#microsoft collaboration software

[technologysolutionsworldwide2]

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[keyforrestuk]

Empower Your Modern Workspace with Microsoft 365 Business Standard

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Collaborative communication is vital in a modern workplace, and Microsoft Teams serves as the hub for this purpose. It integrates chat, video meetings, file sharing, and app integrations into a single platform. Whether conducting virtual meetings or collaborating on projects, Teams ensures your team stays connected and engaged, no matter where they are located.

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[filehulk]

ONLYOFFICE

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses and individuals need versatile tools to manage documents, collaborate efficiently, and enhance productivity. ONLYOFFICE is a robust office suite that caters to these needs, offering a blend of document management, collaboration, and integration capabilities. This article dives into what ONLYOFFICE is, its key features, benefits, and use…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Semantic drift versus ethical drift

Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI, a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic.

More than a quarter-century ago, a group of hackers decided that, as a label, "free software" was a liability, and they set out to replace it with a different label, "open source," on the basis that "open source" was easier to understand and using it instead of "free software" would speed up adoption.

They were right. The switch from calling it "free software" to calling it "open source" sparked a massive, unbroken wave of adoption, to the point where today it's hard to find anyone who will profess enmity for "open source," not even Microsoft (who once called it "a cancer").

Two motives animated "open source" partisans: first, they didn't like the ambiguity of "free software." Famously, Richard Stallman (who coined "free software") viewed this ambiguity as a feature, not a bug. He liked that "free" had a double meaning: "free as in speech" (an ethical proposition) and "free as in beer" (without cost). Stallman viewed the ambiguity of "free software" as a koan/conversation-starter: a normie, hearing "free software," would inquire as to whether this meant that the software couldn't be sold commercially, which was an opening for free software advocates to explain the moral philosophy of software freedom.

For "open source" partisans, this was a bug, not a feature. They wanted to enlist other hackers to develop freely licensed codes, and convince their bosses to adopt this code for internal and public-facing use. For the "open source" advocates, a term designed to confuse was a liability, a way to turn off potential collaborators ("if you're explaining, you're losing").

But the "open source" side wasn't solely motivated by a desire to simplify things by jettisoning the requirement to conscript curious bystanders into a philosophical colloquy. Many of them also disagreed with the philosophy of free software. They weren't excited about building a "commons" or in preventing rent extraction by monopolistic firms. Some of them quite liked the idea of someday extracting their own rents.

For these "open source" advocates, the advantage of free software methodologies – publishing code for peer review and third-party improvement – was purely instrumental: it produced better code. Publication, peer review, and unrestricted follow-on innovation are practices firmly rooted in the Enlightenment, and are the foundation of the scientific method. Allowing strangers to look at your code, critique it, and fix it is a form of epistemic humility, an admission that we are all forever at risk of fooling ourselves, and it's only through adversarial peer review that we can know whether we are right.

This is true! Publishing code makes it better, and prohibitions on code publication make code worse. That's the lesson of the ransomware epidemics of the past decade: these started with a series of leaks from the NSA and CIA. Both agencies have an official policy of researching widely used software in hopes of finding exploitable bugs and then keeping those bugs secret, so that they will be preserved in the wild and can be exploited when the agencies wish to attack their enemies.

The name for this practice is NOBUS, which stands for "No One But US": we alone are smart enough to find these bugs, so if we discover them and keep them secret, no one else will find them and use them to attack our own people. This is a provably false proposition, and a very dangerous one.

The Vault 7, Vault 8, and NSA cyberweapon leaks blew a hole in NOBUS. Failures in the agencies' own security protocols resulted in the release of a long list of defects (mostly in versions of Windows, but other OSes and programs were affected). Malicious software authors used these as can openers to pry open millions of computers, enlisting them into botnets and/or shutting them down with ransomware.

These leaks also provided some "ground truth" for researchers who study malicious software. Once these researchers had a list of which defects the spy agencies had discovered and when, they were able to compare that list of defects that malicious software authors had discovered and exploited in the wild, and estimate the likelihood that a spy agency defect would be independently discovered and abused by the agency's enemies, who they were supposed to be protecting us from. It turns out that the rediscovery rate for spy agency bugs is about 20% per year – in other words, there's a one in five chance that a bug that the CIA or NSA is hoarding will be used to attack America and Americans within the year.

NOBUS is a form of software alchemy. Alchemy is the pre-Enlightenment version of scientific inquiry, and it resembles science in many respects: an alchemist observes phenomena in the natural world, hypothesizes a causal relationship to explain them, and performs an experiment to test their hypothesis. But here is where the resemblance ends: where the scientist must publish their results for them to count as science, the alchemists kept their findings to themselves. This meant that alchemists were able to trick themselves into thinking they were right, including about things they were very wrong about, like whether drinking mercury was a good idea. The failure to publish meant that every alchemist had to discover, for themself, that mercury was a deadly poison.

Alchemists never figured out how to transform lead into gold, but they did convert the base metal of superstition into the precious metal of science by putting it through the crucible of disclosure and peer-review. Both open source and free software partisans claim transparency as a key virtue of their system, because transparency leads to improvement ("with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow").

At the outset, "open source" and "free software" were synonyms. All code that was open was also free, and vice-versa. But over the ensuing decades, that changed, as Benjamin "Mako" Hill explained in his 2018 Libreplanet keynote, "How markets coopted free software’s most powerful weapon":

https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/libreplanet-2018-keynote

As Hill explains, the philosophical differences between "open" (making better code) and "free" (making code to enhance human freedom) may not have mattered at the outset, but they each served as a kind of pole star for its own adherents, leading them down increasingly divergent paths. Each new technology and practice represented a decision-point for the movement: "Is this something we should embrace as compatible with our project, or should we reject it as antithetical to our goals?" If you were an "open source" person, the question you asked yourself at each juncture was, "Does this new thing increase code-quality?" If you were a "free software" person, the question you had to answer was, "Does this make people more free?"

These value judgments carried enormous weight. They influenced whether hackers would work to improve a given package or pursue a use-case; they determined who would speak or exhibit at conferences, they created (or deflated) "buzz," and they influenced the direction that new license versions would take, and whether those licenses would be permissible on influential software distribution channels. For a movement that runs on goodwill as much as on dollars, the social acceptability of a practice, a license, a technology or a person, mattered.

Hill describes how chasing openness without regard to its consequences for freedom created a strange situation, one in which giant tech monopolists have software freedom, while the rest of us have to make do with open source. All the software that powers the cloud systems of Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc, is freely licensed. You can download it from Github. You can inspect it to your heart's content. You can even do volunteer work to improve it.

But only Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook get to decide whether to run it, and how to configure it. And since nearly all the code our users depend on takes a loop through a Big Tech cloud, the decisions made by these Big Tech firms set the outer boundaries of what our code can do. They have total freedom while we make do with the crumbs they drop from on high.

In other words, the freedom mattered, and when we forgot about it, we lost it.

Which is not to say that free software doesn't benefit from open source's popularity. The vast cohort of people who have been won over by open source's instrumental claims to superior code are the top of a funnel that free software partisans can operate to convince these people to consider the ways that their lives have been made more free through open code, and to prioritize freedom, even ahead of code quality.

The free/open source movement is actually a coalition of people who share some goals even if they differ on others. Coalitions are politically powerful. Nearly everything that happens, happens because a coalition has been pulled together:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/06/how-the-sausage-gets-made/#governing-is-harder

But coalitions are also brittle, because after they get what they want (transparency for code), then they have to resolve their differences, which means that some members of the coalition are going to be bitterly disappointed.

After all, there's code that we don't want to make better – at least, not if we care about human freedom. For example: code that helps ICE kidnap our neighbors. Code that powers drones. Code that spies on us, both for governments and for private-sector snoops, like the data-broker industry. Code that helps genocidiers target Gazans. Code that helps defeat adblockers. Code that helps locate new sites for fossil fuel extraction, and code that helps run fossil fuel extraction operations. Human freedom has an inverse relationship to this code: the better this code is, the worse off we all are.

Periodically, some free software advocate will follow this to its logical conclusion and propose a new free software license that prohibits use for some purpose: "you may not use my code in the military," or "you may not use my code for ad-tech," or "you may not use my code in ways that despoil the environment."

It's not surprising that this is a recurring event. After all, if you care about software as a tool for enhancing human freedom, and you notice that your code is being used to make people less free, it's natural to want to do something about it.

And yet, every one of these efforts have foundered – and I think every one will. This isn't because ethics clauses in license are a foolish idea, but because they are logistically transcendentally hard to get right.

First, there is the problem of writing good "legal code." Free software licenses are extraordinarily hard to get right. Not only do the terms have to spell out the rights and obligations of participants in the software project, but the whole system needs to be designed so that these clauses can be enforced. The right to sue for breaching a license is determined by "standing" – only people who have been injured by a license violation have the right to seek justice in court. This has proven to be a serious technical challenge in free software licensing, and if you screw it up, you'll end up with an unenforceable license:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/20/vizio-vs-the-world/#dumbcast

Even if you figure out all that stuff, it's possible for even extremely talented lawyers working in collaboration with the most ethical of technologists to make subtle errors that take years or decades to surface. By that time, there might be millions or even billions of works that have been released under the defective version of the license, and no practical way to contact the creators of all those works to get them to relicense under a patched version of the license.

This isn't a hypothetical risk: for more than a decade, every version of every flavor of Creative Commons license had a tiny (but hugely consequential) defect. These licenses specified that they "terminated immediately upon any breach." That meant that if you made even the tiniest of errors in following the license terms, you were instantly stripped of the protections of the CC license and could be sued for copyright infringement. Many billions of works were released under these older CC licenses.

Today, a new kind of predator called a "copyleft troll" exploits this bug in order to blackmail innocent Creative Commons users. Multimillion dollar robolawyer firms like Pixsy represent copyleft trolls who release timely images under ancient CC licenses in the hopes that bloggers, social media users, small businesses and nonprofits will use them and make a tiny error in the way they attribute the image. Then Pixsy helps the troll extort hundreds or thousands of dollars from each victim, under threat of a statutory damages claim of $150,000 per infringement:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Creative Commons spent millions over years, working with a who's-who of international copyright and licensing experts, and it took them more than a decade to fix this bug, and the billions of works released under the old licenses are ticking time-bombs. After all, the copyright in those works will last for 70 years after their authors die, which means that anyone who acquires the copyright to those older images could turn troll and go hunting.

There's a reason that old FLOSS hands react with instant derision whenever someone proposes making up a new software license. It's the same reason cryptographers are so hostile to the idea of people rolling their own ciphers: no matter how smart and well-intentioned you are, there's a high likelihood that you will screw up and irrevocably place innocent people at risk. Yes, irrevocably: getting all those creators to relicense their works under a modern CC license is effectively impossible. Even projects with a relatively small number of contributors – like Mozilla – had to resort to throwing away chunks of code whose authors couldn't be located and paying someone to rewrite them under a new license.

Those are reasons not to come up with new free and/or open licenses, period. But on top of that, there's a special set of perplexities and confounders that arise when ethics clauses are added to free/open licenses.

The first of these is the definitional problem. Even seemingly simple categories can elude consensus on definition. Again, the Creative Commons licenses are instructive here: from the outset, CC licenses let creators toggle an ethics clause, called the "NonCommercial" (NC) flag. Works licensed under "NC" couldn't be used commercially. Seems simple, right?

Wrong. For years – and to this day – CC creators and users have been unable to consistently agree on what constitutes a "commercial use." If you post something, in your personal capacity, to a commercial service, is that "commercial?" Well, it had better not be, because anything you find online is going to have some kind of commercial enterprise involved in getting that file to you: a long-haul fiber provider, a data-center, a hosting company, a cloud company, a social media service, etc, etc. If "noncommercial" means "no one can make any money as a result of the distribution of this work," then an NC license would mean that works couldn't be distributed at all (even if you're just printing off copies of a cool image at home and stapling them to telephone poles, the printer ink company and the staple company are making money off of every copy you post).

The CC organization did extensive polling, conducted seminars, consulted experts, and produced a 255-page document that is fascinating and subtle:

https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining-noncommercial/Defining_Noncommercial_fullreport.pdf

And even with this document, CC users and creators still argue about whether some users are in and out of bounds.

Now, the CC NC ethics clause is the best case for an ethics clause in a license. CC is a centralized organization that has total authority over the text of CC licenses and exercises near-total control over their interpretation.

Now imagine how a hypothetical ethics clause in a software license would perform, given the CC NC experience. Compared with, say, "military/nonmilitary," the "commercial/noncommercial" distinction is trivial to draw. Is Ford – whose cars are in DoD motor-pools – a "military" user? What if Ford decides to boycott the Pentagon, but the Navy still buys a bunch of used Ford Focuses from a wrecking yard and fixes them up with Ford parts they buy at an Autozone: does Ford now become a "military" user of free/open software?

Categories are clusters, not shapes. This is why the right wing troll mantra "What is a woman?" is so effective: women aren't whats; they are whos, and if you try to come up with a definition that encompasses all the people who are women, it will stretch to dozen of pages and still miss people out. This isn't unique to women – almost every category defies exhaustive definition. Famously, there is no such thing as a fish:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish#Title

Neither is there any such thing as a name, an address or a date:

https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

Obviously, the fact that "name" is a slippery concept doesn't stop us from introducing ourselves and referring to one another. But imagine now that we are going to create billions of works whose copyright will endure for more than a century, and if any of them fails to refer to someone by their name correctly, then any of millions of people, some of them not even born yet, could ruin some software contributor's life and maybe the lives of thousand or millions of users of their software.

And "name" – like "noncommercial" – is an easy case. The hard cases are things like "military/nonmilitary," "fossil fuel-sector/non-fossil fuel sector" etc etc. Big, distributed projects with informal institutions and leaders are poorly suited to adjudicating any of these definitional questions, but toothy ethics clauses require these loose ad-hocracies to create and enforce definitions of the most pernicious and slippery concepts of all.

I want to be clear that I'm not opposed to the idea of an ethics clause in free/open licenses. I make extensive use of both the NC and commercial CC licenses, after all. My objections are practical, not philosophical.

A couple weeks ago, I traveled to Rochdale in Greater Manchester to give the opening keynote at the 2025 Coop Congress. After my talk, I was on a panel with Chris Croome, who has been campaigning for a co-op software license:

either enforce co-operation and sharing and do not allow code to be privatised (made proprietary) or code that is released under terms that dictate that if the code is used to run a business the nature of the business must be a co-operative.

https://community.coops.tech/t/co-operative-software-licenses/4421/10

I've been thinking about this ever since and I think all my concerns about other ethics clauses apply here. Admittedly, there is a widely accepted and mature definition of "co-op," the seven "Rochdale Principles":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles

These have been around since 1937, and many of the seeming ambiguities in the language have been resolved through debate over the past 88 years. But there are plenty of entities that are recognizable as "co-ops" that exist outside of the UK, the Anglosphere and the global north that don't embrace all of these principles, or embrace them in ways that fit into the consensus as to their meaning that has emerged among Rochdale-derived co-ops. It's not merely that a "co-op" license might exclude these co-ops, but also that the enforcement mechanism for software licenses is that individual software authors retain the copyright to their lines of code, and use copyright law to threaten and punish people who violate the license terms.

This means that you could have a pool of potentially thousands of software authors, and their literary estates, who would have the right – for more than a century – to attack co-ops that use "co-operatively licensed" software on the grounds that the differ in their interpretation of what is – and is not – a co-op.

What's more, there are plenty of groups that could organize as a co-op and satisfy the software license's definition, who might nevertheless not be "ethical" by the lights of the co-op movement. Think of a firm of mercenaries that set up as a worker co-op (if this strikes you as implausible, I remind you that the most vicious, human-rights-abusing cops in the world are mostly members of "unions").

So a co-op license creates three risks:

Excluding co-operators because of small differences in which co-op principles they adopt;

ii. Including co-operators who are structured as compliant co-ops, but do terrible things; and

iii. Putting license users at the risk of copyleft trolls who exploit ambiguity in the definition of "co-op" to extort massive "settlement fees" from software users.

That all said, a co-op license has positive aspects as well. Remember what happened when we stopped stressing "freedom" in our software licenses: we got the code quality of "open," applied to all kinds of code, including code that destroys freedom. I've been involved with co-ops since I was a pre-teen, and I've experienced firsthand what happens when a co-op forgets its ethical basis in favor of instrumental goals.

Take the Mountain Equipment Co-Op, Canada's most beloved and successful consumer co-op. MEC was inspired by the US outdoor gear co-op REI, and it served Canadians proudly for decades. But like most consumer co-ops, MEC had very low member involvement, so a cabal of MBA-poisoned looters were able to take over MEC's board, change the bylaws, and then flip the co-op to a ruthless American private equity fund:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/16/spike-lee-joint/#casse-le-mec

MEC isn't a co-op anymore. The board's argument was that keeping MEC a co-op wasn't as important as infusing it with capital so it could source the goods its members wanted and offer them at reasonable prices. Joke's on them: after five years of PE looting, MEC's quality sucks and its prices are sky-high.

Institutional structure (like whether you are a co-op or not) can influence the kind of activity an organization engages in, but it can't control it. Keeping enshittification at bay requires multiple, overlapping constraints that prevent the institution from caving into the worst instincts of its worst members. That's why I'm rooting for Bluesky to become more federated. It's nice that they're structured as a B-corp, but that alone won't stop a dedicated investor class from replacing the current management with enshittifiers who destroy the lives of tens of millions of Bluesky users. However, if a large plurality of Bluesky users weren't actually on Bluesky, but on federated servers, they could credibly threaten Bluesky's business by defederating with it if it enshittified:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/23/defense-in-depth/#more-10160

So maybe the prospect of losing access to all of its business-critical software could have acted as a check on MEC's board and prevented them from sleazing up to private equity vampires. This is certainly a possible benefit to a co-op ethics clause in a software license. I'm not convinced that it outweighs the risks, though.

I'm a free software person. There are bitter free software partisans who think that the open source people stole our revolution. I understand their outrage. But I also think we left an open goal. In retrospect, choosing a deliberately confusing name in the hopes of sparking conversations was a tactical error. The cohort of potential movement supporters who also enjoy word-games is smaller than the cohort who are put off by being deliberately confused.

I also don't think it's a problem that the software freedom coalition includes people who value software freedom for purely instrumental reasons – because open code is better code. I do think it's a problem that they are the senior partners in the coalition and have steered it for a quarter-century. After all, they steered it into this ditch where tech monopolists have free software and we all make do with open source.

Coalitions, though, are hugely important. Take the as-yet-nameless coalition lined up against corporate power, which has defied political science's laws of gravity, pushing antitrust enforcement across the world, against the world's largest and most powerful corporations:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting

This coalition needs a name. I often cite James Boyle's explanation of the role the word "ecology" played in bringing together thousands of disparate issues (spotted owls, ozone depletion) under a single banner and turning them into a movement. The anti-corporate-power movement doesn't have a name that can unite labor, climate, environment, antitrust, anticorruption, antigenocide, antiracist, antisexist, antitransphobic groups under one banner. Almost all of our definitional terms are "anti-something," from "antitrust" to "antifascist." We have no end of words to describe what we stand against (even "enshittification"'s opposite is "disenshittification"), but we still lack a word to express what we're for.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/14/pole-star/#gnus-not-utilitarian

Image: Muhammad Mahdi Karim https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Wildebeest,_Ngorongoro.jpg

GNU FDL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html

--

EC https://www.flickr.com/photos/baumderjustiz/4797771263/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

“Today, I’m compelled to speak, not as a composer this time, but as a citizen alarmed by the role Microsoft is playing in a very different kind of composition: one that leads to surveillance, violence, and destruction in Palestine,”

“In a blog post dated May 15, 2025, Microsoft acknowledged that it provides Israel’s Ministry of Defense with ‘software, professional services, Azure cloud services and Azure AI services, including language translation.'”

“These ‘services’ support a regime that is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organisations, United Nations experts, and increasing numbers of governments from around the world, as genocidal. The collaboration between Microsoft and the Israeli government and army is no secret and involves the company’s software being used in lethal technologies with ‘funny’ names like ‘Where’s Daddy?’ (guidance systems for tracking Palestinians in order to blow them up in their homes).” “Selling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not ‘business as usual.’ It is complicity,”

“I believe that with such a power comes an absolute ethical responsibility. Accordingly, I call on Microsoft to suspend all services that support any operations that contribute to violations of international law.” - Brian Eno

[icqmuseum24]

💬📖 Released in 1998, "ICQ for Dummies" by Peter Weverka and Michael Taylor was the go-to guide for navigating the world of instant messaging. At a time when the internet was still new to many, ICQ (I Seek You) changed how people connected online—long before WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Discord.

💻 The book walks readers through everything they need to know about ICQ, from installation to mastering its features. It starts with a step-by-step guide on how to download, install, and set up an ICQ account. Once online, users learn how to add contacts, send instant messages, share files, and even send SMS messages through the platform.

📟 Beyond basic messaging, the book dives into chat rooms, status updates, and away messages, helping users make the most of ICQ’s social features. It also covers customization options, such as changing sounds, skins, and using plugins to enhance the experience. For those running into trouble, a troubleshooting section offers tips on solving common issues and staying safe online.

🌍 ICQ was one of the first real-time messaging platforms, pioneering features like unique user IDs (UINs), offline messaging, and “Uh-oh!” message notifications. It set the foundation for modern instant messaging and changed how people interacted online.

🖊️ Peter Weverka is an experienced writer specializing in technology and software guides. He has written multiple books in the For Dummies series, covering topics like Microsoft Office, Windows, and the Internet. His easy-to-follow writing style made technical concepts accessible to a broad audience. Michael Taylor is also a technology expert and author, collaborating with Weverka on "ICQ for Dummies" and other software-related books. Together, they created a practical and user-friendly guide that helped countless people navigate the world of online messaging.

📖 While ICQ is no longer a household name, this book remains a fun time capsule from the early days of the internet boom—a reminder of how exciting and revolutionary online chat once was.

💬 Who remembers their first ICQ number? Drop it in the comments if you still remember!

#ICQ #ICQMuseum #ICQNew #InstantMessaging #TechNostalgia #90sInternet #ICQForDummies #OldSchoolTech #InternetHistory #ThrowbackTech #ChattingBeforeItWasCool #AOL #AIM #AmericaOnline #AIMessenger #OldWeb #Y2K

[amore-c]

Hey, if you frequently use any kind of word processor (and especially if you write fiction of any kind) and hate that your work is being scraped for AI slop, then try giving Ellipsus a look. It's an alternative word processor that's strongly against AI (the bare minimum) and it has collaboration centric features. Options for drafts to be attached to a main document, export to ao3, import from google docs and microsoft word, and others. It's still in beta, but it looks promising. I'll personally be trying out for the next for weeks.

[avasmith209]

Why Your Business Needs ServiceNow Integration Now More Than Ever

In today’s fast-paced digital world, organizations are continuously finding methods to increase powerful solution that has emerged to meet these problems is ServiceNow, a robust cloud-based platform that streamlines IT service management (ITSM), automates workflows, and fosters digital transformation.

However, to fully leverage its capabilities, ServiceNow integration with your existing systems is essential. Here’s why ServiceNow integration is not just beneficial — it's critical for your business success now more than ever.

1. Unify Disconnected Systems for Better Visibility

Modern enterprises often rely on a patchwork of software systems — CRMs, ERPs, HR platforms, help desks, and more. The lack of communication between these systems leads to data storage, pointless processes, and missed opportunities. ServiceNow integration connects these numerous platforms, enablingstreamlined workflows and real-time data exchange. This cohesive perspective improves departmental cooperation, boosts productivity, and gives decision-makers useful information.

Customer service teams can access support ticket statuses directly within the CRM by connecting ServiceNow with Salesforce, for instance, which speeds up resolution times and improves customer satisfaction.

2. Increase Operational Efficiency Through Automation

Doing manual tasks takes a lot of time, often leads to mistakes, and can be costly. ServiceNow helps by connecting different departments—like HR, IT, finance, and facilities—and taking care of routine work automatically. When your systems are linked, tasks that once needed several steps across various tools can now be done in one smooth process.

Take employee onboarding, for example. You may eliminate the need for manual setup of user accounts, equipment assignments, and workspace preparation by integrating ServiceNow connectivity with HR platforms such as Workday. This ensures both speed and accuracy across departments.

3. Enhance Employee and Customer Experience

In the digital age, experience is everything. Frustrated employees dealing with broken workflows and delayed approvals are less productive and more likely to disengage. Similarly, customers expect prompt and effective service.

ServiceNow integration helps businesses create a more responsive and proactive support environment. For

instance, when performance problems are identified, combining ITSM with monitoring software such as SolarWinds or Nagios can immediately generate incident tickets, cutting down on downtime and speeding up problem solving.

Integrated ServiceNow environments improve internal and external experiences by simplifying communication and lowering process friction.

4. Adapt Faster with Scalable, Flexible Infrastructure

With business needs evolving faster than ever — especially in a post-pandemic, hybrid-work world — agility is crucial. ServiceNow’s integration framework allows businesses to scale and adapt quickly. With ServiceNow's integrations, you may grow into new markets, introduce new applications, or switch to remote operations without having to completely revamp your current tech stack.

For instance, as more firms implement hybrid or remote work models, connecting ServiceNow with collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams or Slack provides real-time changes, approvals, and communication from within those tools, keeping teams connected and productive.

5. Strengthen Compliance and Security

Adherence to industry rules (like HIPAA, GDPR, or SOX) is non-negotiable. Integration ensures that all systems are consistently enforcing policies and security protocols across the organization. ServiceNow can help centralize compliance reporting and automate audits by pulling data from multiple integrated sources.

Integration with cybersecurity tools also creates a more secure operational environment like Splunk or CrowdStrike, which improve the capacity to identify and address attacks.

6. Drive ROI Through Smarter IT Investments

Confusion, redundant work, or underutilized tools are frequently the results of firms introducing new tools but failing to properly integrate them with their current system. ServiceNow integration ensures that everything functions properly, which helps reduce waste. Your teams can get the information they need without jumping between platforms, and you gain more value out of the tools you���ve already paid for.

The journey toward digital transformation is now mandatory — it’s a strategic imperative. As business demands grow and the technology landscape becomes more complex, ServiceNow integration becomes a vital tool for fostering development, agility, and efficiency.

Working smarter, not harder, is possible, by integrating ServiceNow with your business systems, whether your goal is to increase security and compliance, optimize operations, or improve user experiences. Don’t wait until inefficiencies or outages force your hand. The time to integrate is now — and your business will be stronger for it.

[snuglysubtlegorgon]

How to Train Employees on New Video Conferencing Software

Introduction

In today’s swift-paced, virtual international, the desire for valuable communique has under no circumstances been extra central. As organizations maintain to evolve to far flung work and hybrid fashions, gaining knowledge of video conferencing tools is main. This article goals to grant a finished handbook on easy methods to practice staff on new video conferencing tools. By leveraging advanced conference room audio video equipment and working out the nuances of digital communication, firms can verify that their teams are smartly-fitted to have interaction with buyers and associates readily.

Understanding Video Conferencing Tools What Are Video Conferencing Tools?

Video conferencing methods are device applications that permit participants to communicate in precise-time due to audio and visual channels over the cyber web. Popular structures consist of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Cisco WebEx. These gear are predominant for accomplishing conferences, webinars, and collaborative projects devoid of the need for bodily presence.

Why Are Video Conferencing Tools Important? conference room audio video equipment Flexibility: Employees can sign up meetings from virtually at any place. Cost-Effective: Reduces tour prices associated with in-user conferences. Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates genuine-time sharing of archives and screens. Engagement: Offers traits like polls, chat containers, and breakout rooms to enhance interplay. Key Components of Conference Room Video Conferencing Equipment Essential Hardware

To make use of video conferencing conveniently, having the correct video convention room equipment is quintessential. Here’s a breakdown of principal hardware:

Cameras: High-definition cameras that trap clean graphics. Microphones: Quality microphones ascertain sound clarity. Speakers: Good speakers furnish audible sound without distortion. Software Solutions

Having potent instrument solutions is similarly fundamental. Look for structures that integrate seamlessly with current techniques and be offering user-pleasant interfaces.

How to Train Employees on New Video Conferencing Tools

Training laborers on new video conferencing methods requires a strategic method. Here’s a step-through-step marketing consultant:

Step 1: Assess Current Skill Levels

Before diving into instruction sessions, investigate your workers' contemporary familiarity with video conferencing gear. This should be would becould very well be finished via surveys or informal discussions.

Why Is This Important?

Understanding the baseline means degree allows for you to tailor your preparation application as a result. For instance, if most employees are already accepted with ordinary functionalities but war with evolved good points like monitor sharing or breakout rooms, focus your classes there.

Step 2: Create Training Materials

Develop finished training resources that disguise all aspects of the selected video conferencing tool—from setup guidance to troubleshooting recommendations.

Types of Training Materials: User Manuals

[azubuikeworld]

Who Is a Technical Writer?

A technical writer is a professional who creates clear, concise documentation that explains complex information in a way that's easy to understand. They translate technical concepts into user-friendly content.

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What Do They Write?

Technical writers produce a wide range of materials, including:

User manuals

Instruction guides

Product documentation

How-to articles

API documentation

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

White papers

Training materials

Online help systems

Software release notes

---

Where Do They Work?

Industries that employ technical writers include:

Tech/software companies

Engineering firms

Medical and healthcare

Manufacturing

Finance

Government agencies

Telecommunications

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Key Skills of a Technical Writer

1. Excellent writing and communication

2. Ability to understand complex technical information

3. Attention to detail

4. Research and interviewing skills

5. Organization and clarity

6. Collaboration with engineers, designers, developers, etc.

7. Basic design and formatting skills

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Popular Tools Used

Microsoft Word / Google Docs

Markdown editors

Adobe FrameMaker / InDesign

MadCap Flare

Confluence / Jira

Snagit / Camtasia (for visuals and screen recordings)

Git / GitHub (for version control)

XML / HTML / CSS (basic web formatting)

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Education & Background

A bachelor’s degree in English, Communications, Technical Writing, Engineering, or Computer Science is common.

Certifications can help (e.g., from the Society for Technical Communication (STC) or Coursera).

Some come from writing backgrounds; others transition from technical fields (like software development or engineering).

---

Career Path & Growth

Junior Technical Writer → Technical Writer → Senior Technical Writer

Specializations: API writer, UX writer, Information Architect, Content Strategist, etc.

Many go freelance or work as consultants.

Remote work is common in this field.

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Why It's a Good Career

High demand, especially in tech

Remote flexibility

Well-paying (entry level: $50k–$70k; senior roles: $90k+)

Good for writers with an analytical mind

[keyforrestuk]

Supercharge Your Business Growth with Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Unleashing Your Business Potential with a Unified Powerhouse

In today's fast-paced digital world, businesses need a comprehensive toolkit that not only streamlines operations but also fuels growth and innovation. The All-in-One Growth Engine: How Microsoft 365 Business Premium Empowers Your Business explores how this powerful platform transforms the way small and medium-sized enterprises operate, collaborate, and expand. By integrating advanced security, productivity applications, and device management into a single seamless solution, Microsoft 365 Business Premium serves as the ultimate catalyst for business success.

At the heart of this platform lies its ability to unify communication and collaboration. With tools like Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint, teams can connect effortlessly, share ideas instantly, and collaborate in real-time, regardless of location. This fosters a dynamic work environment where innovation thrives and projects move forward without delays. The platform's cloud-based nature ensures that your team has access to vital information anytime, anywhere, boosting productivity and responsiveness.

Security is paramount in today's cyber landscape. Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides enterprise-grade security features that safeguard your sensitive data. From advanced threat protection to data loss prevention, your business can operate confidently knowing that its digital assets are protected. Additionally, device management through Microsoft Intune allows IT teams to enforce policies, remotely wipe data if necessary, and ensure compliance across all devices, whether they are corporate-owned or personal.

Enhancing operational efficiency is another key benefit. With integrated Office apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, employees can work smarter and faster. The platform also offers automation tools that simplify routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for strategic initiatives. Whether onboarding new staff or managing customer relationships, Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides the tools necessary to accelerate growth.

Furthermore, the platform’s scalability means it grows with your business. Whether you're a startup or an expanding enterprise, Microsoft 365 Business Premium adapts to your evolving needs, ensuring you remain competitive. The seamless integration with other Microsoft services and third-party applications creates a versatile ecosystem tailored to your unique business requirements.

Investing in Microsoft 365 Business Premium is more than adopting a software suite; it's about embracing a strategic growth engine designed to empower your team, protect your assets, and drive your business forward. Discover how this comprehensive platform can revolutionize your operations and unlock new opportunities for success. To explore more about how Microsoft 365 Business Premium can transform your business, visit our detailed guide The All-in-One Growth Engine: How Microsoft 365 Business Premium Empowers Your Business.

[khalid-albeshri]

How to manage a company's workflow?

Managing workflow in a company ensures efficiency and productivity. Here are key steps:

1. Define Clear Processes and Procedures

Document Workflows: Outline each step and develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

2. Assign Roles and Responsibilities

Role Clarity: Ensure team members understand their roles and tasks.

3. Utilize Workflow Management Tools

Project Management Software: Use tools like Trello or Asana.

Automation: Implement automation for repetitive tasks.

4. Set Clear Goals and Priorities

SMART Goals: Define Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals.

Prioritization: Focus on high-priority tasks.

5. Monitor and Measure Performance

KPIs and Metrics: Establish Key Performance Indicators.

Regular Reviews: Conduct performance reviews to identify bottlenecks.

6. Foster Communication and Collaboration

Communication Tools: Use Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Regular Meetings: Hold team meetings for updates and discussions.

7. Continuously Improve Processes

Feedback: Encourage employee feedback.

Optimization: Regularly review and update workflows.

8. Manage Resources Efficiently

Resource Allocation: Allocate resources effectively.

Capacity Planning: Plan resource needs in advance.

9. Ensure Training and Development

Skill Development: Provide ongoing training.

Knowledge Sharing: Encourage knowledge sharing within the team.

10. Address Challenges Proactively

Problem-Solving: Quickly address issues.

Flexibility: Adapt workflows as needed.

Example Workflow Management Approach

Initiation: Identify tasks and assign a leader.

Planning: Break down tasks, assign them, and identify resources.

Execution: Perform tasks and monitor progress.

Monitoring and Controlling: Track progress, hold status meetings, and adjust plans.

Completion: Review tasks, gather feedback, and document lessons learned.

[ppm-software]

Best Microsoft Project Alternatives & Competitors (Free & Paid Alternatives to MS Project) · 1. Celoxis · 2. Gantt Pro · 3. Proofhub · 4. nTask · 5. ClickUp.

[digitaldetoxworld]

Top 10 Emerging Tech Trends to Watch in 2025

 Technology is evolving at an unprecedented tempo, shaping industries, economies, and day by day lifestyles. As we method 2025, several contemporary technology are set to redefine how we engage with the sector. From synthetic intelligence to quantum computing, here are the important thing emerging tech developments to look at in 2025.

Top 10 Emerging Tech Trends In 2025

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Evolution

AI remains a dominant force in technological advancement. By 2025, we will see AI turning into greater sophisticated and deeply incorporated into corporations and personal programs. Key tendencies include:

Generative AI: AI fashions like ChatGPT and DALL·E will strengthen similarly, generating more human-like textual content, images, and even films.

AI-Powered Automation: Companies will more and more depend upon AI-pushed automation for customer support, content material advent, and even software development.

Explainable AI (XAI): Transparency in AI decision-making becomes a priority, ensuring AI is greater trustworthy and comprehensible.

AI in Healthcare: From diagnosing sicknesses to robot surgeries, AI will revolutionize healthcare, reducing errors and improving affected person results.

2. Quantum Computing Breakthroughs

Quantum computing is transitioning from theoretical studies to real-global packages. In 2025, we will expect:

More powerful quantum processors: Companies like Google, IBM, and startups like IonQ are making full-size strides in quantum hardware.

Quantum AI: Combining quantum computing with AI will enhance machine studying fashions, making them exponentially quicker.

Commercial Quantum Applications: Industries like logistics, prescribed drugs, and cryptography will begin leveraging quantum computing for fixing complex troubles that traditional computer systems can not manage successfully.

3. The Rise of Web3 and Decentralization

The evolution of the net continues with Web3, emphasizing decentralization, blockchain, and user possession. Key factors consist of:

Decentralized Finance (DeFi): More economic services will shift to decentralized platforms, putting off intermediaries.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Beyond Art: NFTs will find utility in actual estate, gaming, and highbrow belongings.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): These blockchain-powered organizations will revolutionize governance systems, making choice-making more obvious and democratic.

Metaverse Integration: Web3 will further integrate with the metaverse, allowing secure and decentralized digital environments.

4. Extended Reality (XR) and the Metaverse

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will retain to improve, making the metaverse extra immersive. Key tendencies consist of:

Lighter, More Affordable AR/VR Devices: Companies like Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are working on more accessible and cushty wearable generation.

Enterprise Use Cases: Businesses will use AR/VR for far flung paintings, education, and collaboration, lowering the want for physical office spaces.

Metaverse Economy Growth: Digital belongings, digital real estate, and immersive studies will gain traction, driven via blockchain technology.

AI-Generated Virtual Worlds: AI will play a role in developing dynamic, interactive, and ever-evolving virtual landscapes.

5. Sustainable and Green Technology

With growing concerns over weather alternate, generation will play a vital function in sustainability. Some key innovations include:

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): New techniques will emerge to seize and keep carbon emissions efficaciously.

Smart Grids and Renewable Energy Integration: AI-powered clever grids will optimize power distribution and consumption.

Electric Vehicle (EV) Advancements: Battery generation upgrades will cause longer-lasting, faster-charging EVs.

Biodegradable Electronics: The upward thrust of green digital additives will assist lessen e-waste.

6. Biotechnology and Personalized Medicine

Healthcare is present process a metamorphosis with biotech improvements. By 2025, we expect:

Gene Editing and CRISPR Advances: Breakthroughs in gene modifying will enable treatments for genetic disorders.

Personalized Medicine: AI and big statistics will tailor remedies based on man or woman genetic profiles.

Lab-Grown Organs and Tissues: Scientists will make in addition progress in 3D-published organs and tissue engineering.

Wearable Health Monitors: More superior wearables will music fitness metrics in actual-time, presenting early warnings for illnesses.

7. Edge Computing and 5G Expansion

The developing call for for real-time statistics processing will push aspect computing to the vanguard. In 2025, we will see:

Faster 5G Networks: Global 5G insurance will increase, enabling excessive-velocity, low-latency verbal exchange.

Edge AI Processing: AI algorithms will system information in the direction of the source, reducing the want for centralized cloud computing.

Industrial IoT (IIoT) Growth: Factories, deliver chains, and logistics will advantage from real-time facts analytics and automation.

Eight. Cybersecurity and Privacy Enhancements

With the upward thrust of AI, quantum computing, and Web3, cybersecurity will become even more essential. Expect:

AI-Driven Cybersecurity: AI will come across and prevent cyber threats extra effectively than traditional methods.

Zero Trust Security Models: Organizations will undertake stricter get right of entry to controls, assuming no entity is inherently sincere.

Quantum-Resistant Cryptography: As quantum computer systems turn out to be greater effective, encryption techniques will evolve to counter potential threats.

Biometric Authentication: More structures will rely on facial reputation, retina scans, and behavioral biometrics.

9. Robotics and Automation

Automation will hold to disrupt numerous industries. By 2025, key trends encompass:

Humanoid Robots: Companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics are growing robots for commercial and family use.

AI-Powered Supply Chains: Robotics will streamline logistics and warehouse operations.

Autonomous Vehicles: Self-using automobiles, trucks, and drones will become greater not unusual in transportation and shipping offerings.

10. Space Exploration and Commercialization

Space era is advancing swiftly, with governments and private groups pushing the boundaries. Trends in 2025 include:

Lunar and Mars Missions: NASA, SpaceX, and other groups will development of their missions to establish lunar bases.

Space Tourism: Companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic will make industrial area travel more reachable.

Asteroid Mining: Early-level research and experiments in asteroid mining will start, aiming to extract rare materials from area.