Are You Ready for Virtual Collaboration? To keep the floor open for your team's innovative ideas at any time of the day or night, bring your brainstorming online.

Collaboration has taken on new dimensions at Video on Location Inc., a full-service video production firm in Rockville, Maryland. The company's 16 employees use virtual collaboration software to create commercials, webcasts, instructional videos and other projects.

Company president Dino Veizis likes having projects synced online so employees can work from home and discuss new ideas around the clock. "When you have a thought, you throw it into that space, and it's there for everybody to see. It extends the meeting at the conference table," says Veizis, 46. Online collaboration "has increased our efficiency and productivity quite a bit."

As the pace of work increases and teams become ever more dispersed, companies are bringing employees online to discuss new ideas. Virtual environments offer "a forum for brainstorming [and] gathering the input of other people. And it's cost-effective," says Karen Leland, co-author of Online Customer Service for Dummies and co-founder of Sterling Consulting Group, a Sausalito, California, customer service consulting firm.