Is your library and/or school paying for corporate email? Do you pay for software licenses for productivity based software such as word processing, spreadsheets, and building presentations? Is your organization also paying someone/company to build and/or maintain your website? If you have said yes to more than one of these questions, I suggest at the very least a look at Google Apps. This blog posting is not about what Google Apps is. I have linked that information here. But I will say that Google Apps is free to educational facilities such as schools and also to libraries that are 501C3s.
However what this post is about is how Google Apps might help your organization save money and time. And make your organization more productive and effective. If considering a change, a review of this long before mentioning this to your stakeholders, council members, boards, IT department, and any other groups or decision makers is a good idea. To be fully informed and prepared, is to make a better decision. Google Gone is a tool to help you review whether Google Apps is right for your organization. With claims that National Geographic, and Minolta moving to Google Apps, they suggest why not your organization as well.
Once at their site, you are given two interactive questions: What is your organizations name and how many employees. Once you enter this information, Google will guide you through areas that charts your organizations efficiency and productivity with a switch. Particularly money and time save, which is high on most organizations lists I would presume.
And at the end of the analysis, Gone Google will also allow you to customize this information into a presentation and in different ways and formats. You can have a customized web link that you can email to someone. You can print out and/or link to a PDF, poster, or a spreadsheet. I have a copy of the poster example I did here. This can help organize enough information that may help those decision makers possibly take another look at this option. It cost nothing to look at Gone Google, and if you decide to go with Google Apps, it still may end up costing you nothing but some setup time in the beginning.
Have any opinions about this topic? I would love to hear from you.
