November 2018 Summaries

A recent Skills Swap event held at Box.org's London office, led by Tim Stone and in partnership with Tech Trust, brought together 30 UK charities for an afternoon of skill-sharing and networking. The event featured an introductory session on cybersecurity followed by interactive breakout sessions on collaboration, CRM with Salesforce.org, advanced Excel, and data security. Participants exchanged knowledge on topics such as building relationships with software providers, effective email strategies, CRM integration, data manipulation, and GDPR navigation. Box employees actively engaged in these discussions, learning from the charities and gaining insights into potential collaborations. The event highlighted the value of informal networking, as some of the most productive conversations occurred during a relaxed happy hour. This initiative aims to expand to more regions, reinforcing Box.org's commitment to fostering partnerships with charities for greater social impact.

Hundreds of tech enthusiasts gathered at Box HQ for Fast Forward's 2018 Accelerator cohort Demo Day, featuring ten nonprofit startups using technology to drive social change. The event showcased diverse projects addressing pressing issues such as refugee support, education for undocumented students, workplace harassment, mental health for veterans, and accessibility to voting, highlighting the innovative use of tech for social impact. The cohort, the largest to date, is notable for its diversity, with every team having at least one founder who is a woman or a person of color. Each team will receive a $25,000 grant, curated training, and mentorship over three months. Box.org supports these initiatives by matching Demo Day donations and providing resources like discounted access to Box services and volunteer mentorship to aid their growth and impact.

Before joining Box, the interviewee had an extensive career in the content management market, holding various product leadership roles, including work at Adobe on the Acrobat/PDF franchise, at YouSendIt, and as Chief Product Officer for EMC’s Syncplicity Business Unit, before co-founding Doculus. They express excitement about Box's focus on providing seamless and collaborative digital workplace experiences and the potential to expand workflow automation beyond complex processes to more routine tasks, emphasizing the importance of user-friendly design and process optimization. The interviewee also shares a positive first impression of Box's CEO, Aaron Levie, noting his passion for products and hands-on involvement in the workflow update meetings.

In today's business environment, companies use an average of 210 different services for collaboration, leading to potential content fragmentation. To address this, organizations are encouraged to adopt open content platforms that integrate seamlessly with existing technologies. Box has heavily invested in building an extensive integration ecosystem, offering over 1400 integrations to serve as a secure content layer within technology stacks. Recent partnerships with companies like Digital Workplace BuildrSync, ProjectReady, Zoom, CaptureFast, SnapLogic, Varonis, and Votiro highlight Box's commitment to enhancing user experience through real-time syncing, secure document control, and advanced security measures. These integrations facilitate improved collaboration and data management, enabling organizations to work more efficiently and securely. As technology stacks continue to grow, Box envisions a future where best-of-breed applications are integrated seamlessly, empowering smarter work practices.

Box.org has announced its partnership as a founding member of NetHope's Center for Digital Nonprofit (CDN), an initiative aimed at accelerating digital transformation for NGOs in collaboration with leading tech companies. The CDN, part of NetHope, which unites 57 significant NGOs responsible for a large portion of global humanitarian aid, will benefit from Box.org's largest philanthropic contribution to date—a $225,000 grant over three years. This partnership emphasizes the importance of both technological and adaptive skills, such as collaboration and an entrepreneurial spirit, in navigating digital transformation. The collaboration includes #ImpactCloud partners like Okta, Microsoft, and Oracle NetSuite, all working towards enhancing social impact through improved digital strategies. The CDN will provide frameworks, research, and consulting to help NGOs effectively manage their digital journeys, while Box.org will align its resources and expertise to support these efforts, refining its programs based on insights from the latest research, such as the Digital Nonprofit Skills Assessment.

Box Drive introduced a significant feature called Mark for Offline (MFO), enabling users to access files offline by syncing them for local storage, akin to the earlier Box Sync feature. Users can navigate their entire Box directory, with files being downloaded and cached as necessary, while MFO ensures that selected folders, rather than individual files, are downloaded for offline access and remain stored locally without being removed from the cache. The design decisions behind MFO emphasize simplicity and consistency; for example, if a parent folder is marked for offline, any new subfolders automatically inherit this status, regardless of who created them or where they are moved. The system maintains offline access even if folders are relocated, and any movement into an MFO folder results in the content becoming MFO, while moving into an unMFO folder does not change its status. Additionally, changes to the MFO state of a folder apply to its entire subtree to avoid confusion and ensure accessibility. These decisions aim to balance user experience and functional integrity, ensuring that once content is marked for offline access, it remains reliably available.