In this post I’m getting a little ahead of myself as I planned to discuss intranet management in Step 5 of the Paperless Express- Leverage the Web. However, the idea presented itself, so here we go.
Clicking on a link in a Tweet (@SocialRainmaker) I arrived at the Lexis Hub on a post titled “New Associate Training” and found a PowerPoint presentation. I downloaded it and looked it over. It had attractive slides, and good advice for new associates at big law firms.
However, downloading a file and then relying on a machine’s local software is perhaps not as convenient for the viewer or reliable for the author as it could be. These days we have more options and so I put together a quick presentation to show you another way it could be handled.
I created the presentation below, and is running through, Google Docs. Google Docs comes with a Google account and is also bundled with Google Apps, a suite of services used to build intranets for companies and designed to be run by the tech not so savvy. Google Apps is part of the SaaS (Software as a Service) or “cloud computing“ movement now underway.
With “cloud computing” you have to make your peace with data on server not your own. My approach to this is what I call “Little-Giant.” That is, I have my stuff hosted by a little or a giant. The little is me, and I have my sites and info on my servers under the expert care of Oliver, my resident programmer and computer genius. The giants are Google, Apple, Amazon, and Adobe; I think it strikes a nice balance. See e.g. Article in New York Law Journal “Growth of ‘Cloud’ Computing Brings New Legal Challenges.” by Shari Claire Lewis.
I have several Google Apps accounts and often pair them with my sites. As an intranet, Google Apps is great. It has Docs, which can create presentations and display PowerPoint presentations already created, it has a spreadsheet that mirrors Excel in a similar fashion, and it can also create forms that can be embedded or emailed. Google Apps also has “Sites,” my personal favorite, that allows users to create and share, or not, all manners of sites for collaboration, including pre-designed pages for lists and filing cabinets. Google Apps also has private video sharing, like YouTube, email like GMail with extras for business, a contact manager, and all sorts of other stuff too.
It is very powerful and Google uses it to run their show, but I wouldn’t go showing most of it to strangers.
There is quite a bit of advantage to be had here and I’ll go over Google Apps and others in more detail and maybe even build out a sample. However, there is no need for you to wait to get your hands on this stuff. The slides below are a quick intro to few things and then you can go out and play with this stuff yourself. If you run into problems let me know and we’ll figure it out.