23 Things Assignment #6

Hey, finally something I've used! Being a recent grad from a library school where group projects are the norm, Google Docs were very popular with my classmates. Everyone worked at different speeds and different hours, so it was helpful to have everything online. There are lots of other pros to working with Google Docs with very few cons:

• You don't have to worry about everyone using the same software. Some people have different versions of Microsoft Office or use Open Office. It is annoying to have to resend something because the other person can't open .docx files. This may not be a problem within the TPL, but it does when we're working with individuals from other libraries, organizations, etc. Which brings me to my next point...
• Google Docs is great for working with people that are far away from you, either in another branch or a different city. Yes, everything can be sent back and forth via email, but Google Docs saves time and energy. Yet another example of how small our world is becoming. It takes collaboration to a whole new level.
• Everyone also gets instant access to the work being done. This helps eliminate overlap in a document and saves time. Also, there is that inevitable situation where there is a misunderstanding of the work to be done. With Google Docs, hopefully any mistakes will be caught sooner and save even more time.
• Along the same lines, haven't we all had the problem where the person who has the file goes on vacation or is sick and we can't do any work on something? Or, as often happens to me, we'll forget our USB key somewhere and have to restart or work off an older version (I blame all my traveling for extra hours!). Not an issue with Google Docs.
  
• Formatting is also made easier with Google Docs. If you have four people make a slideshow, they will make it four different ways. Having everyone work in the same document saves the annoying step of reformatting everything so it looks the same.
  
• One of the problems is that it's not exactly pretty, especially the Presentation feature. You don't come out with the best looking slideshow, though that may be a positive depending on how much you hate Powerpoint.
• At the same time, it is nice not to have all the bells and whistles. I find myself caring a lot more about the content than the visuals when working in Google Docs.
• One area of concern, especially as we are librarians, is that this information not stored by our computers. How can I put this without sounding like a conspiracy nut? Google is known to be massive data hoarders, so who knows what they do with this information. Do we want to put sensitive information like an incident report on Google Docs? I don't know that answer to this, but it is worth pondering. Paranoia over.