Last year I was exposed to a hugely positive experience of using digital collaboration tools for the first time within my work in the NHS [adult and older people's community services]

This made me realise that the tools I have routinely and unquestioningly used for years (email and documents) are hopelessly ineffective for the work that I do.

We used Confluence, a wiki (which is a website that anyone can edit), and Slack a group messaging service.

We found that Confluence could replace documents, email and big meetings; Slack could replace email, SMS and small meetings.

Those of us who used the tools, worked more effectively together, saved time and felt better connected. The benefits were that… – we had more productive meetings, as many routine transactions were dealt with outside of the meeting room people could make their voice heard without having to attend face-to-face meetings and could participate in discussions at times which suited them – we reached consensus quicker without having to wait to set up meetings, or to manage complex email discussions – we involved others outside of our usual sphere of influence – we had a permanent and readily visible record of discussions – we received fewer emails, since we could choose to receive updates only about things we were interested in – we could get messages to large numbers of people quickly. Over about a year we managed to get about 250 people using Confluence and about 50 using Slack. Enough to be significant.