INTA Unveils New Online Committee Management Tool - International Trademark Association

INTA recently launched INTAcollaborate, an online management tool to share information within and across INTA committees, subcommittees, and project teams. The new tool will save time, more efficiently manage projects to achieve objectives, and advance the work of the Association.

“INTAcollaborate marks another milestone in the Association’s digital transformation initiative and another example of our focus on innovation and technology to enhance the member experience,” said INTA CEO Etienne Sanz de Acedo. “The new tool enables INTA members to collaborate, converse, contribute, and collect documents all in one place.”

After months of development and refinement as well as preparation and testing by staff liaisons and volunteers, INTA announced INTAcollaborate on September 27 to current and incoming committee members. Under the guidance of Claire Bui, associate, Member Operations, who served as project administrator, the pilot project involved three committees: the Publications Committee, the Unreal Campaign Committee, and the Oppositions and Cancellations Subcommittee of the Enforcement Committee.

Among those who helped test the system, Liz Hanellin, director, Legal Resources, and staff liaison to the Publications Committee, noted: “INTAcollaborate lets us co-locate our subcommittees within one workspace, helping members to easily keep track of committee- and subcommittee-level activities, and to readily access One Drive from the workspace for smooth editing collaborations.”

INTAcollaborate’s main feature is a centralized workspace for each committee/subcommittee/project team (see some examples below). In this workspace, you can, for example:

Find Projects—collections of files or content, such as Articles, Discussions, videos.
Create, upload, download, and edit different document types.
Review documents and other files together. Multiple members can view, edit, and comment in real time. In collaborative documents, such as Articles, participants can tag other members of the group to let them know they should review certain parts of the document or add further comments.
Participate in a Discussion—a place where members of a workspace can post comments to one another about specified topics. Each workspace can have multiple Discussions.
Find centralized access to committee documents, such as rosters, objectives, meeting minutes, meeting schedules, archives, etc. As INTA wraps up the current Committee Term, the workspace will be especially helpful: current members can upload files to maintain a historical record for subsequent terms.
Complete other tasks!

Other features of the site are:

Chat—a platform function that allows live-chat with fellow committee members.
INTAcollaborate 101—a central gathering place for members across committees to converse with others, following discussion group guidelines.
Resources—a collection of templates (e.g., minutes), videos, documents, and more that can help you effectively manage tasks. Here, members can also find the INTAcollaborate User Guide.

Committee members can access INTAcollaborate with their INTA login credentials from various places on inta.org (e.g., a drop-down menu, an INTAcollaborate link, a specific committee page) or directly by visiting collaborate.inta.org.

Those interested in learning more about the new tool can join 2021 Annual Meeting Virtual+ registrants at the INTAcollaborate introductory sessions at the 2021 Annual Meeting, on Monday, November 15, at 2:30 pm (EST), and on Tuesday, November 16, at 9:15 am (EST).

“As members utilize this dynamic new tool,” said Mr. de Acedo, “we hope they’ll find the same sense of community that INTA is known for and prides itself on.”

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest.

Topics Committees