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​​Three Annoying Work Problems Solved?

A lot of us have experienced the challenge of sharing lots of links or documents, staying organized in virtual meetings, and feeling connected with your team when everyone is remote. Can we solve these technological challenges with yet more technology?

Tech for a New Workplace 

New solutions are popping up to solve very specific problems we face in our work-life or maybe problems we didn’t even realize existed—or didn’t exist until more recently because of the sudden need for all to work remotely!

In this article, we’re going to cover three common problems we face and the apps we’ve come across to potentially solve them. They all have a free, tiered plan. Many of the CEOs of these companies have been interviewed on UpTech Report (links are posted in the description), so check those out if you want to learn more about the people behind them. None of them paid for this feature.

Problem 1: The sharing quandary

Have a group of documents/videos/links you want to share with someone? Maybe a potential customer in a marketing campaign, a new client during onboarding, or employees or volunteers walking them through a specific set of information. This is a frequent occurrence in all our work lives. You’ve likely puzzled over myriad options—uploading them to a shared Dropbox, placing them on a file server, or even just emailing them. All solutions have their downsides.

That’s why we got excited about Journey.io.

Journey gives you the ability to create a custom experience by simply embedding videos, documents, slideshows, scheduling links, and almost any other web item if it supports an iframe embed (and most do).

We’re using it for lead gen, sales follow ups, onboarding, and more. We love its versatility. Currently, the only way to get Journey is to join the wait list, but go sign up and tell them we sent you.

Problem 2: The meeting morass

Conducting ineffective meetings? Have tons of daily meetings every week? Are you as organized as you could be? Do you stay on schedule? Do you make sure you’ve set good action items and follow-ups? There are reasons why meetings are often not the most exciting part of the workday. But meetings can be great. 

We’ve tried two different apps to improve meetings, and they both have their place.

First up is Docket (dockethq.com). Easily connect the app to your calendar and then add agendas, meeting purpose, time, length, and see past meetings. You can assign tasks and mark decisions. Docket also has a nifty Zoom plugin they’ve recently added.

The second app is Hugo. This app also easily syncs with your calendar to add agendas, purposes, and action items. They also have a neat chrome extension so you can see your meeting dashboard when you open a new tab.

Both have free plans, so go try them out for yourself.  

Problem 3: Breaking out of the breakout room

If you’ve been feeling disconnected or isolated when the whole team works remote, you’re just living in modern times. There’s something to be said for the flexibility of remote work, but sometimes we can feel lonely. If you’re curious who’s available, what others are up to, miss that feeling of the office “hum” of activity and being able to just drop in and chat with someone else, there is a solution.

LoopTeam aims to bring the workplace back to remote work. If you use Slack, you’ll notice several similarities (though they also do integrate with Slack). Their AI pays attention to what you’re doing, updating a general status so others know if you’re available, busy or in “focused” mode. Jump into an audio or video meeting quickly without sending meeting links. It even can add keywords to your meeting discussion, so others online can see what you’re discussing (if you choose) so if they want to jump in and join, they can, creating that “watercooler” culture, virtually.

We would probably only recommend this if you and your team are fairly tech savvy and enjoy trying new things, as a few rough edges remain. But the app has great potential.

There you have it—a few Work Apps to solve some of those common work challenges. What challenges are you facing and would love solved? Leave a comment below and let us know.

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