Very recently I stumbled upon a web collaboration tool that got me pretty excited. Check out Zoho Writer, a word processor application similar to Microsoft Word, but hosted online. I’ve seen a few other services like this before, but Zoho is a cut above for its rich feature set and its intuitive interface. Also, for the first time I’m starting to see practical uses for a tool like this.

In my line of work (and during this age of the telecommute) my remote co-workers and I often need to work together on contracts and reports that undergo a lot of revisions. Having to email the same doc back and forth, however, can be tiresome and confusing. Despite our vigilance, and MS Word’s change-tracking features, mistakes still seem to creep in. And it can be frustrating when an unsynched version gets printed in fifteen sets before someone realizes the client’s name is still misspelled.

Zoho Writer solves this by having only one copy of the document on the web, accessible by anyone in the loop, tracked fastidiously for version edits, and all the while staying editable, printable, downloadable, emailable, even PDF-able.

Very cool.

You can also export your document as HTML, or even post it to your blog.

I have to admit I don’t see much point in using Zoho for writing a blog entry, when widely used tools like WordPress and MovableType already have powerful text editors. But hey, if the developers wanna throw in the kitchen sink, who am I to complain?

Overall I’m pretty impressed with how Zoho Writer could potentially spare me a lot of grief by making it easier to co-write with others on the web. Although this application doesn’t have anything directly to do with clinic management, I’m sure it could still find a place in any modern clinic’s information toolkit.

While researching for this post, I just now discovered that Zoho–not just Zoho Writer–has a home page, which features an entire family of web collaborative productivity tools. The icon on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) looks particularly intriguing.

I don’t know yet how these other applications measure up. But you can bet your sweet patootie that I’m gonna try and find out.

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