Collaborative Conundrum Part II - Google Apps

Continuing on with the collaboration theme (see Collaborative Conundrum) I spoke last month to Jonathan Rochelle - Google product manager for Google Docs and Google Sites. Jonathan touched on a number of different ways businesses are using Google applications to collaborate more efficiently and effectively - internally within the company or with customers.

The first part of the conversation touches on how you can use Google Apps for Domain services to host your email services, but then he gets into the collaboration subject. Jonathan talks about how you can use Google Docs to easily create a form that is linked up to a spreadsheet, email that form to customers, and as people fill out that form you can watch the data populate the sheet in real-time. Even when people are filling out the form on a mobile device. And if there is a chart linked to the spreadsheets they get updated in real-time as well. A spreadsheet that multiple people can be working on.

Jonathan also talks about how multiple people can be editing the same slide presentation at the same time in real-time. And he also talks about how people are using Google Sites to build there own internal (or external) collaborative websites to create your own collaborative workspaces. He also shares how Google Video, Google Talk and GMail can be used to create easy collaborative opportunities to deepen and extend relationships. Finally, Jonathan touches on where Google Wave fits into the collaborative toolkit.

Jonathan provided some great examples of how companies can use online tools to improve the collaboration experiences. To hear the conversation click on the player below, or download the mp3 file by clicking here.