Most people are familiar with the Cloud primarily for its storage capabilities. From music and movies, to documents and other files, the Cloud has become the place for saving the things you care about but don't want to store on your computer. In industries like real estate, however, the Cloud also serves another essential purpose--collaboration.

Real estate transactions involve many parties--not just agents and their buyer or seller clients. There are appraisers, loan officers, attorneys, and home inspectors, just to name a few. You can pick up the phone and call any of these people easily, but what happens when you need to share documents or have forms signed? Do you really want to drive all over town, or wrangle everyone's schedules to have a meeting in some central location? What if one of the parties lives out of the area?

The solution is simple: take your collaboration to the Cloud. Web-based products for transaction management, document management, and electronic signatures make this possible. With mobile technology and the use of permissions to grant the appropriate level of access to the appropriate parties, Cloud technology can allow you to collaborate with anyone over any distance for a more efficient transaction.

The best way to clarify this concept is to use some examples.

Evernote

An industry-neutral example is Evernote. Evernote is an app that can live on your mobile device or your computer and helps you save . . . well . . . anything. Whether it's a recipe, a Web page, a photo, a typed note, or pretty much anything else you can think of, Evernote allows you to save it as a Note and organize it into a Notebook. You can create shared notebooks for collaboration, giving access to others. Then they can see your Notes and add their own.

DocuSign

Electronic signatures take the concept of Cloud collaboration to new heights. If your electronic signature solution is Cloud-based, you can manage and sign electronic documents no matter where you are, as long as you have a Web-enabled device. DocuSign is one Cloud-based electronic signature solution, which means it offers full functionality whether you install the app on your desktop or on your mobile device.

Learn more about DocuSign at www.DocuSign.com or in our product directory.

Cartavi

Document management solutions can be helpful when you're trying to organize the paperwork associated with a transaction. But documents aren't just about you; they're about communication and agreement between all the parties. And so document management solutions become infinitely more valuable when they allow you to collaborate with these other parties.

Cartavi is one such tool. Because Cartavi is cloud-based, any party (with the proper permissions) can access the documents from any device, as long as they have Internet access. DocuSign integration allows you to complete the document lifecycle while still keeping up your Cloud-based collaboration.

Learn more about Cartavi at www.Cartavi.com or in our product directory.

Curious to see how Evernote, Cartavi, and DocuSign work together? See The GoodLife Team's 5-Step Listing Presentation for iPad.