How organizations can use technology to help their teams work efficiently is a hot topic in the art world (and beyond!) right now. In our first ArtEvolve webinar since the summer break, Annika Erikson, Founder of Articheck, and Mackenzie Garrity CCO of Articheck, talked about the technology types and tools we all should use to bring our organizational processes online and help art institutions thrive.
As we adapt to working during a global pandemic, many organizations have turned to technology to help them connect with staff, clients, and potential customers. Apps such as Zoom have not only proved themselves invaluable to our working lives but also become household names as we use them to connect with friends and family too.
Boosting efficiency and productivity, however, isn’t limited to remote working, and internal processes can be improved whether staff sit together in the same room or alone in their living rooms. (How many times has your concentration been broken by someone asking if they can just ask you a quick question?) So, this week’s ArtEvolve event went ‘beyond Zoom’ to take a look at technologies that can help the art world not just thrive during COVID-19 but also revolutionize our entire working process.
Communication: Slack
What used to be an email – or, worse, an endless email chain – is now a quick message with Slack. This nifty communication tool allows you to share messages and files with colleagues in channels. Using different channels for different things, such as departments or projects, not only keeps your inbox clear for external emails (i.e clients), it also makes conversations much easier to follow. If a new staff member joins, they can even see past messages, allowing them to get up to speed immediately. As well as a desktop version, there’s also a mobile app that is invaluable for staying in the loop during trips and external meetings. Best of all? The free version is incredibly extensive.
Collaborative Work: G-Suite
Encompassing email, file storage, calendars and a range of other utilities, G-Suite is an extensive tool with lots of functionality. As such, there’s lots to get to grips with but Google Docs is a great place to start. An online word processor, it allows multiple people to work on the same document at the same time. Each user can see and make changes in real time and tools such as comments, tagging, and tracked changes lend themselves to collaborative work between colleagues without the need for a real-time meeting.
Project Management: Monday
Project management tools like Monday (check out Trello, Click-Up, and Asana for alternatives) enable organizations to manage tasks, projects, and team workflows in a very visual way. Each project or process has its own board which is customized with all the info each team member needs to follow a task through from start to finish, including progress tracking and timelines. Being able to add automation easily is incredibly useful and helps internal processes run smoothly without the need for additional communication. For example, automatic emails when a new potential client or contact is added or a notification when a task hasn’t been worked on in 2 weeks.
Team Management: 15Five
Built for remote workers but beneficial to any kind of team, 15Five gives managers the insights they need to help their staff work productively and, ultimately, drive success. Many organizations set quarterly and annual goals but 15Five provides constant progress tracking and encourages communication between teams, making it more likely those goals will actually be achieved. (By the time a standard 3-month review swings around, it’s often too late to fix issues in time). Managers can set key results (measurable insights like percentages or figures) and also check up on their teams overall by setting questions about wellbeing or stress levels.
