Holly Macdonald
Written by:

Holly Macdonald

Date:

November 18, 2010

One thing that I’ve noticed over the past few months is the challenge that an organization firewall presents for someone like me.  I’m not an employee, or a long term contractor, just a short term consultant, so my clients can’t always invite me to collaborate using their internal tool.  Nor are they allowed to install any kind of plug-in to use an alternate tool, like Skype.  So, we “collaborate” using workarounds or web-based solutions like Dimdim (which work fine for some situations, but those clients that actually want to do videochat, I’d need to upgrade beyond free, and haven’t done that, since I already have Skype, which they can’t use at work). 

It’s frustrating on a practical level, but I wonder if it’s indicative of how far we have to go to collaborate beyond company walls.  Maybe buying the “pro” version of a product is the cost of doing business?  I don’t know if others experience the same thing and if so, any suggestions to my quandry.  I just want to be able to share/communicate/collaborate with my clients on products that they’ve already purchased, without having to get HR and/or IT approval (whole other post?). 

Pipe-dream?