Even Google staff make mistakes (in Australia)
Google Apps
I recently received an invitation to attend a training seminar about Google Apps at the GooglePlex in Pirrama Road, Pyrmont. I accepted the invitation and put the event in my iPhone calendar, with a reminder. A week before the event I received an email asking me to confirm that I will be attending, and to my horror I saw the names of hundreds of other people in the CC field. It made me realise one important aspect about business — that they are managed by humans who can make mistakes.
On a more positive note the training was excellent. I already use Google Apps so I was familiar with much of the tools, but what I found fascinating was the Google Apps Spreadsheet. I am familiar with functions in Microsoft Excel, but true to Google’s nature, they displayed a spreadsheet which contained figures that relied upon “live” information about the population of countries in the spreadsheet. The fantastic part is that when the information from the source changes (in this case Wikipedia) then the figures in your spreadsheet will change. You can’t get more live than that!
In summary, although Google Docs might not display information as well as Microsoft Office applications, the fact that your files are stored “in the cloud” and the level of sharing and interactivity with team members (and of course the cost) makes this a very exciting suite of programs to work with.