The five essentials of communication come as an answer to the questions left in the wake of ad hoc collaboration. Businesses do it, whether large or small. Sure, the ideal would be perfect control of documents as they get passed around and changed. But when deadlines fall due, or when something unexpected is called for by your boss or your clients, it simply needs to get done. The problem, however, comes when it's time to pull a document back together again after it has been passed around and pulled apart in the ad hoc editorial process. All that's left is questions.

That's where a content management tool comes in. Since all you were left with were questions, the 5 essentials of communication that a content management tool provides are simply answers. Answers to the questions "Where is version X stored?" "When was version Y created?" "Who created version Z?" "What changes were made to these versions?" and "How am I supposed to bring them together?"

Here is another question for you: Do these questions sound familiar? I thought so. But when answers are available, businesses want them. So, Adam Smith's invisible hand has reached into the market again to create the content management tool, often referred to as Groupware. Let's take a look at how exactly the content management tool provides the answers.

Where?

The content management tool, or groupware, needs to contain Digital Thread technology, which places information in the metadata of an electronic document--this includes the MS applications most businesses use--and tracks the document and its versions across email your desktop and servers, literally threading together the document versions. You will always know where a document is stored.

When?

You will find with a content management tool that as you open sent and received emails with attachments of changes made on a document that a Digital Signature will eliminate this question. It informs you exactly what the digital thread has tracked, including when the last set of changes were made.

What?

A good content management tool eliminates the monotony and pure tedium involved in copy editing a document, comparing it against its previous version, to find the changes. Tracking changes is already done for you with Digital Thread - you can easily compare one document against another.

Who?

Digital Thread has already done the genealogy of the document for you. Using Version History, the content management tool will now display for you the flow chart of the document version. You always know who received what version.

How?

This trickiest of all collaboration questions is also taken care of with the right content management tool. Merging the changes is simple as you view the changes and simply click. Copy editing and monotony are all eliminated while your precious time is restored.

A word of caution: The market understands the need for a content management tool. This is obvious to anyone who attempts to sift through the 20 million indexed pages under "content management tool" in Google. Not all of the content management tools are created to handle the ad hoc business collaboration process. In fact, most are created to manage, store, and file documents. The technologies and information mentioned in this article should simplify the sifting and introduce you and your business to a new way of answering the confusion of ad hoc with the 5 essentials of communication.