How to create a communication plan for your virtual team?

Recently there has been a lot of talking about virtual teams. Virtual teams continue on as an increasingly essential development in modern business (particularly businesses trying to reach an audience on a global level) to help gather the best ideas for your projects from around the world.

Working with a team of highly specialized consultants and employees from offices on the other side of the world can add dynamics and native perspectives to your project's results that you could not replicate with on-site staff without the expertise. But virtual team communication isn't always easy.

Designing and Implementing a High Calibre Virtual Team Communication Plan for Your Business

Bright Hub Project Management notes that “virtual projects often fail due to the improper communications," so your focus on improving the way your team interacts is a huge step toward getting the results that you and your team anticipate.

If designing a virtual team communication plan is a new concept for you, we have gathered three essential ideas that might help you get started in your communications planning, potentially offering a new wave of high-impact collaboration between your project's team members, no matter where they are in the world or the office.

1. Assess Your Current Strategy: If you don't have a strategy yet, an honest appraisal of your current plan is as good a place to start as any to move forward toward successful communication planning. Note all of your team's members and where they are, what is the primary type of communication you use or plan to use, the communication tools — whether landlines, smartphones, tablets or laptops — the majority of your team uses and the general opinion on the effectiveness of the current means of connecting.

2. Design Your Communication Plan With Your Team: Who can be better to design a high-functioning and streamlined virtual communication plan than the team you plan to entrust to use it each day? Use the data from your assessment, as well as regular meetings, to create a plan perfectly suited to your project and its invaluable team members. Gather essential information like geographic locations, telephone numbers, email addresses, local time zones and social media addresses for each team member, as well as their preferred means of communication.

3. Choose the Right Tools to Smooth the Communication Process. With this step, you not only focus on hardware, such as laptops and smartphones, but you can also explore various software packages and mobile apps, CBS News shared in a 2010 article. Many of these tools already offer a variety of features you are trying to figure out how to implement on your own, such as simplifying multiple party video conferencing. There are many free video chatting apps like YapApp available in the market that can help you sort through any complications you experience with a broad array of useful features that create and nurture a collaborative, professional and confidential environment for your team in the office and around the world.

CIOs Juggling Collaboration Technology

2016 drastically marked change to business communication technology, especially in light of new mobile apps used for business. Today's CIOs, CTOs, and IT Managers are facing more challenges than ever. In fact, a recent survey of over 500 tech executives found that 88% believe their role is more challenging than ever. 71% of the same executives found it especially difficult to drive efficiency and innovation while trying to balance data security.

Despite these challenges, it's possible to implement collaboration technology without leaving yourself vulnerable to any additional security threats. Here's are some suggestions for those responsible for business communication and security protocols:

Don't Go Overboard

Your job isn't to shut down everything that looks like it's even remotely insecure. Your goal is to figure out what tools will generate the best performance for your organization and then figure out how to make sure everything is secure. According to Forbes, these are the important points to keep in mind when you find a way to improve operational efficiency:

• Is it a reasonable or tolerable amount of risk?
• Will there be a reasonable way for us to manage or mitigate the risk?
• What are the specific benefits of this new tool or process and what kind of revenue will it drive?
• As we grow and continue to focus on security, will the new system be able to scale with us?

Once you've answered these critical questions, finding the balance will be much easier.

Secure the Most Important Threat

The Wall Street Journal cites the biggest threat to corporate security isn't hackers or faulty systems. It's employees. Take the time to make sure your staff is trained to make security a priority. Make sure systems require strict authentication and require additional security for especially critical information.
If you're able to keep your staff from making security mistakes, all of your processes will be much more secure. You'll be left to focus on improving operations and actually adding value to the company.

Less is More With Regards to Collaboration Technology

One of the best ways to keep your organization safe is by simply limiting the amount of exposure you have. Each program or mobile application that you use to transfer information or collaborate is one more tool you need to secure and develop best practices for. That's why it's important to use the same application for multiple processes whenever it's possible. YapApp is one such communication app that allows you to do many important things for your business in a simple small package. It offers free video conferencing, video chatting and calling. The secure application design ensures that nobody has access to your messages and files except for you. For a CIO worried about the security of collaboration technology, it's the perfect balance between efficiency and security.

Source:- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cios-juggling-collaboration-technology-yap-app

5 Best Video Chat Apps in 2016

Smartphones have completely revolutionized the way we communicate. Nowadays, people across the world instantly communicate via calls, texts, and emails, bridging the distance between them. Skype was introduced in 2003 with an aim to connect the world. Skype conveniently allows people to see and chat with each other using a webcam. It has indeed brought people close, but it isn’t the novelty it was once. With the drastic increase in smartphone usage, there are several video chatting apps that have found their way to mobile devices. Here are 6 best video calling apps for Android. 

1. Facebook Messenger — Facebook messenger is a free video chat app for Android, iPhone, and Windows phone. Making a call using Facebook messenger is quite easy. You simply tap a contact from the messenger app list and click the video button to start a video call. You can easily make a call to anyone in your facebook network around the globe. All the calls are free but you need to pay for the data charges. Unfortunately, facebook messenger doesn’t support video conferencing, like other apps YapApp or Google Hangouts. So if you want to talk to several friends in one call, you’ll have to opt for other apps.

2. YapApp — YapApp is comparatively a new & free video chat app available for Android, iPhone, and iPad users. YapApp offers free HD video calls, voice calls and group calls to up to 4 people. YapApp’s chat interface is extremely clean and easy to use. It gives you the option to add unlimited members in a group. You can share up to 10 photos, crop your photos, send pre-recorded voice messages and location to your contacts. The USP of the app is that unlike other apps it doesn’t disclose your phone number to the contacts and all the messages and calls of the app are encrypted, which makes it extremely secure. The app’s data consumption is low, making it an overall a good video calling app.

3.ooVoo — Oovoo is a great app if you frequently use video chat to communicate to your friends and family. It works for users on Android, iOS, and Windows. The app allows you to free video call with up to 12 people. Video quality of the app is good even with low bandwidth connections. You can buy avatar characters and use them during your calls.

4.Google Hangouts — Google Hangouts is an instant messaging platform developed by Google. It has replaced three messaging Google products: Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, and Hangouts. Google Hangouts offers chat, voice calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing for up to 10 people. It allows you to share photos and emojis with your contacts. All video calls to other users are free (excluding data charges).

    

5. Viber — Viber is a free messenger offering free instant messaging, voice calls and live video chats. You can group chat with up to 100 participants. The app has support for over 30 localized languages. You can share photos, videos, emoji icons, and stickers, and record audio messages. The only drawback of this app is that it collects names and phone numbers of the users, though for functional reasons but then it raises concerns regarding privacy and security.

These are some of the free video chat apps that allow you to make free video calls and give you a high-quality video calling experience. Though you can download them for free, but using them can eat up a lot of your data plan. So, ensure you choose the video chat app which is low in data consumption and gives you best calling experience.

Source:- https://medium.com/@YapApp/5-best-video-chat-apps-in-2016-430bd437590e#.2i86b0bas

Top 7 Business Travel Apps

What if we said the most important thing you can pack for your business trip is free, weightless, takes up no extra space, and can easily impress your boss? No, we're not trying to be funny – it's all about the apps on your phone. While thoughts of downloading yet another new app service may stress you out, don't worry about these: They are designed specifically to take the stress out of your next business trip, and we'll show you how:

There’s an App For That?

TripCase: TripCase exists to help you manage your trip with as little effort as possible. If you don't have a secretary to handle these things for you, TripCase can organize your itinerary, import tips, and use your confirmation emails for things like tickets, reservations and more, automatically building a snapshot of your trip you can access on any device. Even if you have a secretary, get TripCase and have her do something more productive than check your departure times.

Concur: One of the most boring and time-consuming tasks involved in a business trip is recording all your expenses. Concur helps make this much easier: The app lets you take a photo of your receipts, upload compliant images into your expense reports, and add car mileage the moment you come to a stop. Managers can also use the app to approve expense reports.

Skyscanner: If you find yourself booking a lot of flights for your business, you may want to consider switching to the aggregate app Skyscanner, which allows you to quickly search for available flights without any fuss. The app also offers updated news on travel conditions and important travel industry facts, along with some entertainment pieces.

YapApp: Communicating with peers and managers at a distance can be challenging on an active trip. YapApp is a free video calling & conferencing app that allows you to immediately speak in live video with your business associates. It's great for working on large projects or tricky contracts where you need an immediate answer on something – and the encryption keeps your data safe.

TripIt: TripIt is a complex itinerary manager that takes an active role in your trip. Give it the right information and calendar syncing abilities, and the app can show you confirmation numbers, give you directions to your next destination, and generally act like your personal valet in real time.

Toggl: Toggle is a more specific expensing tool that's basically an advanced time tracker, a little like a business-oriented stopwatch. Turn it on with a tap and it starts recording time, which can be used to track time covered by business funds or just have a fun little contest on who’s worked the most over a trip.

Handshake: Handshake is an excellent little app for trade shows. It allows you to immediately create orders on the fly, send information, create shipments, check your inventory, and much more. If you plan on finding new business on your trip, give this one a look.

Apply The Apps At The Right Time

These are only a handful of the apps that may be useful to you on your trips, so we suggest doing some of your own research as well. Focus on apps that are particularly connected to your industry for the best results.

Like we said above, If you’re looking for more ways to keep in touch while out of the office, make sure to download YapApp from the App Store, or Google Play. You’ll have instant access to video conferences, group chats, file sharing, and everything your employees need to start collaborating.