If the most sophisticated group collaboration tool you have at your disposal is e-mail, it’s time to step into the 21st Century. For example, you might want to try Convos, an online communication tool that also dabbles in a little project management.
Convos is free for up to five users and 50MB of storage space. It’s easy to learn; I had a fully-functioning project site within minutes of registering. You get your own URL that leads to a customizable login page (complete with optional logo), which then takes you and your team members to a clean and well-designed group page with modules for messages, a group schedule, tasks, a file area, and more.
You have a lot of control over how the team communicates; you can set up a free form listserv, a moderated forum, or a mailing list in which only moderators can send messages. There’s also forum module for posting questions and comments. Nice stuff.
If you don’t need all that, you can turn most of the various modules on or off, allowing you to build a project page that suits your needs and makes the most of the real estate on the Web page.
That said, Convos is firing a feature shotgun; there are a broad range of features being splattered on the wall, but not a huge amount of depth. The project management features are cursory — there’s no Gantt chart or ability to assign tasks to team members, for example. And the site is pretty, but you can’t take it with you on a mobile phone.
That said, if you like what you see and want to move beyond the free version, there are several options. At the low end, you can pay $6/month for 10 users and 4GB of storage or pay #30/month for 25 people — with additional options if you have a really big team to deploy.
