ePlatforms

I work as a medical laboratory scientist in a diagnostic laboratory. In our diagnostic laboratory has chemistry, hematology and microbiology teams. I work in chemistry and microbiology teams. Collaboration within the teams is maintained through Microsoft Teams communication platform. Current and informative matters are shared on this platform. Apart from email and Teams, we do not use any other digital tools.

I will be introducing myself to five new social media tools. I will present the pros and cons of these five tools and consider what a good platform requires to be successful.

Monday

The Monday.com platform is designed for work management. The platform allows you to create boards for yourself or for teams. You can design a board yourself or choose from a ready-made template. The platform can handle all subject areas that need organization, such as customers, contracts, and meetings.

The platform is really good for team work, as you can add team members and tasks to the board and thus monitor the progress of ongoing projects. The platform also allows for discussion and file sharing between team members. The Monday.com platform at least piqued my interest with its simple functions and the ability to personalize your own platform.

If I have to say something negative, I could imagine that if there are many different projects and things going on on many different boards the platform can quickly seem confusing.

I could use this platform in my daily work so that the team’s daily tasks would be marked on a board and when the work is done, the tasks would be checked off. There would be no need to ask team members if they have maintained or checked the laboratory equipment. This platform would help in organizing daily work.

I give this platform 4 thumbs up out of 5.

Doodle

Doodle is a completely new platform for me. I’ve never heard of such a platform before. The platform is intended for scheduling management, where the user creates a meeting or event and the participants can vote on the best time.

Logging in and using the platform seems very easy and Doodle can also be connected to Google Calendar. This platform is certainly convenient because you don’t have to send messages back and forth to arrange a meeting, you can just vote for a suitable time. This saves time and effort.

The negative thing about this platform is that if you want the best user experience from the platform, it will cost you.

I can imagine using this platform to help organize meetings among my own team. My coworkers work in three shifts, so finding time together could be easier with this platform.

I give this platform two and a half thumbs up out of five.

Mural

I clicked on Mural’s website and almost immediately left the site because my first thought was that this seems too challenging for me. Then I thought that I was supposed to get to know platforms that were unfamiliar to me, so let’s take the bull by the horns.

Okay, so this platform is intended for teams so that they can work simultaneously on a whiteboard. The positive thing about this platform is that team members can be anywhere in the world to participate in a real-time workspace. The platform is designed mainly for visual design, such as brainstorming or mind mapping among team members.

Honestly, I don’t know how I would utilize this in my own work because I find visual design a very foreign way of working. Redesigning processes and examining efficiency through visuals could perhaps help in understanding the big picture. An interesting platform, although it seems really challenging to use. It’s good that I got to know this platform because I wouldn’t have thought that my work could also be planned using a visual platform.

I give this platform two and a half thumbs up out of five.

Slack

When I first got to know the Slack platform, my first thought was how is this different from Microsoft Teams? I found myself googling what is the difference between Slack and Microsoft Teams and the difference between the two is that Slack is a “lighter” version of Teams. Slack offers chat-style discussion and is a simpler tool than Microsoft Teams, which is designed for large-scale organizational work, while Slack is aimed at working within a team. Slack allows for the same features as Microsoft Teams, such as videos and file sharing, but on a smaller scale.

Use of Slack seems very easy. The idea is that Slack works with channels that can be established around a specific topic. These channels are used to discuss with team members. The program seems simple and easy to the user.

The negative side comes again in payment issues, as more extensive messaging applications and features require a payer, unlike Microsoft Teams, which is included in the Microsoft 365 subscription.

I give this platform 4 thumbs up out of five.

Miro

The fifth and final platform that gets space on this blog is Miro. Another visual collaboration platform for teamwork. It is a whiteboard that offers several different ready-made templates for visual working. It seems surprisingly easy to use, even though there are many different whiteboard templates and models to choose from. Based on a short trial, the board is easy to share and design. The real-time view for another user makes working easier, as is usually the case with these digital whiteboards.

However, for my own work, it seems like this platform is too “advanced”, so I think that if I need a visual tool, I would look for a simpler platform.

I give this platform 3 thumbs up out of 5.

Summary

I got to explore five completely new social media platforms and my main idea is that the platform must be user-friendly. What does a user-friendly platform mean to me? This means that the platform is easy to navigate and that things are easy to find. A good platform offers versatile options for the user, but still in a way that it maintains the clarity of the platform for the user. Another plus is that the platform works with other tools, such as email and storage, which makes the user’s work easier on the platform.

Self evaluation

This part of the task was very meaningful to work. Without this assignment I would not have gotten to know any of the platforms above. After this task, I have new knowledge and skills in identifying different platforms. If I need a visual design platform or a platform for teamwork efficiency, I know that such platforms are available for every need. At first, when I looked at the list that was attached to the assignment, I thought that this was an overwhelming task because only the biggest platforms were familiar, such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. But now, I’m a little wiser and I have new supplies in my backpack for the future.

I give myself 4 thumbs up out of 5.