We use both of these features very heavily at Google, so I'm really happy to see them launch externally. The ability to restrict posts to within a company lets you create a corporate social network very easily (think Yammer, Chatter, etc.). One of the main complaints I hear about Google+ is that specific friends aren't on it, but that's much less of an issue if your company uses Google Apps. I spend a lot of time and get a lot of value out of within-our-company Google+ posts.
And since Google has widely distributed offices, I can't tell you how many video meetings I've attended, but it's a lot. Having the ability to join a video conference/hangout from a link in Calendar makes such meetings really easy to set up.
I was first very exited about those possibilities but if I get it right I have to basically give up / merge my personal G+ Account unless I want to have 2 account with the same name on G+.
If I do so the Apps-admin will have full control over my account including reading my private messages, deleting my account... right? Besides trust issues I wonder what would happen if I leave the company? How do you handle this at Google?
Hey Matt - I'm the founder/organizer of the NY Enterprise Technology Meetup, the first monthly tech forum in NYC exclusively focused on enterprise tech company demos. Are you able to connect me with someone from the team so that I can inquire about them demoing at a future event?
We launched in January of this year, have almost 1,000 members, and get about 125 attendees to each events (mix of technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, and students). Check us out at www.meetup.com/ny-enterprise-tech and www.nyetm.com.
This is a great move for G+, only concerns having not tried it yet are the following:
1) Free until end of the year, so in effect open roll-out beta testing and once we have it how you like it and enough hooked, then we charge you a unknown amount. Not sure in what depths of society that marketing model is drawn upon but it is something that stood out.
2) Garantee's - when you share data in a closed circle (company or select group of friends) withing a enviroment that allows open/public sharing and the identifiers being user changable parameters then I would ask and suggest one big addition. Make all interface changes approval acceptance only and by that I mean allow a company to have a technical social person for the whatever changes are needed but have the ability for all impacting changes (level of changes definable even) needing approval of at least another person, maybe even a few down to some needing CEO approval. You may have situations were you have a internal post and later on wish that to be made fully public in just the case that you dont want some internal posts ever publicly leaked and whilst the permisions to say who can see things is there. Perhaps the ability to add NEVERFORPUBLIC tags indicating that nomater what is changed down the line with facebook style permision bias in whatever fasion, they will never ever change unless the user who created them changes them. Also need to have orga chart ability for higher ups to change incase a person leaves.
3) Think Murdoch - What legal aspects do social media posts have in comparision to emails and do you have the ability to blind copy people into posts as you would say BCC your lawyer on emails. Some companies like that approach and how does G+ cater for them if it is going in the direction many think it is.
I really enjoy Google+. It honestly has become my defacto "social network" when I just want to peruse whats happening in the world. There is a video game that I have been following for the past few years that went live this weekend and the community on Google+ is head and sholders above what I have found in other places. The content (as a whole) has been more thought out and and as a percentage I have wanted to read more of it than other sources.
That being said I think "circles" caters to niche groups of people wanting to discuss a certain topic, will be interesting to see how another "post fencing" appartatus plays with circles.
I have never used facebook, twitter, etc., but I have increasingly found relevant content and discussion on g+ pages.
So much so that last week I attempted, unsuccessfully, to create a g+ account for rsync.net. You'd think that wouldn't be rocket science.
Then all of that "real name" bullshit that I tried to ignore last year came back to me. Google refuses to recognize the account, blah blah blah.
No, I am not giving them my personal information for these discussions, and furthermore, multiple different people will be using this account (it's a business account) so it's not appropriate to tie an identity to it anyway.
I've been following GW2 on Facebook and the community is terrible. Never thought to check it on Google+. (I'm assuming GW2 is what you're referring to).
In my world that makes about as much sense as 'your corporate intranet facebook'. Heck, just as much as Contoso YouPorn. Zero.
Social networks, ignoring the problems with the current implementations, are for your social life. I enjoy social interactions at work, but most of my social life is _not_ connected to work. So social networks and work don't mix for me.
And in what kind of business would you share stuff on a kind-of-but-not-quite blogging platform? That seems to be a SharePoint (no fan either) contender from a very weird angle..
I think it depends on the company, but I disagree with your point in general. There are plenty of companies that would benefit from an easy model for sharing content internally, whether it be links to articles relevant to the company, wide discussions about internal (confidential) topics, or pictures from a recent company BBQ. With the features Google launched today, companies can safely use a social network and assume that internal information will stay that way.
I can empathize with this point of view. I was very skeptical when our company added Socialcast--which scratches a similar itch--but in a large enterprise with people spread out in multiple locations around the world, I've been able to share information and learn from other people I'd never normally interact with because they're in a different continent or line of business. And, for whatever reason, I've found people more likely to share, comment, or help when the interface looks like a social media site.
I don't know if smaller, less geographically diverse organization would find this type of tool as helpful.
No, this is a competitor to SalesForce's Chatter and the like, not Sharepoint (which is more of an enterprise content management tool).
The implications for sharing in a social sense aren't as significant as that for work - especially if you happen to work in a more tightly secured workplace - how many families or friend groups will kick you out for inadvertently sharing sensitive data? - that's a real potential career limiting move in the enterprise space.
"Going for a bike ride this weekend, does anyone want to join me?"
"Is anyone else having trouble with the printer on the third floor?"
"I think we should buy copies of Beyond Compare. I used it at my last company, and it was awesome."
"Hey Chuck, when you get a chance, cal you tell my team about that library you wrote? We have a few questions for you. I'll let them hop on the conversation and ask."
"I'm sharing a link to an article I found about that project we did last year."
And you can SEARCH these conversations (and the results can show up in your google.com search results, if you use that feature). Even the conversations that happened before your start date.
This is a really smart move by Google. This starts to eliminate the need for corporate social networks (like Yammer), and lets businesses take advantage of all the integrations that are happening with the other Google apps. As someone who has used internal social networks like Yammer at previous companies, I can honestly say that they are surprisingly useful - it gives other employees the forum to share interesting and work-related content, and provides a place for basic discussion on internal topics with a wide audience.
Steve Yegge accidentally posted his rant to the wrong account. Google+ for apps wouldn't stop anyone from doing that, unless there's a way for administrators to ban employees from using their personal accounts during work hours.
Great, so now people who don't want to sign away their privacy to a social network don't get a choice when their employer decides to mandate use of this company-wide.
This also pretty much forces you to merge your personal and work personas.
What? How? You'll have one account via your corporate email address (e.g. [email protected]) and another via your personal email address (e.g. [email protected])
It's good that Google is trying to think about how companies (and people) might not want to share everything they do publicly. However, Google should spend considerable amount of time working on their core products.
Many of them are feature-poor (as an example, Google Calendar doesn't seem have a setting to prevent your phone from getting automatic notifications, no matter if you turn EVERY notification off).
If you have anyone else's calendar showing up in your Google Calendar, then Google Now treats all their events as though they are your events, so you get their driving directions and similar notifications. Yet another example of doing things half-assed.
Can we make a Joel Anti-Test? Ideally, you want zero points. Cases: Uses Google+ Internally. Uses JIRA. Uses a VCS you have never heard of. Entire product is licensed from an outsourced shop and resold under your own branding. Extensive use of Windows desktops or servers. Uses one or more of {MongoDB, Cassandra, CouchDB} at scale. ...
No, we can't make a Joel Anti-Test. It's easy to say, from experience, what set of things nearly all good companies do. It's impossible to say from lack of experience what good companies don't do.
Have you used Google+ in a corporate setting? No? How can you know it's productivity negative? Have you used a VCS you've never heard of? Then how do you know it's a negative?
The very idea that you should enshrine your ignorance in a checklist of things companies must not do and software companies must not use is utterly preposterous, and you should be at least a little bit ashamed to have proposed it.
Really? I see heavy internal Google+ use as a good thing: it means people like each other enough to network internally.
Remember: G+ does not replace mailing lists (which you get with Groups); they're two different types of communication. Mailing lists are good for threaded discussions. G+ is good for "look at this thing I just made".
[+] [-] Matt_Cutts|13 years ago|reply
And since Google has widely distributed offices, I can't tell you how many video meetings I've attended, but it's a lot. Having the ability to join a video conference/hangout from a link in Calendar makes such meetings really easy to set up.
[+] [-] BvS|13 years ago|reply
If I do so the Apps-admin will have full control over my account including reading my private messages, deleting my account... right? Besides trust issues I wonder what would happen if I leave the company? How do you handle this at Google?
[+] [-] lt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johansch|13 years ago|reply
Otherwise the risk for accidental spillover just seems too high...
[+] [-] teamlaft|13 years ago|reply
We launched in January of this year, have almost 1,000 members, and get about 125 attendees to each events (mix of technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, and students). Check us out at www.meetup.com/ny-enterprise-tech and www.nyetm.com.
Thanks!
[+] [-] danmaz74|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VikingCoder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|13 years ago|reply
1) Free until end of the year, so in effect open roll-out beta testing and once we have it how you like it and enough hooked, then we charge you a unknown amount. Not sure in what depths of society that marketing model is drawn upon but it is something that stood out.
2) Garantee's - when you share data in a closed circle (company or select group of friends) withing a enviroment that allows open/public sharing and the identifiers being user changable parameters then I would ask and suggest one big addition. Make all interface changes approval acceptance only and by that I mean allow a company to have a technical social person for the whatever changes are needed but have the ability for all impacting changes (level of changes definable even) needing approval of at least another person, maybe even a few down to some needing CEO approval. You may have situations were you have a internal post and later on wish that to be made fully public in just the case that you dont want some internal posts ever publicly leaked and whilst the permisions to say who can see things is there. Perhaps the ability to add NEVERFORPUBLIC tags indicating that nomater what is changed down the line with facebook style permision bias in whatever fasion, they will never ever change unless the user who created them changes them. Also need to have orga chart ability for higher ups to change incase a person leaves.
3) Think Murdoch - What legal aspects do social media posts have in comparision to emails and do you have the ability to blind copy people into posts as you would say BCC your lawyer on emails. Some companies like that approach and how does G+ cater for them if it is going in the direction many think it is.
[+] [-] cyanbane|13 years ago|reply
That being said I think "circles" caters to niche groups of people wanting to discuss a certain topic, will be interesting to see how another "post fencing" appartatus plays with circles.
[+] [-] rsync|13 years ago|reply
So much so that last week I attempted, unsuccessfully, to create a g+ account for rsync.net. You'd think that wouldn't be rocket science.
Then all of that "real name" bullshit that I tried to ignore last year came back to me. Google refuses to recognize the account, blah blah blah.
No, I am not giving them my personal information for these discussions, and furthermore, multiple different people will be using this account (it's a business account) so it's not appropriate to tie an identity to it anyway.
Does the "g+ for business" solve this problem ?
[+] [-] freehunter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|13 years ago|reply
Social networks, ignoring the problems with the current implementations, are for your social life. I enjoy social interactions at work, but most of my social life is _not_ connected to work. So social networks and work don't mix for me.
And in what kind of business would you share stuff on a kind-of-but-not-quite blogging platform? That seems to be a SharePoint (no fan either) contender from a very weird angle..
[+] [-] timothya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msabalau|13 years ago|reply
I don't know if smaller, less geographically diverse organization would find this type of tool as helpful.
[+] [-] r00fus|13 years ago|reply
The implications for sharing in a social sense aren't as significant as that for work - especially if you happen to work in a more tightly secured workplace - how many families or friend groups will kick you out for inadvertently sharing sensitive data? - that's a real potential career limiting move in the enterprise space.
[+] [-] VikingCoder|13 years ago|reply
"Is anyone else having trouble with the printer on the third floor?"
"I think we should buy copies of Beyond Compare. I used it at my last company, and it was awesome."
"Hey Chuck, when you get a chance, cal you tell my team about that library you wrote? We have a few questions for you. I'll let them hop on the conversation and ask."
"I'm sharing a link to an article I found about that project we did last year."
And you can SEARCH these conversations (and the results can show up in your google.com search results, if you use that feature). Even the conversations that happened before your start date.
[+] [-] timothya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisacky|13 years ago|reply
https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...
[+] [-] jmillikin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Evbn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
This also pretty much forces you to merge your personal and work personas.
[+] [-] jeffjose|13 years ago|reply
Where I work, I have an enterprise account which has a gmail, drive, groups and calendar which is signed in using a [email protected] account.
My personal stuff is different and is a different account, signed in using [email protected]
The key point is, my company knows only about @company.com (and Google doesnt have any idea) and the other way around for @gmail.com account.
[+] [-] pilif|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lallysingh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silverbax88|13 years ago|reply
Many of them are feature-poor (as an example, Google Calendar doesn't seem have a setting to prevent your phone from getting automatic notifications, no matter if you turn EVERY notification off).
[+] [-] rogerbinns|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|13 years ago|reply
Google+ brings Google valuable information about who you are and what you do to their ad-words (revenue)engine.
Improving a Calendar app which already provides them with that information, brings them little extra.
It's sometimes important to remember who Google's real customers are. It's not you.
[+] [-] Evbn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] numbchuckskills|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] seiji|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jemfinch|13 years ago|reply
Have you used Google+ in a corporate setting? No? How can you know it's productivity negative? Have you used a VCS you've never heard of? Then how do you know it's a negative?
The very idea that you should enshrine your ignorance in a checklist of things companies must not do and software companies must not use is utterly preposterous, and you should be at least a little bit ashamed to have proposed it.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|13 years ago|reply
Joel's FogBugz and StackOverflow both make extensive use of Windows servers (and I'd imagine desktops, as well).
[+] [-] jrockway|13 years ago|reply
Remember: G+ does not replace mailing lists (which you get with Groups); they're two different types of communication. Mailing lists are good for threaded discussions. G+ is good for "look at this thing I just made".
[+] [-] chollida1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maayank|13 years ago|reply