Google Docs secrets: 20 power tips | Office | Working Mac | Macworld

via macworld.com

I use Google Docs (mostly spreadsheets) all the time to work on documents collaboratively. This top 20 power tips has some good information, but the best one is about sharing with others:
5. Share docs with non-Google Docs users

Google Docs is all about collaboration, and you can even permit people who don’t have a Google account to view and edit your documents.

To share a file, click the padlock icon alongside the document title at the top left of the window. In the dialog box that appears, select Change alongside the Private entry in the list. In the new dialog box, select either Public on the Web or Anyone with the Link. If you want viewers to be able to edit the document as well as just to see it, put a check next to Allow Anyone to Edit. Then click the Save button, and copy and paste the link into one or more e-mail messages.

Posted via email from dianaf's posterous

Health Issues & Social Networking Sites

Health issues are, almost by definition, a private matter. However, most people with a serious health issue are anxious to find out as much as they can about the treatment options, side effects, and the issue itself. Although websites such as WebMD appeared early on the web, the appetite for health-related information has only increased. This has led to more and more people reaching out to others on the Internet with similar health issues, and even posting much of their personal experiences on public sites. 

 

Social networking sites like Facebook and Ning exist to connect people with similar experiences and interests, so it was a natural fit that groups would quickly be created and joined by people with specific health issues. Just doing a quick web search for "Facebook" or "Ning" and terms like "spinal" or "paralyzed" turns up dozens of groups, with thousands of members. (See attached screenshots, Health Social Sites.)

 

Here are some reasons for connecting with other people with similar health issues, even if they are remote and you never meet them face-to-face:

• help set expectations for things they may have already experienced
• advice on practical matters (this style of fork is easiest when held like this)
• find advice on local issues (if you come to this town, be aware that the City Hall's south sidewalk is not currently paved)
• share tips (best prices, discounts, etc.)
• find best practices (set alarms on your cell phone to remember to take your medications)
• learn about events, field trips, group outings; as well as find others interested in setting up such activities

 

Many common features of social networking sites are the ability to share photos & videos, post items on the discussion board (like a bulletin board), create a shared calendar, publish blogs, and some even have games to add a little in-group competition. 

 

Of course, it's not expected that everyone with similar health issues will have similar other interests. But that's the beauty of these social networking sites; you can easily join multiple groups to cover all of your interests!

 

Each generation spends more time on-line, and becomes more transparent to others, so groups like these are just the beginning. Ensuring everyone, especially those with a new or newly diagnosed health issue, gets connected to others as quickly as possible should help spread information, prevent isolation, and assist with training. And, most people find spending time on social networking sites fun!

Posted via web from dianaf's posterous

MPK16 in the Virtual World: Enhancements!

One of the coolest things about working with a virtual instance of MPK16 has been that we can add features that are hard, or even impossible, to do in the real world. Two areas that I'd like to highlight are the use of the MPK16 virtual space as a meeting area for many people attending from all different locations; and the ability to rapidly reconfigure a room into a completely different configuration, by rearranging chairs and tables in a matter of seconds!

Meeting Location

A virtual world such as Second Life, or Sun’s Wonderland product, can accommodate dozens, even hundreds, of avatars in one location. Although most people agree that face-to-face (in-person) meetings are the most effective and satisfying way to meet, these days it is getting harder to hold meetings this way, for both financial and time-consuming reasons. In addition, more and more teams, due to the desire to take advantage of the best source of expertise, now contain members who do not sit with the rest of their team(s). 

Video is an excellent substitute for face-to-face meetings, but it is most effective up to four or five locations (people); after that the images get smaller to fit on your screen, and the faces become correspondingly smaller. At some point, you will lose the benefits of video, as you can no longer read someone’s face, and you may not be able to even recognize them. In a virtual world, each person is represented by a single avatar, so adding more people doesn’t degrade the appearance nor performance of your overall meeting. Plus, your hair always looks great!

(comparison of video meeting in MeBeam with eight people, Second Life meeting with nine)

Reconfigurability (aka, “Rooms of Requirements”)

One great feature of the virtual world we knew we would be able to take advantage of immediately was the ability to quickly reconfigure a room. Currently, four of the areas in the MPK16 pilot space have multiple configurations, and we are able to use the tools of Second Life to just push a button and see a room rapidly reconfigure itself.

This gave us three quick payoffs:
1. it reminds the designers of new spaces of the features they need to keep in mind for their floor plans, and gives a visual representation they can use to explain these features to their clients
2. the layouts in buildings undergoing a next gen retrofit may not be easily reconfigured to satisfy the requirements of the space, so the multiple configuration views give a visual guide to show the actual requirements of that type of space
3. it gives “instructions” on how to configure the layout of the physical space

Here is an example of the three different configurations of the MPK16 Break Area space:
Break Area Configurations
  

1-Café Style

2-Theater or Auditorium Style
 

3-Classroom Style

(see video below; also at https://slx.sun.com/1179275712)

Download now or watch on posterous

Break Area RoR.mov (4471 KB)

I will continue discussing and demonstrating some of the enhancements we were able to show in the virtual world instance of MPK16 in the next post.

Posted via email from dianaf's posterous

What is a formal distributed work program?

Some companies, through acquisitions, telecommute options, and marketplace forces, may have a formal distributed work, or “work-from-everywhere,” program. Other names for employee-focused flexible work location programs are flexible working, hoteling, telecommuting, work-from-home, “digital nomads,” or “road warriors.” Usually, these programs have formal polices around the employee programs, but may not have any formal programs or tools for other distributed teams.

In upcoming entries, I will discuss some ways that companies may find themselves with distributed teams that were created "accidently," as well as some ways to improve the work flow, and with any luck, the work output, of these teams. These improvements may also increase work satisfaction, reduce frustrations, and improve relationships between workers. It may also give a company some new options for how to quickly enter a new market location, or how to integrate an acquisition.

What is a Distributed Team?

(note: I use distributed teams and virtual teams interchangeably)

When the members of a team don’t physically sit together, then they are a distributed, or virtual, team. In other words, their work together is done in a virtual setting.

Sometimes, only one person may be separate from the rest of the team; for example, the manager of a project who holds weekly calls with the programming team in Asia. The other extreme may involve every single person on the team being in a separate location. Most distributed teams fall in between, where some members may sit together, another group may sit in another place, and some individuals may be in their own unique locations.

In addition, some companies may have a formalized Distributed Work Program.

How to Become a Black Box Worker

or, perhaps a more formal name, "Modular Nomadic Worker." Sun Microsystems has a product called the Sun Modular Datacenter, also called the "Black Box." You can read more about it here. But basically, it's a complete data center in a box (container, really)! Just add power, water, and Internet, and it's good to go.

I started thinking about how "modular" I've become, with my smart iPhone and laptop plus wifi or 3G card, and I realized how similar I am to the Black Box data center. Just drop me anywhere with my (small) laptop bag and phone, and I am a "fully functioning" worker!

Here are the things I have that enable me to work everywhere:
* cell phone/ smartphone: iPhone (not yet 3G)
* bluetooth headset: Aliph Jawbone (red!)
* broadband card: Sierra Wireless 881 3G USB w/unlimited domestic plan
* laptop: MacBook Pro 17"
* webcam: built-in iSight
* wifi: Starbucks card for 2 hours free, plus possible free AT&T broadband customer at AT&T hotspots?, obviously also at home and in the office

With these tools, I'm able to work from wherever I am, whether it be from home, a conference, an airport, while travelling in my motorhome, or even in the office! I answer my phone and emails, and participate in desktop video conferences (using iChat AV and MeBeam), and even sometimes meet in Second Life. Rather than wondering where I am, my boss can just always find me.

I think I really am living in the Snow Crash metaverse now!

Travelling Workplace, Part 2

This weekend, we had another interesting traveling workplace experience. We were going camping at Topaz Lake in Nevada, so we decided to drive up on Thursday evening. Usually traffic is bad leaving the Bay Area that we thought it would take us several hours altogether to make it there, but we just thought that we would stop when we were tired of driving and spend the night in the motor home.

Instead, traffic was so light that we wound up making it all the way to the campground in only five hours, so we thought great, we can work from the campground tomorrow. However, shortly before my 9am meeting we realized that not only did we not have Internet service, we didn't even have cell phones service! Around 8:15 we battened down the motorhome and the dogs, and started to drive back towards civilization. So much for my hope of working while overlooking a scenic campground.

While we were able to get cell service just a few miles out of the campground, we needed to find a place to stay for the day in our traveling office. It took us about half an hour to find an open parking lot. We cut it a little close; actually I started the first few minutes of my video conference using my 3G laptop card, while Dawn was still trying to find a place to park. The people on my video meeting could tell that we were still driving, but they just asked whether or not *I* was driving!

So instead of overlooking a peaceful lake while we were working on Friday, we sat in that the drug store parking lot all day long. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks! Although it didn't work out quite like I'd planned, I was still able to participate in all of my meetings and conferences. I was even able to log into and use Second Life, which really surprised me that I had that much bandwidth.

Travelling Workplace, Part 1

I saw this article on cnn.com today:
Next phase of working at home: Leaving home 

As part of the discussion on where people are working, right now at this very moment I'm sitting in the parking lot of a restaurant in Davis, working from my motorhome. I'm using a high-speed Internet card for my laptop (getting 3G); here's what speakeasy.net  said about my current connection:

• Download Speed: 1640 kbps (205 KB/sec transfer rate)
  
• Upload Speed: 967 kbps (120.9 KB/sec transfer rate)

My work phone line is forwarded to my cell phone, and I was even able to video chat with a co-worker a little while ago.

Also, speaking of "co-working," check out this place:
Cubes and Crayons

This is where I think the growth in workplaces will happen; specialized work places where people, who can actually work from anywhere, but have certain specific "life needs," like child or elder care, or even are looking for a specialized work place, like one optimized for graphics design, writing, conference calls, etc. 

Or where "your co-workers for today" are specially picked, like for dba's, proof-readers, communications specialists, etc.

Anyway, just random Friday thoughts... have a good weekend!

Security, Part 3

Another thing I've been thinking about when using external sites for things like wikis, blogs, and other collaborative tools is that, although you may be able to control access rights on a user level, it probably doesn't work as well as you think. Here are some examples:

* you grant access to anyone who has the same corporate domain email ID that you do ("@xyzcompany.com"). Whenever someone tries to access your information, the system validates that their account has that domain. However, it doesn't check to see if that domain is currently valid, just that it was originally. In other words, if someone creates an account on this system, using a corporate email account, it's only validated then. Never again.

* you grant access to someone whose account ID looks like the person you mean ("Joe Abercrombie" = "jabercrombie"). It turns out to be someone else.

* you've granted access to your co-workers. A new person joins the team, but you only remember to add her to 5 out of your 6 on-line tools.

* if you use a corporate directory/ ldap system internally at your company, you are probably used to being able to grant access to groups like "Sales," "U.S.-only," and "Managers." No such luck on external systems.

Where to Sit?

This week the San Jose Mercury News had a couple of articles on what workspaces should look like:

• Out of the box: Valley companies dump cubicles for open office spaces; Comments
• Spaces and Places: Don't write off cubicles yet; Comments
  

I’m thinking there are three options on where to sit for work:
1. In a company location with your coworkers (teammates).
Ideally, I think that looks like a plush corner office for each, with an open area with tools for collaborating:

• comfy chairs
  
• white boards
  
• table
  
• projector for laptop plus display device/ area
  
• electrical & network outlets for laptops when necessary
  

2. In a company location without your coworkers.
But, why come into work if there’s no one there to work with? I’m not sure about this one, when I do this for some reason (go into an office when none of my coworkers are there), I usually just wind up sitting in a “closed office” so I can close the door when I’m on the phone. Sometimes, if I’m mostly going to be in face-to-face meetings that day, I might just go sit in our “Work Café.” This is a very open area, so it doesn’t work very well when I’m on the phone. But, if others I know are around, I might run into them. I can at least watch people walking by.

3. Not even in a company location (working from home, car, coffee shop).

While I think, for me, #1 would be my most productive (and probably enjoyable) location, I haven’t been in the same geographical area with my coworkers in a few years. On my current team, only one other member of my team is even in California (I’m in the Bay Area). So #1 isn’t possible for me with my current workgroup and project list.

However, I do sometimes come into an office, usually when my coworkers are here for some reason. On those occasions, while I may do my own work in a Work Café or reserve a space to sit in, when we meet up to discuss our work, I’d like all of those collaborating tools listed above. And, when I’m not in a company location, how can I have a similar experience as in #1?

I now wonder if some of the projects, and teammates, I’ve had have just been because of where I sat?

Security, Part 2

At my company, we are supposed to put appropriate footers at the bottoms of our documents and emails. For example, "Internal Use Only," "Do Not Duplicate," etc., (I made all of those up). I don't think all of the employees are as thoughtful at doing this as our legal & security groups would like, although I'm sure many people are very conscientious. So I think we may have just assumed that, by keeping our documents only on our intranet, that we are keeping employees safe from themselves, and the company's secrets slightly safer than they might be otherwise.

Now, however, it is very easy for employees to blog on the Internet, or collaborate using a wiki on the Internet. Our email & calendar accounts are accessible from the Internet. But many employees find accessing our applications and documents through our intranet just not compatible with their work (or location, or Internet-enabled device, or ...). So should we move more out onto the Internet?

Ning and Facebook

How Is A Social Network on Ning Different from a Facebook Group?
"People want different identities depending on the context. So, for any social network on Ning, your profile is completely customizable and specific to that social network."

I think the big difference in how I use them is that, on Ning, I have as many profile pages as I am a member of different groups. On Facebook, I have exactly one profile page. In my case, on Ning I have the following profile pages:

OSG PM group: info on my group work activity, list of other OSG PM sub-teams I'm on, photos I've uploaded to this group, a feed from my external blog, a comment wall just with comments from other team members, and a few other work related stuff.

GECCO group: not much here as I mostly lurk in this group, but again a comment wall just from other group members

my flyball club's Wii group: all kinds of info on Wii games I'm playing or need help on, game stats, a blog I keep on my games (specific to this group), and videos & other info I've shared with the group.

On Facebook, I'm a member of the following groups, a variety of work & play, but they all point back to my identical profile:

Women@Sun

Facebook for Business

Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs)

Flyball

Calling All Dogster Dogs!

Cross functional collaboration team

The Tour de France Dominates my month of July

Facebook Developers

Social Tools

Note that on Facebook, my Comment Wall gets posts from work friends, flyball friends, and just random people leaving comments, all mixed.

This is the big difference for me, that Ning is all about the context of my profile in that group, but in Facebook, there is no context, it's all just me. Two almost opposite approaches, I'd say.

Working Online

If I want to do all of my work online, so I don't have to worry about having the right computer with me, or even a full computer with me, how do I do it? It looks like there are a few online applications (ThinkFree, Zoho, Google Docs-although the latter doesn't yet work in Safari) where I can edit from a browser on my Mac.

Here are my questions, or at least, unresolved issues:
* can I edit OO format documents, or only Microsoft?
* can I at least view these OO documents from my iPhone?
* can I edit somehow from my iPhone?
* do I always have to down/upload the documents to one of these sites? I can't always do that from my iPhone, but many of these documents were emailed to me, if that helps.

More questions, and I'm hopeful, some answers, as I figure them out. I'm headed off to the Office 2.0 conference tomorrow, so maybe all will be revealed there. And, everyone there will be using an iPhone!

What Should IT Provide?

For corporate users of collaborative tools, what should IT provide?

For ease-of-use, many corporate users are going to external services, looking for applications to manage wikis, photos, blog posts, and more. These external services usually have excellent support and reliability, and various kinds of training and help are available.

But if IT could provide these same services, but designed for corporate use, here are some of the things the IT services could provide (in no particular order):

LDAP authentication

ensure appropriate licensing

maintain back-ups, and the ability to provide restores

secure or public rss-feeds

appropriate server infrastructure

centralized profile management (what group someone is in, projects they are on)

security

more to come, I'm sure

Interactivity Scale

(more interactive)
A
F2F (1:1)
F2F Meeting
B
Video IM
Second Life/ Virtual Reality
C
Telephone (1:1)
Conference Call
D
IM
Discussion Forum
E
Email
Comment Wall
F
Blog
(least interactive)

EDIT: The letters (A-F) are just for grouping labels.

Facebook is my Cubicle

I was trying to figure out what the point of Facebook is, at least in a work context. Then I realized it's like my cubicle! When I used to have an assigned office at work, I had all kinds of things visible for any visitor to see:
* papers, etc., that I'm working on
* books I'm reading or refer to
* calendar with pictures and notes
* magazines showing my interests
* pictures of my SO, my dogs, Bay to Breakers, etc.
* current fun mousepad
* collection of floaty pens
* random small toys to play with if you were waiting for me to get off of the phone

You (the visitor) could also leave me a note, and see if I'm around and maybe what I was currently doing.

Isn't my Facebook page like that?

Collaboration

Just read this quote by Eric Schmidt, now of Google:
When you say "collaboration," the average forty-five-year-old thinks they know what you're talking about--teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude. That's what collaboration means to most people.

Wikinomics, p18

Apple's Knowledge Navigator Video

Here are a couple of fun videos from ten+ years ago. Look to see what's actually possible now (mash-ups?), or what's still science fiction ("Minority Report"?)

Apple's Knowledge Navigator Video
Apple's famous Knowledge Navigator concept video which was released in 1998. John Udell founds a copy of this video, and wow - in many cases Apple was spot on target!! This was one of my favorites.

AskTog: Starfire Home

AskTog: Starfire Home

Bruce Tognazzini is a recognized leader in human/computer interaction design. Before that, he was Distinguished Engineer for Strategic Technology at Sun where he led the Starfire Project that predicted the rise of the World Wide Web. During his 14 years at Apple Computer, he founded the Apple Human Interface Group and acted as Apple's Human Interface Evangelist. He has rejoined his long-time colleagues as a principal of the Nielsen Norman Group.

In 1992, he launched a project at Sun Microsystems in an effort to both predict and guide the future of computing. It drew together the talents of more than 100 engineers, designers, futurists, and filmakers.