If you want your employees or others to be able to work on the same documents without having to constantly send them back and forward, you want collaborative solutions.
The following collaboration suggestion is advised against by the Secure Surfing Organization because it has been discovered that Google scans and indexes all documents created using its tools and all e-mail sent or received using GMail and all documents or spreadsheets authored on its system. We agree with Secure Surfing that this is a serious privacy issue and also may present issues for businesses if they use Google for sensitive or highly confidential work. But we are torn.
The main purpose Google has served with these intrusions is to target advertising. Thus, if you build a document dealing with a new gizmo you are designing, you may receive ads about design, or gizmos. But we find it inconceivable that even with its atrocious record on privacy, that even Google would actually steal commercial secrets under the cover of its all-encompassing license demand for everything created on or through it. Nor do we believe any court in the western world would find such an action reasonable in the circumstances.
The only reason it matters is the tools are frankly very good. So while we agree Google needs to mature in its approach to privacy, and we agree that Google Mail (“gmail”) should never be used for anything other than as a disposable account, we think the Docs, Spreadsheets and Calendar functions are worth using for small businesses.
Once you are signed up for a Google account you can add Google Docs and Spreadsheets (you don’t have to use GMail to do any of this). Google Docs allows multiple people to work on documents and spreadsheets at the same time or one after another. Changes are reflected on all participants computer screens in real time. What is particularly useful is that staff can work on the documents anywhere in the world that has web connectivity.
The feature set of Google Spreadsheets is not as complete as OpenOffice Calc, but it is robust enough for the vast majority of uses.
In addition to collaboration on documents and spreadsheets, you may have a need for individual and collaborative scheduling. Enter Google Calendar. With Google Calendar you can maintain multiple calendars that can be private, shared or entirely public. Staff can manage a calendar to schedule company resources such as board rooms and shared equipment and management can schedule meetings. Reminder messages can be sent in advance of meetings and so on.
All this said, we do not recommend most things Google. The desktop search engine provide by Google is much less effective and less responsive than Copernic Desktop Search. Google’s dominance of mind share for web searches has caused it to lose ethical ground and most often we find more results and more relevant results using Yahoo Search. But these productivity tools – Docs & Spreadsheets, and Calendar are nicely functional at an unbeatable price. If you can accept the privacy risks, perhaps for a short time while you establish your real needs, these Google tools can be contributory.
To enable collaboration inside the office, you will need to ensure you have the hardware, including “network interface cards” (NICs) and at least one router. I strongly recommend you choose a “gigabit” solution. Many motherboards today come with gigabit LAN built-in, but if you have opted for slightly older systems, the cost of a gigabit LAN card is very low and even a gigabit router should cost you no more than $200. The advantage to the gigabit technology is that it dramatically improves the speed of file transfers among computers on your local area network. A good source for quality hardware at great prices is a little supplier called ComeToShop.
So now you have some sources for a complete sophisticated office system for close to no cost. But it is vital not to skip the next step: test your choices in their real world application.
Comments
Leave a comment Trackback