Cloud computing is a term used to refer to online platforms that store information for you. Simply put, it means that you have information/documents/resources/calenders/contacts that are accessible by you any hour of the day from any computer.

The value of this hit home as I was getting my computer replaced for about week recently. Thanks to the Cloud I was able to get to everything I needed to work from a different computer. Here are the highlights, perhaps some of them will work for you…

• Dropbox: Dropbox is the bomb. You can install it on your computer and it works like another drive. Just drag and drop documents. You can synchronize computers, which I do with my wife, so that a certain CCC file can be accesible by both of us at any time.

• Google: Because I had iCal synched with Google calender I didn’t miss a beat. This took some time to set up initially, but it was totally worth it. You can also use Google documents to store documents and share documents easily. Also Google reader became my new best friend so I could keep up with my RSS feeds.

• Hootsuite: I use this twitter/facebook client quite a bit and because it is web based I can log in and see all the same settings instantly from any computer. No need to reset columns. Worked like a charm.

After a week with these things it dawned on me that these could benefit a team’s ability to collaborate easily. Not only are they all free, but you don’t have to be technology genius to benefit from them. What do you think?

Photo courtesy of tipiro