Welcome to Google Apps via kwout

The release of the Team Edition of Google Apps has been met with a mixture of delight and hostility. Google’s decision to assist and encourage the ad-hoc implementation of externally hosted groupware solutions has not been well received by some IT Managers who have expressed concerns over security, reliability, regulatory compliance and the ownership of organization’s IT strategy.

Others acknowledge the frustrations experienced by end users of unresponsive IT departments.

Web Worker Daily » Archive Collaborate and Subvert Your IS Department with Google Apps Team Edition « via kwout

An overview of the Team Edition features can be seen in this video.

A component of Google’s strategy appears to be the encouragement of bottom up adoption in large organizations leading to Premier Edition upgrades at $50 per user per year. Case Studies of SF Bay Pediatrics and Arizona State University who were early adopters of the Premier Edition are included below.

Security concerns about the team edition should be set in the context of current common practices which includes:

• sending documents as attachments in unencrypted emails
• carrying documents on data pens
• carrying sensitive documents on laptops
• mailing and loosing data CDs

The question is then whether security is endangered or enhanced by the use of encrypted web applications. The recent addition of Postini in the Premier edition provides a useful security enhancement, checking emails and messages to enforce regulatory compliance when social security, credit card and other sensitive information is detected.

The wisdom of adopting a bottom up approach to entering the enterprise remains to be seen. Once the dust from the hyperbole surrounding security and authority issues has settled the real work of evaluating functions and risk can begin. If nothing else, the launch had underlined the importance of engaging users in the process of managing their technology and security; particularly when expedient options are conveniently available.

I imagine some IT Directors may envy smaller organizations where budgets and staffing levels constrain the choices to a narrower set of options.

Nourish – RSS to Email Service – Blog Powered Newsletters via kwout

The service takes a single RSS feed, or an aggregation of several feeds, formats the posts articles and emails the resulting newsletter to subscribers. With flexible scheduling options, subscriber management and the ability to apply custom templates, Nourish produces professional results with minimal additional work.

Nourish – RSS to Email Service – Blog Powered Newsletters via kwout

Once set up, the process runs itself allowing you to focus on content without the distraction of needing to rework the text for different formats.

37signals System Status via kwout

While the problem persisted the urls of the broken applications were pointed to a system status page. Once a fix was in place the product blog was updated with an apology and an explanation.

What happened this morning? – (37signals) via kwout

Given that Murphy’s Law was operating they handled the situation well; communicated clearly, found the problem, fixed it, and did so promptly. It underlines the need to plan for failure and recover from disasters.

Basecamp help: General via kwout

It is possible to export XML backups from Basecamp but I’m sure that many this morning felt a sinking feeling for a few moments, while some of those with XML files would have been wondering what to do with them.

37signals Product Blog: Exporting data from Basecamp via kwout

Web applications are tremendously convenient, with integration and sharing features that we’d never have dreamed of a few years ago. But still we need to plan for the worst.

Murphy’s Laws – End of the World Production, LLC. via kwout

But how do you get your feeds to spread to audiences in social networks? Wiliam has an answer, at least for Facebook. It’s Blog RSS Feed Reader has the fitting, professional design you’d expect from one of Australia’s leading web design, strategy and marketing firms. This free application does more than the title suggests. As well as reading RSS feeds it can also handle ATOM and RDF data.

Blog RSS Feed Reader | Facebook via kwout

The application encourages the viral spread of information within Facebook with share buttons on each feed item as well as on the feed itself. It can also alert friends through Facebook News Feeds and Mini Feeds when there are incoming RSS updates.

An important feature for businesses is the ability to embed the feed on a Facebook Page. This is ideal for a business, product, service or celebrity wanting to set up an opt-in communication with their social network fans.

Treasuremytext: Save ur SMS Online | Facebook via kwout

It makes good business sense to check from time to time whether someone has created a Wikipedia entry about your organization. If there is one add it to your watch list so that you can check the facts any time there is an edit. Then if a vandal attacks you can take action. But bear in mind that Wikipedia is intended to be written from a neutral point of view. If you edit entries about yourself, you could be considered the vandal.

Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia via kwout

As well as checking Wikipedia, you might want to take a look at Freebase. This is a relatively new community edited database that contains highly structured and cross referenced information about topics and the relationships between them. As well as listing your business address Freebase might, for example, list the members of your board and what their other business affiliations are.

IBM : Freebase via kwout

Wikipedia and Freebase both show that, given the opportunity, altruistic individuals will collectively build and maintain large databases of public information. As storage and bandwidth costs fall more of these systems will be developed, and organizations will increasingly need to consider them when forming information strategies.