The increasing adoption emerging Web and Communications technologies in the business arena has lead to new ways for groups to work together. Working with virtual or remote teams is no longer a novelty. For many small businesses, working through such virtual arrangements may be the only way to survive in this era of increasing costs.

However, simply adopting the latest web tools and communications gear is not enough to ensure the success of your virtual team. Managing virtual and remote teams requires skills sets that are very different from that required for managing in traditional office environments.

One key challenge is building up trust within your virtual team. Synchronizing the internets of the various individuals with that of the team can prove especially difficult when team-members can’t physically interact with each other regularly.

Check out Chris Bowler’s recent post on the Anywired blog for some general tips on cultivating trust and communication within virtual teams.

Most businesses are failing to take advantage of the potential benefits offered by the rapid growth of the social networking phenomenon. This according to a recent Gartner study which claims that businesses that harness the social web appropriately can “increase savings, productivity and profits”.

The gut reaction of most businesses is to block their employees’ access to social sites as such activity is perceived to be frivolous time-wasting. However, some smart firms are starting to realize that incorporating the social networks into their work-flows can actually dramatically increase their employees reach and productivity.

One such example is the use of social networks in the recruitment space. Many organizations have discovered that social networking sites are proving more cost-effective and efficient at recruiting the right talent than even specialized recruitment consultants. Indeed, even the high-end recruitment firms themselves are already using the social web as a key resource for tracking down the right candidates.

Another interesting development is in the way employees within an organization are communicating amongst themselves. Many teams have discovered that the messaging capabilities embedded in most social networking sites are far more effective at enabling collaboration and team-work than such traditional tools as email.

Bottom line – don’t dismiss the social networking phenomenon as a passing fad or distraction. It’s here to stay and can actually be turned into a powerful productivity tool if incorporated properly into your workflow.

InfoWorld has announced its 2008 Technology of the Year Award winners and one Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application to earn kudos is eXpresso. Named as the Best Spreadsheet Collaboration application, eXpresso enables the easy creation of communities for sharing Microsoft Excel files.

Powered by an Oracle database, eXpresso provides more extensive content auditing & management control than services such as Google Spreadsheets. Going beyond basic file versioning capabilities, eXpresso ups the ante by incorporating interactive community features like chat, social tagging and simultaneous editing. The well thought-out interface also adds to a very satisfying user experience.

Priced at US$15 monthly per user, eXpresso certainly warrants a close look for SMBs that rely on Excel as their primary planning and tracking tool.