New Work and the Top Tools for Better Collaboration
Christoph Magnussen and Michael Trautmann show you their favorite New Work Tools
- What is this New Work, actually?
- What advantages does New Work bring?
- How Tools Can Support You on Your Way to New Work
- These are the New Work favorites of Christoph Magnussen and Michael Trautmann
- More collaboration tools on OMR Reviews
There is no doubt that last year has significantly contributed to how we will work in the future. However, the term New Work has been playing an increasingly important role not just since the Corona pandemic. The two entrepreneurs Christoph Magnussen and Michael Trautmann are excited about the ways tools and methods can change our work. In their podcast "On the Way to New Work", they regularly talk with guests about impressions, ideas, and experiences on the topic of New Work. And especially when it comes to digital collaboration and self-organization, the path to New Work also leads past many exciting tools. The two experts told us what tools they use in their daily work and what they particularly like about them. But before we share these exciting impressions with you, let's take a look at what New Work actually is.
What is this New Work, actually?
Basically, "New Work" means breaking away from old ways of working and structures towards a change to a new professional world. The term was coined by social philosopher Frithjof Bergmann, in which people no longer function as a means to an end and a mere tool, but can realize themselves as free individuals in their work. In the future, work should especially coincide with individual values and interests.
Nowadays, New Work stands for various concepts. On the one hand, this can include different forms of work and models such as job sharing and rotations, or also working in co-working spaces and at shared desks. On the other hand, New Work also involves the digitalization of collaboration via tools, social networks, and new technologies. New Work also enables working from anywhere and lifts the physical separation of private life and work. Ultimately, the New Work approach mainly aims to find answers to questions we will pose about our future work.
What advantages does New Work bring?
Companies that pursue a New Work approach offer their employees a whole range of benefits. This includes, for example, a better compatibility between family and work due to decentralized working. Thus, for the Work in the Home Office, for example, also long commuting times for commuters fall away. New Work can also offer employees more freedom, which thus leads to development opportunities and more responsibility. Dissolving classical hierarchies also results in more open and transparent communication structures.
Alongside the advantages, there are of course also some points of criticism. For instance, New Work requires particularly good coordination and organization to function really well. Also, the boundaries between work and private life can quickly get mixed up and lead to an imbalance. How much New Work is ultimately integrated into everyday work is ultimately up to each company and individual. While it is already an integral part of the company culture for some, others are still on their way or are coming up with their own solutions and concepts.
How Tools Can Support You on Your Way to New Work
New Work has many facets and ranges from basic work ethic to agile work and creative methods. If you are currently restructuring, trying new ways of working and experimenting with concepts, tools can support you especially well! Be it classic video conferences, communication and collaboration tools, or useful office applications: The SaaS market has a lot to offer.
Especially during the Corona pandemic, tools have shown how important they are for digitalization, decentralized work, and especially for working together in teams. But beyond that, many tools will continue to be an important part of our working life. Collaboration tools are particularly specialized in collaboration. On OMR Reviews you will find the tools along with genuine user reviews and experiences.
These are the New Work favorites of Christoph Magnussen and Michael Trautmann
The two New Work experts Michael and Christoph told us in a video what tools and products they wouldn't want to do without in their everyday work. Christoph Magnussen is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and keynote speaker. He is the founder and managing director at Blackboat, a consulting firm that helps other companies optimize their collaboration using New Work methods and digital cloud tools. One of his absolute communication favorites is WhatsApp.
"You can switch between synchronous and asynchronous communication, and I use a lot of voice messages."
As we know, you can use text and voice messages via Whatsapp, but you can also make calls via audio or video. One device that Christoph likes to use in conjunction with video calls is Facebook Portal: A "webcam" with a built-in screen that follows your every movement, ensuring you are always perfectly framed.
"This is the only device where you can make Whatsapp calls on a big screen."
Communication and Collaboration
When it comes to video calls or conferences, Michael Trautmann prefers another tool. The founder of companies like thjnk and upsolut sports, as well as co-founder of the coaching company New Work Masterskills, where he helps his clients further develop their New Work, is a fan of Zoom. He particularly likes the user guidance of the tool, as well as the ability to create breakout rooms. Zoom also evolved particularly strongly in the first weeks of the pandemic.
Speaking of the pandemic: Another collaboration tool on Christoph's list is Slack. Again, a lot of features have been added in the last few months. Christoph thinks that Slack is more than just a chat tool, which with its versatile functions is replacing the casual office chatter as we knew it before the pandemic. He believes the tool can also change our business behavior in the long term.
"After a week of vacation, I look in Slack before I look at my mails. It feels much more natural, how people communicate over distance."
Google vs. Microsoft
When it comes to office applications, Christoph is an ardent fan of the entire Google Workspace world. One feature that particularly impresses him is search. With just one keyword containing an image or file, it is immediately possible to find it.
"Searching in connection with the cloud world - that's crazy in collaborations! It makes teams really fast."
Michael, has also been at home in the Google world for a long time. Through his work at New Work Masterskills, however, he has now taken a step into the Microsoft universe. Although he was initially skeptical, he feels the integrations around the modules have been very well done and is excited about the openness to other interfaces.
"The user guidance in the cloud is a bit more elegant than at Google."
From Design Thinking to Getting Things Done
For creative collaboration and project work, Michael often resorts to the collaboration tool ,"Miro". Especially creative workshops can be graphically represented better in the tool. From displaying images, flows and texts over multi-day workshops to entire design thinking rooms, many things are possible in Miro. Also, the video function is a big plus for Michael.When it comes to individual work, the tool Omnifocus is a big favorite on Michael's list. Here he can use the so-called "Getting Things Done" method that he has adapted himself over the past year optimally. This is about better portioning tasks and, above all, formulating them as results.
"Omnifocus has the advantage that you can both set up projects and contexts. This has improved my productivity by light years!"
Find out which New Work tools rank highest for Michael and Christoph and what they like about the aforementioned tools in this video, which the two of them took in Michael's New Work loft:
More collaboration tools on OMR Reviews
You can now find and compare more collaboration tools for better collaboration on OMR Reviews. In total, we have listed more than 15 collaboration software there with which you can work together, organize yourselves, and become creative. So take a look and compare the tools using authentic and verified user reviews:Confluence
