If you are managing your work on DeskAway, the blog feature available in there can be a blessing in disguise. It helps you: constantly communicate with teams - inform & get feedback; share, discuss & facilitate - knowledge / ideas & innovation; create comfort & build loyalties.

So, what all can one use the Blog feature on DeskAway for?

Here are a few usage suggestions:

• Announcements / notice board: Post important internal announcements, news coverage, or other relevant company-related announcements here.
• Newsletter: Publish your newsletter in the blog space on DeskAway. This can be a very important internal communication tool, specially so for remote teams.
• Information Sharing: Super Users and Project Leads can utilize this feature to share information relevant to their area of expertise. Write them yourself or link other references.
• Brain-storming: Get new ideas for execution and company-wide involvement. Invite people to suggest, think of ideas and discuss new initiatives. This is great for remote teams!
• Opinions and Fun: Use it as a personal blog to publish your opinions- business or otherwise. This can be a reflection of you in your workspace on DeskAway.

The blog feature can be used in various ways to increase productivity as well as build engagement among teams.

As a Super-User, you can create standard categories (from the main Settings tab) and each blog post can be tagged under a particular category.

If you are creating a blog or you are a Super-User, you can also determine who all you want to notify or share it with. So, if you’ve written something that pertains to only a particular team, you can monitor it at the notifications level.

DeskAway has a couple of cool utilities added to the Blog feature.
• BlogIT: Reading something interesting that you’d like to share with your team on DeskAway? Do that with just a click with the BlogIT bookmarklet. Just drag-drop the BlogIT link to your bookmarks toolbar from the “Write a Blog” page. So, you can start blogging about different websites without being on the blog page.

• RSS feature: Your team members can now get updates of the blogs and comments from your DeskAway account by subscribing to the RSS feed.

So, how have you been using the Blog’s feature on DeskAway? Have a story to share? Please do so through your comments!

Did you know that if you used the customization options on DeskAway, it can help build a strong brand identity for your business among your internal customers (employees) and external customers (partners)?

The “Settings” Tab on your DeskAway account allows you to customize the look and feel of your account pages and much more. Here is how:

Through the “General Settings” section you can upload a logo of your business that will be displayed on all pages of your account - a start to claiming ownership of the DeskAway account as your own.

The “Themes” tab allows you to personalize your DeskAway account theme, syncing it with your company colors. Creating an environment that reflects your brand and your business.

You can also customize and categorize various interaction points of all your users to create a seamless experience of using your DeskAway account.  You can create default categories of Projects, Departments and Blogs - making it easy for teams to just click and select from these pre-set categories. You can also set permissions and modify alters from the “General Settings” tab, making it intuitive for the team members to access and get reminders for their tasks and milestones, as required. Thus, building a positive association about your business in the user’s minds.

The internal user is as important as the external user for any business. These small changes in your DeskAway account will create an online environment which reflects the attitude and the philosophy of the company, thus making it a pleasant experience for your employees and teammates using DeskAway. Perhaps, this could also drive more usage of your DeskAway account.

I went around asking a few of the startups I work with about DeskAway & how they use it. I was mainly interested in finding out:

•    What are the features that they use most on DeskAway
•    How do they motivate their teams in using DeskAway regularly
•    What is it about DeskAway that they like the most

I spoke with three startup guys who manage their teams and partners on DeskAway. Sameer Guglani, Founding Partner, MVP: A typical early-adopter and influencer, motivates teams he works with to use new tools, and is quick with his feedback. Rizwan Iqbal, co-founder, Sutra Services Pvt. Ltd: A tech geek, who is a part of a company who evaluates various tools before closing on one and ensures that the team uses them. Pankaj, an entrepreneur who is working on a startup in the space of customer experience and feedback (in stealth mode): He is someone who uses tools and mechanisms only when he sees a direct value to his business.

Here is what I found, some of which can be tips to Owners / Team Leads on DeskAway.

Most Used Features on DeskAway:

Tasks and Task Lists. At its basic level managing a project is all about organizing one’s tasks and task lists. All of them found DeskAway’s interface to managing, assigning and handling tasks to be very easy. Some of these users and their teams use task list for managing not only things related to specific projects, but also have their own personal task lists and optimize their time by managing all that they do on DeskAway.

Getting your team to use DeskAway regularly:

All the users I spoke to were using DeskAway quite regularly to manage their work and interact with their teams. A few techniques they have employed and have worked for them are:

•    Getting all work related communication onto DeskAway. Using the tasks, milestones, notifications, notes and file-sharing on DeskAway only and keeping away from emails & phone. This works well, shares one of the users, especially when dealing with remote teammates, as this is the most efficient way of collaborating.
•    “If I see them (a task) on DeskAway, they aren’t done yet” is what one of the users shared. Their technique is that any task assigned to them has to be dealt with on DeskAway, this ensures that all of them check back on things assigned to them on DeskAway and act on it there.
•    Making it a part of the process, building usage of DeskAway as part of the various things teams do. Identifying the advantages of getting onto DeskAway and educating the teams about it.

Though, all of them do think that once the teammates see the advantages of getting on to DeskAway, there has been no looking back.

The best thing about DeskAway:

•    The UI is very simple and easy to understand
•    The navigation flow is very good, it does not need an extra effort to learn things
•    DeskAway team keep adding to the already extensive feature set, which makes it all the more interesting to use the tool. To quote a user, “ It’s like you think of something (feature) and a few weeks later, its already there on DeskAway”

All these teams believe that DeskAway has made managing their teams and projects easy and more efficient. One of the teams owes it to DeskAway, as it became easy for them to get into a structure through DeskAway, which was missing earlier.

We have just updated DeskAway with some exciting new features. Thank you all for requesting these! We are keeping these features for the Free plan as well. Enjoy!

PS - User Reports was one feature that we planned to release but had to delay it till the end of the month due to unforeseen circumstances.

My Account & Profile

We have renamed the “Services” link to “My Account”. You will be able to update your profile, upload a profile photo and talk a little about yourself. After all, if you are working in a team, it would be cool to let others know a little about yourself, what skills you possess and what have you done in the past etc. Something social of sorts

Plus, you can easily change your account password from My Account -> Change Password link. We will not email you the new password anymore!

Personalization - Profile Photo

Personalize your DeskAway experience by uploading a 50px image of yourself. Anytime you want, you can remove the picture. Your profile information will also be shown to your project members from the Project Overview page. In addition, your profile picture will be displayed next to your comments.

What are you working on?

This excites us! Something like Twitter but for your project team. Why not let your project members know what you are doing? e.g. “Taking a break, going for a quick lunch” or “Working on Ajax development, anyone have open source scripts ready?”.

You can set your message from the “What you are working on” link at the top of the page or from the Project Overview page.

BaseEscape

A lot of current Basecamp “frustrated” users have requested an easy way to import their data to DeskAway. So, here it is - BaseEscape (get me out of there!). Simply login to your account and access BaseEscape from the My Account - BaseEscape link. Only Account Owners are allowed to import their Basecamp data once into DeskAway.

After you spend most of your time online its crucial to break away for a week or so and take a mini vacation someplace quite and serene. So, fortunately that’s what I could do last month - off to Bali, Indonesia. Though, I must confess that I could not leave behind my MacBook and Blackberry. I still needed to be in touch with my team back in Mumbai and see how things are going with DeskAway. Well, what I loved most was to sit on the beach, look at the blue sea and send off some mails…

One of the experiences I wanted to share with all of you is of the customer service my wife and I received at this high-end restaurant in Ubud called Mosaic. Sure, all high-end restaurants have superior customer service but this one was different. I have never experienced such spectacular level of customer service and attention to detail. Amongst many things one thing that jumped out was the fact that the chef took special care in creating a special vegetarian set menu for my wife having only a 2 hour notice before the place becomes packed. After our meal, he made sure he and the 2 other people came back to ask us how everything was. What got me was the fact that he and his team cared. They were passionate about what they were doing and how that would have an impact on their clients. They wanted everyone to feel special and leave with being completely satisfied. Even the guards outside were hospitable.

I don’t think I will be going to Bali again for a while (probably explore other places), but I am sure to tell folks I know about this restaurant cause they made a lasting impression on me. Isn’t that the best form of marketing anyone can get?

As positive experiences shape us, they sure do have a positive impact on the businesses we work in also! Hopefully, at DeskAway, we can serve you even better now.

Sahil
Founder, DeskAway