English 421: Technical Writing

 Kevin Quinn

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Pat Connaughton

Andrew Arnold

Pat Lewis

Dylan Reising

 

Cranky Curmudgeons

Annotated Bibliography

 

Acitonize.com- Getting Business Done. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2008, from Killer Startups: http://www.killerstartups.com/eCommerce/actionize-com-getting-business-done

 

This site is a review for the website Actionize.  While the review of it is relatively brief, it does have some good information as to Actionize's purpose and some of its features.  The core of this review comes with its statement of "The site allows there to be a central location where everyone can see the task lists, time-lines, responsibility charts, goal sheets, sales revenue, whatever tracking device the team needs to stay together and on target."  This gives the focus of the site in one concise statement, complete with a few specifics as to what it can be beneficial too.  Another key component to this review is the quote which comes directly from the Actionize creators.  While outside reviews are obviously very beneficial, the direct words from its creators regarding what its benefits can definitely come in handy as well.

 

Actionize For Finishing Your Business Well. (2007, October 3). Retrieved October 21, 2008, from VisionWiz: http://visionwiz.blogspot.com/2007/10/actionize-for-finishing-your-business.html

 

While this review is relatively short, it does have a very definite advantage- it gives more specific details regarding what the ideal situation would be to utilize Actionize.  According to the review, Actionize is "ideal for both recurring business processes as well as time-constrained projects."  The remainder of the first paragraph gives some more added advantages of using Actionize to suit this ideal condition.  In the second paragraph, it dives into some of the features of Actionize, which make Actionize advantageous.  It overall gives it a very positive review, stating that it is "well designed and easy to use, and was obviously made by people who know the difficulty of maintaining communication and accountability within a group setting."  While the information itself is somewhat slim, the fact that a reliable source is giving the site a positive review goes a long way in justifying Actionize as a legitimate product.

 

"Augeo Software launches Planzone, a new SaaS collaborative project management platform." Augeo. 18 Jun. 2008. <http://blog.augeo.com/en/2008/06/augeo-softwar-1.html>

This article gives a good basis on what Planzone is all about and who started it.  It states that it was launched by a European based Project Management company called Augeo.  It states how this is a great site for online collaborative teamwork.  It gives quite a few features of Planzone such as the Ajax interface, which will help the user create a good-looking graphic design.  It also states the use of a Wiki on the Planzone site as well to make it easier for cross-country collaboration.  It states that Planzone is targeted at the "digital economy," such as communication agencies, consulting companies, technology vendors and such.  Its states that Planzone is more innovative then some of the other sites out there like this.  It has been tested and validated by numerous companies both in Europe and in other countries. In turn meaning that it is offered in five different languages and accessible to a large part of the world.

 

 

 

 

Business Week (June 25, 2005). The Power of Us. Retrieved October 20, 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm

 

This article is a very great article to for showing the relevance of web communication for the entire world now, and especially for the working world. The author describes that there are so many options out there for online collaboration now. He lists several that are online telephones basically anyone anywhere with access to the internet can log onto it and call another person with the same ability anywhere in the world. It seems that online collaboration may be the way of the future. Even doing projects, because there are now so many programs and websites that offer so many different ways to communicate. The best part, as mentioned in the article is that the communication via internet will save many businesses money as well as give better quality of communication than what you will get over the phone. In the future and even now it is easy to see how much using the web for business will positively affect everyone including the companies, because by being able to provide information out on the web like they can it will increase the speed of production and the ability to get things done.

 

Hediger, M. (2008). What is Actionize? (Actionize Inc.) Retrieved October 21, 2008, from Actionize: http://www.actionize.com/www/pages/productInfo.html

This piece comes from the official Actionize website and serves to describe the purpose and all of the key features of the Actionize web-based project management system.  According to the website Actionize allows you to store some very important information from any location including; Contacts, Projects and Documents. The contact system for Actionize allows you to store all team members, their responsibility for the project, their organization or industry (whether it be engineering, marketing, telecom, etc.), their location if the company has many branches you can specify which branch this particular employee works in and finally it allows you to store all of the basic contact information that you would normally store in an Outlook or similar application.  The software also allows you store multiple projects and assign them to whomever.  Actionize states that this allows everyone to work collaboratively and be fully aware of their own responsibilities.  The explanation for storing documents I found to be very interesting because if two users load the same document, edit it with their own changes and upload it back onto the website, the last user to update will not override the updates of the first user, instead the versions will each be saved with a version number so that the updated documents can be consolidated, a very key feature for document sharing.  Finally Actionize writes about the dashboard system that they offer which I used firsthand and this will give timetables and pie charts organizing the business processes and employee/project distribution.

Planzone. (2008). Planzone Tour. (Augeo Software) Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Planzone | Online Project Management Software: http://www.planzone.com/en/online-project-management-software.html

This article comes from the official Planzone website and is an overview of their project management software, conveniently titled Planzone.  On the website I basically stepped through their tour and found a lot of interesting information. The reviews are obviously biased but they did present some good information. The first was their to-do list functionality. Similar to the Actionize project list it is available from anywhere that you have an Internet connection and you can set Priorities, due dates and assign team members to specific tasks. The planning feature on Planzone gives you a Gantt chart that you can fully customize to store information related to your own project, it is accessible to all team members so everyone is on track and knows the due date of any major milestones.  Their documentation is also similar to that of Actionize in that it gives you a versioning feature to make sure that there are not synchronization failures when multiple people are editing a document. One feature on Planzone that I did not see on Actionize is the ability to write protect documents and to tag like you would in a blog, so that the information is grouped and organized by specific headers.  The one feature of Planzone that I had not seen in any other project management suites is a Multimedia Wiki, which allows you to collaborate and actively edit your documents.

VACS Blog.  (2007, November 2).  Planzone - A workspace for getting things done. Retrieved October 22, 2008 from blog.vacs.fr/index.php/2007/11/02/9-planzone-a-workspace-for-getting-things-done

This is a slightly longer review of the site Planzone that goes into a little more detail about the background of these types of sites.  The article starts out by saying project management is entering a new epoch.  It gives some information about Microsoft Project and how it is quickly becoming outdated.  The review highlights the same key points as were stated in the previous article.  The site provides users with critical communication tools that would not have been possible before the advent of web 2.0.

Watts, B.  (2008, September 30). Planzone.  Retrieved October 22, 2008 from www.lockergnome.com/windows/2008/09/30/planzone/

This is a short review over the project management web 2.0 site Planzone.  The review does not go into much detail.  It is useful in the fact that it is an overall summary of the state of web 2.0 based project management sites.  It states that they are numerous and are becoming more and more in demand.  The article also highlights how essential clear communication is when using sites like Planzone.  The author of this review says Planzone is efficiently organized and provides business people with an excellent alternative to traditional meetings.

Watts, Brandon. "Planzone." Windows Fanatics. 30 Sept. 2008. <http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2008/09/30/planzone/>

This article gives a slight positive review on Planzone.  It just describes how there are so many project management tools out there available for people to use on the Internet.  He gives a nice little story about the difficulties that can arise when people are not in the workplace and are all working in different places.  He states that the challenge of that has been remedied with all of the web 2.0 applications that have come about.  He states that Planzone is one of those sites that are useful in the help of running a project with people in remote places.  By using Planzone, you will not be confused on what should be done on a certain project or when a deadline is approaching.  Planzone allows you to manage your tasks, file share with others, and keep a good line of communication so that these projects get done.

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