. So, something like this: DeathToVersioning_4.4.17_SG_FINAL_2.docx may exist in your drive. Terrifyingly enough, this is actually the best-case scenario; it assumes that all participants are saving to the same shared drive and using uniform naming conventions. The harsh reality is that versions float from contributor to contributor, or take up drive space across 10-15 computers.
MGI estimates that the average employee spends almost 20 percent of their week searching through internal systems for correct files or information. That’s an entire day! Others simply spend their time trying to find the right person to contact to find what they need. Real-time, collaborative development has put an end to versioning, storing the content you need in one place under a single filename, accessible to all assigned contributors to work on simultaneously.
In October 2016, Google unveiled Action Items within G Suite. Action Items allow for collaborators to assign comments and tasks to a specific person with project access. Gutenberg Technology's platform, MyEcontentFactory, utilizes similar functionality, but with a useful added layer of task prioritization. This not only increases productivity, but also brings an element of accountability back to realm of development. Naturally this is a benefit to all project team members, however Hoopla reports that millennials in the workforce, many of whom represent the bulk of digital development teams, respond even more favorably to real-time tools like these to help clarify and prioritize tasks.
Curious how real-time, collaborative development can change how you create content? Gutenberg Technology is here to help.