One of the problems we're working to solve with Project Squared is to enable teams to work much more flexibly -any time, any place, any device. We believe that ad-hoc conferencing is a key part of this, which is why it features prominently in the application right now. I had a great experience -magical almost -with the app last week, and I wanted to share it with you.

A few developers, product managers, designers, and I were in a Squared Room, heatedly discussing the right user experience for a new feature we are considering adding to the app. The chat conversation was coming in bursts throughout the day. Around evening time in California, the discussion started up again. One of the participants was about to get in his car to drive home, so he took a gamble and hit the "call" button. It was actually quite late for me (I'm on the east coast), so I initially ignored the incoming invite, assuming others would as well. However, I saw that the call was still going on a few minutes later, so obviously something was going on. I was on my mobile, but figured I'd pop in and see what was happening. So, I clicked the join button.

When I joined, there was a heated discussion going. Four other folks were live in the call having an argument. The initiator of the call was still driving -thankfully his phone was lying down next to his seat and not in his hand! One of the others was outside a restaurant waiting to be seated. The other two were in a conference room in the office, working on some UX sketches on a whiteboard. We talked for about ten minutes, and actually made some good progress. The fellow in the restaurant reported a similar experience to mine -he initially ignored the request for the group call because he was at a restaurant. But seeing that the call was continuing, he jumped in to check it out.

This is a great example of how work is getting done today: Teams of people are using free moments of their time to collaborate while mobile. Work has become a mindset and not a place. Here, the Project Squared application helped a small set of folks find a free moment where they could not only chat, but have an informal ad-hoc conference call for a few minutes to accelerate (and resolve) a heated discussion.

This call would have never taken place without a tool like Project Squared. The fact that I was able to see that a conference call was in progress, and that it was associated with a specific topic I was interested in, and that it had achieved critical mass to proceed -that was the trigger that got me into the call. And the fact that I could easily join it, on my mobile phone, with just one tap -made it easy for me to just jump in and check it out.

I hope all of you are also using Project Squared and having similar experiences. I'd love to hear about them!