The numbers are in. I’ve thought about this thoroughly and in keeping with ArcStone’s nerdy roots, created an algorithm.  I added up productivity gains subtracted employee gripes and moans and then divided by hours logged.

(Gains – Gripes) / Hours = X

The clear winner for best technology investment in 2008?

Our switch to Google Apps for our company email, calendar and documentation platform.

Google Apps has five elements that you need to know about…

1. User Management – to secure access and set permissions for your team.
2. Email – in this case Gmail, which is Google’s fantastic web mail service.  Users can also use mail clients like Outlook or Thunderbird if they wish.
3. Calendar – An online personal calendar which may be shared with your colleagues.
4. Sites - An easy to edit wiki system.  Need a quick wiki to organize a project, or documentation?  It literally takes a non-technical user 5 minutes to create a new site and start adding content.  You can then restrict content to certain users or publish to the web at large.
5. Docs – an online productivity suite which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and data collection application.   These have become very important tools in the tool box for us at ArcStone.  We use Docs for tracking basic spreadsheet information centrally like employee phone extensions and incoming leads, to collaborating on our 2009 business plan.  Google Docs also includes a slick form generation tool, enabling non-technical users to easily create online forms for surveys and similar data collection projects.  Google is clearly targeting Microsoft Office users, but I have to confess Google Docs still has a ways to go before replacing Office – don’t plan on using it exclusively.

And how much $$ for all these goodies?  If you have fewer than one hundred employees, the price is truly right. You pay them $0.  All it took for us was a DNS update so that Gmail started getting our our email and then some configuration / internal communication / training to make the transition.

Before you ask, no I’m not working for Google.  I just want to share something that’s working well for us.

If you’re an ArcStone client and you’re interested in making the transition to Google Apps, drop me a line.  If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to schedule a group Webinar demonstrating how we use Google Apps and help you decide whether or not to make the move.

Are you guilty of writing florid, lengthy emails in your work life? It might be time to meditate on the five-sentences-or-less philosophy espoused in the signatures of some people’s emails. I’m not sure I can totally jump on this bandwagon, but maybe that’s just my love of my own words getting in the way.

The website appropriately details the philosophy in five sentences (not including the footer).

If you’re a believer, add it to your sig: http://five.sentenc.es/

Over the years the web and related technologies have evolved fairly rapidly. However, one technology seams hopelessly stuck in 1990: email. Email really hasn’t changed much since it’s inception. Sometimes I wish more features existed than the basic recipient, subject, message paradigm has to offer.

Here is my wish list:

1) Multiple Bodies – it would be nice to be able to send a message to a group, but have some text only be visible to specific people. Right now this requires sending two separate messages, even if only a small difference in text is needed.

2) This Email Has Changed – when you call a phone number that has changed a pleasant voice notifies you of the new number. I would like the equivalent for email. This could be very handy when retiring an old address.

3) Enhanced Security – there are a few tools that enhance the security of your messages, but since they are not built into the protocol few users use them. I would like to be able to send messages that can’t be forwarded, viewed after a certain date, or require a password to open. Email could be used for so much more if it was a secure means of communication.

Email is truly the killer app of the Internet, but in the age of advanced software and hardware it sure is showing its age.

I have adopted an email technique that works well for short quick messages to colleagues I find myself sending fifty times a day. Quite simply, I put the entire message in the subject line, leaving the body blank.

Recipients can then assimilate the entire communication without clicking on the message. For people who leave their email up all day on a dedicated screen the messages roll in like IMs, making the only effort needed to read them a quick glance.

I apply the following thought process when sending subject only messages:

1) Will the message be short enough to display in its entirety?
2) Does this user already have my contact info? (send a normal message to new contacts so they have your full signature)
3) Will the user need to reply to you with detailed questions and/or responses?

Consider the following example of a typical short message:

Subject: Meeting
Body: I am double-booked this afternoon. Can we reschedule our 1PM meeting for tomorrow?

Subject only version:

Subject: Meeting – I am double-booked this afternoon. Can we reschedule our 1PM meeting for tomorrow? – Best, Nicholas

Don’t forget to end your message appropriately. Just because its all in the subject line doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.