Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

Re: Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

stuartma — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:25:29 -0000

Heh. "Any" key.

Heh.

;)

Re: Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

mathewi — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:26:02 -0000

I completely agree, Robb -- I've used it the same way myself many
times. It simplifies the collaboration process enormously.

Re: Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

Robb Montgomery — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:56:48 -0000

I like the Google docs for collaboration and planning. It is a very simple concept that you have to try - instead of attaching a document and emailing it around (Making lots of copies and stuffing your colleague's in boxes) you instead attach people's e-mail to the document.

It is a new paradigm and will take a while for it to get noticed and adopted to those higher-up the food chain.

For example I just created my first one a few days ago to organize a series of Digital Journalism Seminars in Chicago.

-- http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ddz9stgx_2gpf3...

I invited 17 editors and educators to volunteer to help design the program and I could add or drop more at any time and control their editing privileges.

Previously I would have used my blog, e-mail and a forum thread to do this and it would have taken longer and required more work to track revisions. This is a great tool.

Re: Surprise: No one’s heard of Google Docs

Jake — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:13:52 -0000

Yep. There are plenty of things that Google Docs isn't great at, but there are also some uses that make desktop clients seem absurd. It's just a matter of time til people are using GD (or something similar) for collaboration on not-for-publishing docs and spreadsheets (and probably presentations, too). And it's a good way to have an always-available shopping list, too.