Author: jerome

Are you sick of hearing how Blockchain will disrupt your business? Just imagine – this technology, which nobody else understands either, will destroy absolutely everything you’ve ever worked for.

Yes, apparently the Millenials held a meeting and decided that the Tinder wasn’t such a great idea after all. In fact, they all thought getting married by Blockchain was the best way to overcome that technology faux pas. [Thankfully that hasn’t caught on –Ed.]

With the launch of CollabSystem Custom Cloud, we’re in a unique position to offer you an unequivocally superior alternative to Blockchain. CollabSystem’s BlockTrain™ is 43% more perplexing than Bitcoin, and according to the Magic Octagon, 86% more pointy.

Best of all, every BlockTrain™ includes a non-stick Gore Tex coating, has an ETOPS range of 4800nm, and keeps you healthy with vegan probiotic cultures.

Now is a great time to examine all the limitations of traditional Blockchain, and why we’ve taken the insane decision to reinvent the wheel.

Distributed Ledger

One of the founding principles of IT governance is that you know where your data lives. Let’s not even try and define what a ledger is (or isn’t). With a distributed anything, you just have no idea where your precious data happens to be. Like Schrödinger’s cat, your data is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

With BlockTrain™, we keep the data for you in our super-secure vault. It’s got a big steel door, just like in the movies. It’s so secure that we’re not even allowed to tell you where it is, even if you promise to do everything in world’s most onerous NDA.

Problem. Solved.

Trustless

Slightly concerned with lots of bad people having access to your transaction history? You’re definitely not alone.

Trust is the currency of our new economy, so it makes absolutely no sense to trust people you don’t even know to keep track of your most intimate transactions. Alternatively, if trust is really the “new currency”, then a trustless system (like Blockchain) by definition has no value.

Whichever logic you prefer, we’ve made it work in our favour. Trust CollabSystem with it all, we’re totally legit and trustworthy. We’re a startup, and have placed your hopes and dreams at the epicentre of our purpose. What could possibly go wrong!

Permanence

Apparently, the best feature of Blockchain is that transactions are preserved since time immemorial and forever into the future as a single source of truth. Sometimes you just want the ability to get a refund. Or more importantly, you only need to see your $3.20 coffee purchase, without combing through 1TB of other people’s meaningless purchases from Amazon.

Yes, soon enough the block chain will generate more data than YouTube and there’s no way to split up that monolithic, single “history”.

So we’ve created BlockTrain™ Wagons™. You can ask us to separate your Wagon™ from the rest of the train, and that becomes your own, personal transaction ledger. Free for your to copy, store, or delete at your leisure.

Wagons™ are small enough to fit on a USB key, which can be conveniently misplaced on most modes of public transport.

We think every one of our customers is worthy of their own single source of truth. Why pick the shared room when you can pay for the private cabin upgrade?

It’s ok for other people’s transactions to be in that data mess, but we don’t think that’s good enough for our customers. With CollabSystem, you get control of your own Wagon™ and your transactions don’t have to be part of the single source of truth.

100% Virtual

Sometimes you actually want to be able to touch and feel the things that you own. Sometimes you want to be able to show them off to your friends and distant relatives. Like buying a new $1,000 iPhone.

BlockTrain™ overcomes this by allowing you to 3D print your new-found wealth in an array of fluorescent colours. You can then place these around your house to show off just how ridiculously out-of-touch you really are.

Better still, even if the BlockTrain™ market collapses (which we don’t think it will, but no promises), you’re left with a pile of stackable plastic knick-knacks to vacuum up on weekends.

 

 

In an unfortunate mix-up and possibly the worst conference swag ever, CollabSystem is set to release a range of garish activewear to celebrate Working Out Loud Week.

Not much is know about the new clothing line, apart from there being liberal use of psychedelic colours and lycra.

Speculation is mounting that a bot misinterpreted “working out” and “loud”.

It’s the last time we’ll let an intern anywhere near a bot. That’s for sure.

Bots have previously caused CollabSystem’s “sweat equity” to be bottled and sent to several angel investors in 60mL vials. None of them were amused.

We at CollabSystem understand how difficult it is to pick the winner in a sea of collaboration vendors. Sometimes we don’t think we’re in with a chance ourselves. And we say that even while wearing our own logo (printed on an organic cotton t-shirt, of course).

Which is why today we’re launching CollabBet, a revolutionary new gambling platform that allows you to pick winners in the technollogy war. The best part is that you don’t even have to go through the hassle of actually buying a product to be a winner.

Along with leaders in the online gambling space, CollabBet allows fixed price odds, in-play bets, and early cash-out to coincide with your own IT strategy failures.

Customers have immediately seen the benefits, applying the product to decisions they made many years ago:

I always knew we shouldn’t have gone with the Palm Pilot. I tried telling everyone. If CollabBet was around back then, I could have made a fortune and retired.

Others see it as a legitimate way of reducing technology risk:

Many years ago we decided take photos of all our important documents and upload them to Flickr. Thankfully we also placed a bet on Google Docs with CollabBet. The money we made gambling in CollabBet more than paid for the migration we had to do. In fact, it even paid for some ridiculously priced adoption training!

The premium version of CollabBet also allows you to bet on your own employer’s decisions, such as corporate strategy and who will be the next CEO.

IS GAMBLING A PROBLEM FOR YOU?
CALL G-LINE A confidential, anonymous and free counselling service.
Free Call: 1800-COLLAB-NIGHTMARE

CollabSystem have today unveiled their solution to the current corporate obsession with chat. Available for team offsites and perfect for combining with a Walk, the dedicated co-working spaces are said to be inspired by the cone of silence from Get Smart.

Under the guise of an offsite, the offending team members are placed in a specially designed steel echo chamber for an hour. During the therapy session, noise bounces around the chamber to near deafening levels. Any attempt to “chat” during the session only makes things worse.

Participants are advised to leave their phones at the door, since battery life reduces to 7 minutes as their device unsuccessfully tries to find a signal from inside the metal tomb. The resulting separation anxiety also highlights any need for technology addiction counselling (additional service, charges apply).

The immersion experience is 100% effective, and none of the participants have ever wanted to chat again. All customers have come to enjoy the silence that is traditionally associated with not working in a steel vat.

We bought a brewery because we wanted a super-hipster workplace to show off to our customers, but didn’t know what to do with the industrial junk. We’re quite proud of our #futureofwork team, turning rusty old steel silos into an on-trend corporate retreat. Shows what you can do with a bit of marketing pizzazz. We still can’t believe people actually pay us to use them, not small bikkies either!

Participants are monitored at all times during their obsession sessions through a small porthole originally designed to add hops.

Hot on the heels of CollabSystem’s recent Faux Rotary Dial Telephone, today they have achieved their next milestone on the product roadmap – the release of Emoji-To-Fax.

Emoji-To-Fax (“ETF”) takes cutting-edge sentiment analysis technology and applies it in a way that was never originally intended. The emotion underpinning emojis is seamlessly translated into melancholy imagery and delivered by fax, perfect for a Gen X audience.

This system uses Artificial Intelligence in a way never seen before. People have pointed out that the technology is only in its infancy, but our cloud servers don’t throw up errors when we use them. So it must be fine?

In our product launch we were heckled with phrases like “garbage in, garbage out”, but a single character Emoji is hardly “garbage”.

It allows Millenials to talk to Gen X by translating common Emojis such as this sad face:

into random (yet somehow appropriate) images of melancholy, for example:

Image Credit: Saatchi Art

The cover page of the fax also includes a cryptic or witty comment with overtones of Gen X privilege. The paid version also allows quotes from a motivational speaker who might have been all the rage in the late 1970s:

Delivery but facsimile* requires a thermal fax machine or V.34 modem (if you have to click on the link, you’re too old to be reading this).

When asked to elaborate on how the gadget came about, there was an awkward pause. “We were originally trying to connect every computer we had with every other computer. If only someone had told us about WiFi, we’d have saved so much time. However by building it ourselves, we got pretty good at connecting outdated technology with smart watches. Now that technical surplus has become our gift to the world. We can’t think of anything else useful to do with it.”

Asked what customer need this solves, CollabSystem issued a press release that simply stated:

Why would we need a customer need? This solves our need to look like we’re meeting our roadmap targets and disrupting an industry. Surely that’s enough?

But since you ask, there are 92 million Millenials and 61 million Gen Xers. That’s 153 million people in our target market. If everyone wanted to talk to each other, that’s 2.806 quadrillion interactions.

Thankfully Millenials don’t care that much about communicating with Gen X. We don’t have that much thermal fax paper.

* Yes kids, that’s the word for “fax”

Just moments after announcing they were being acquired, CollabSystem released its first gadget to support their existing collaboration suite. The Faux Rotary Dial Telephone (FRDT) is slated to be the first in a long line of questionable gimmicks from CollabSystem.

It was with much fanfare that the telephone was launched at a conference of all 47 CollabSystem customers (46 if you don’t count Niels the cat, who only attended because his owner couldn’t find someone to mind him).

Meanwhile, it seems many of the employees at CollabSystem were unaware of the pending hostile takeover. One employee with a knowledge of workplace culture told a mass of waiting reporters:

Someone wants to buy the company? We just make gadgets in the basement, and haven’t heard from anyone in years.

 

Some guy from compliance once asked us what we did, and he mumbled something about a Chinese Wall. It made no sense, as our basement office doesn’t even have windows. But whatever a Chinese Wall was, it finally gave us some peace and quiet.

The statement was provided on the condition of anonymity, as the person was not authorized to speak publicly, even about the blindingly obvious.

The Faux Rotary Dial Telephone

The FRDT brings an air of nostalgia to an otherwise cutting-edge suite of products at CollabSystem.

By connecting the FRDT to a computer, emojis are automatically translated into a human voice. For example, typing “😀👏🚀📆” in a WhatsApp to colleagues will cause the phone to ring and the voice of Neil Armstrong can be heard saying “Congratulations on meeting the launch date!”.

CollabSystem’s chief switchboard operator, Paul, said the telephone allowed Gen Y to better communicate with the Baby Boomers. “With features like extra crackle when the handset is accidentally nudged, or if there’s poor weather en route – it really allows people to relive the heydey of person-to-person communication. We’ve put a lot of effort into digitally recreating the sound of a poor phone line. It’s truly authentic, in a kind of faux way.”

Other features of the FRDT include:

• USB 4.0 connectivity (future proofing the device well into the 2040s).
• No chatbot required.
• Solid plastic construction. Fades gracefully over time to an uneven pale yellow.
• Scuffs easily to give the appearance of frequent use.

Asked if CollabSystem should instead be focusing its efforts on achieving forecast synergies from the recent merger, the CEO had a strong message for potential private equity firms:

We’ll keep making gadgets regardless. With an elaborate web of questionable outsourcing, nobody really knows who works here anyway. Don’t think for a moment that your hostile takeovers and valuation fanfare will distract us from our frivolous work!

If you are considering launching a takeover, CollabSystem suggests talking a long Walk.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

CollabSystem is proud to announce the launch of their latest product offering, Complete Adoption.

Companies have traditionally struggled with adoption of Software as a Service products, and CollabSystem’s Complete Adoption is the only package on the market today offering a guarantee of 100% adoption within 24 hours or your money back. When combined with Walking and Talking, Adoption rates of 98% are guaranteed for the next 15 years with absolutely no additional effort.

CollabSystem’s Complete Adoption brings the very latest in consumer trends to your enterprise, without any adaptation or consideration of the new context. That means instant familiarity for all your “Insta peeps”.

Complete Adoption is almost effortless, and can be achieved by simply posting a picture of a dress. Then ask “Is the dress blue or gold?”

Photo credit: Wikipedia

At CollabSystem we like to break barriers, and we never considered 100% to be the limit for adoption. In fact, Complete Adoption can now promise adoption rates of at least 387% through the addition of cute cat photos.

Photo credit: BuzzFeed

One Complete Adoption customer said “I was skeptical at first, but adoption increased literally overnight. I woke up the next morning and everyone had an opinion about that dress. I was stunned.” He went on to say that he wasn’t sure if this was really what his corporate culture needed:

I actually wanted our people to be more productive with technology, but our vendors said they could only measure adoption.

I guess that means adoption is the same as productivity, but my company must be the exception that proves the rule.

We’ve had to employ extra security in our open plan offices to break up fights between blue and gold supporters.

– Complete Adoption satisfied customer

One adoptee added: “It took me several hours, but eventually I managed to give the cat a cuteness score of 11 out of 10. Isn’t he just adorable?”

CollabSystem’s Emperor of Complete Adoption, Mr Mistoffelees, recently responded to allegations that the photos were a waste of time, cleverly bringing the conversation back to the narrative approved by corporate communications:

We surveyed a zillion multinational corporations and their number one technology problem was adoption.

In one genius step, CollabSystem just solved their biggest problem. That’s the technology equivalent of world peace!

Now with adoption out of the way, we’re currently working our way through the rest of the world’s problems in chronological order. Time-wasting currently ranks #478, just after poorly directed air conditioning vents at #477. World peace is #7.

For more information or to add Complete Adoption to your existing SaaS products, contact CollabSystem.