Smart school: Cartoon program uses Google Apps

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Michele Ollie, co-founder and President of The Center for Cartoon Studies, based in White River Junction, Vermont. The Center for Cartoon Studies is America’s premiere cartooning school and studio.

I founded the Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) in 2005 on a very simple belief: the medium of comics was as potent and deserving of serious exploration as painting, sculpture, and poetry. Most of our students see comics as a calling as much as a career, a vehicle for personal expression. Although there is a deep reverence for the printed page, it would be wrong to assume we don’t embrace new technologies. In the school’s production lab, the old school screen-printing shares the same space as wireless state-of-the-art color laser printers and digital tablets. Students still dip steel nibs into inkwells while laying out their comics in Adobe InDesign.



In only six years, CCS has become one of the premiere cartooning schools in the world. A lot of things came together to make this happen: the right people, the right place, the right timing and, of course, the right technology. To put it bluntly, Google tools help make CCS possible. Our school is built around collaboration, and Google Apps for Education makes it easy for our artists and students to work together. As an example, Google Sites help faculty manage core courses, keeping students on task and informed. It goes without saying Google Calendar is the glue to our school. With over 30 visiting artists on campus annually, a dozen exhibitions and events, Google Calendar is the 24 hour source for what’s happening on campus and off.



We also rely heavily on Smartsheet, a cloud based project management application available in the Google Apps Marketplace, to keep our comics on track. Smartsheet lets us share key documents with many collaborators, track progress, facilitate online discussions, send automatic email updates and reminders, and generate Gantt charts (for those of us who work better with visuals timelines). Schools can spend a fortune on IT, but these free and low-cost cloud applications help our school thrive on a very modest budget.



With a growing network of alumni and visiting artists, CCS has a number of new and exciting projects under way: an expanded summer program, a community planning grant, and an online comics delivery system to bring comics to Vermont libraries and beyond, to mention a few. Whether it’s creating elegant and powerful comic strips or growing a school, Google Apps and Smartsheet allow everyone in the CCS community to pursue a vision.



Illustrations from The Center for Cartoon Studies brochure by Kevin Huizenga. Download the brochure here.

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Let freedom (from servers) ring: EDUCAUSE 2011

Posted by Tom Mills, Director of Education

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

This time last year, we were tailgating with the USC marching band at the EDUCAUSE conference—an annual gathering of the higher-education IT community. Last week, with more than 15 million people now actively using Google Apps for Education, we ventured to Philadelphia for a few jam-packed days at EDUCAUSE 2011. Our time in the city of brotherly love included a booth with 30+ Googlers and a woodsy backdrop for our fireside chat series; meeting with hundreds of CIOs from universities using and considering Google Apps for Education; a party at the Academy of Natural Sciences; and of course liberty and the lifelong pursuit of the Philly cheesesteak. Here’s a glimpse:



The Campus Computing Project released its annual report at EDUCAUSE, too. This year’s survey named Google as the leading provider of outsourced cloud-based campus email services. According to the survey, 89 percent of higher education institutions are either already using or considering switching to cloud-based solutions. Of four-year colleges and universities (including community colleges) that have already moved to the cloud, more than 56 percent have gone Google—including 64 percent of public universities and 66 percent of private universities.

Last month we shared that 61 of US News and World Report’s top 100 Universities are using Google Apps for Education. That number’s now up to 62, and is still just a snapshot of the thousands of institutions using Apps on campus. Schools that have recently selected Apps for Education as their collaboration platform include Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin, Wellesley College, University of Amsterdam, Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of York and University of Bristol.

In addition to these new schools, we’re also bringing some new integrations to Apps:

• OpenClass: Pearson has developed a free cloud-based Learning Management System that is tightly integrated with Google Apps and provides a new kind of learning environment that stimulates social learning. This is available in the Apps Marketplace.
• SlideRocket EDU: This presentation software integrated for cloud-based collaborative education enables you to unleash the creation, sharing and communication of ideas with an online application that connects with content in Google Apps for Education and is available on any device or browser. This is available in the Apps Marketplace.
• Blackboard Bboogle: Last year, Northwestern University presented their popular Bboogle (Blackboard + Google) application at our EDUCAUSE booth. Bboogle has now been certified by Blackboard and is available to other universities as a Building Block through Blackboard’s Extensions website. Bboogle enables instructors to link Blackboard course sites directly to Google Docs, Calendars and Sites without requiring a second login. And by automatically setting permissions for editing, it helps encourage and facilitate collaborative instruction.
• Desire2Learn: Users will soon be able to add widgets to Course Homepages that make it easy to view unread email messages in Gmail, keep track of upcoming events in Calendar, and submit assignments created in Docs.

If you weren’t able to join us in person at this year’s EDUCAUSE conference, you can check out some of our photos, and we’ll hope to see you next year.

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App Tuesday and Staff Picks help you find apps from the Google Apps Marketplace

Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Enterprise

This month we’re adding Staff Picks to our monthly App Tuesday posts to better help businesses identify and try great applications from the Google Apps Marketplace. With our inventory growing to well over 300 applications, these efforts help bring to the forefront new and interesting applications for your business.

Our vision for 100% web is to provide a seamless workflow with our apps and the best apps on the web. Whether you need project management solutions, finance tools or a database for your customer interactions, with Marketplace apps you can benefit from convenient integrations such as single sign-on, Gmail integration and Calendar and Docs synchronization.

We want to extend a warm welcome to some of the notable apps that have joined our Marketplace in the last month:

• Nutshell CRM - a customer management app that helps you manage leads and customers through a unified interface and mobile access
• Olark - a customer management app that helps boost sales on your website through a live chat widget
• Weebly - a website tool that makes it easy for you to create a great website with no technical expertise
• Symphony 440 - an application platform that enables you to create your own apps for CRM, project management and other workflow needs

We also want to highlight this month’s Staff Picks, which are chosen based on great functionality, ease of use, and deep integrations with Google Apps:

• Mavenlink (slideshow) - a project management solution for professional services delivery
• Solve360 (slideshow) - a CRM that integrates with Gmail, Calendar and Docs to help manage client projects
• Smartsheet (slideshow) - a project management app based on great functionality, ease of use, and deep integrations with Google Apps
• GQueues (slideshow) - a task management app that lets you share lists, assign tasks, get reminders and stay organized

Instead of managing on-premise solutions for your everyday business needs and dealing with constant software updates, patches and access issues, try running your business through Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace.

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Introducing TRUSTe data privacy certification for Apps Marketplace apps

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead

Over a year ago, we created the Google Apps Marketplace to help you easily discover, evaluate, and deploy integrated web applications for your business or school. In that time, many of you have told us that evaluating apps can be particularly tricky, as you need to consider questions like:

• who already uses the app, and why do they like it (or not)?
  
• will the app’s features address my particular needs?
  
• can I trust the vendor who created the app with my data?
  

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to answer these questions. For example, we offer verified app reviews to highlight comments from customers who we know to be using the app.

Today we’re announcing a feature designed to help address the trust question — a TRUSTe administered data privacy certification program for Marketplace apps. TRUSTe has created a certification program for installable Marketplace apps to verify that they clearly communicate their data handling and privacy practices. This program, which is optional for vendors, displays a green TRUSTe logo on a certified app’s Marketplace listing page as well as search results pages. The logo links then to a certification summary with more specific information about the app.



TRUSTe certification makes it easier for you, as a buyer, to verify the following about an app:

• the vendor has been contacted and certified by TRUSTe personnel
  
• the purpose for data collection and sharing, and the security used for sharing (https)
  
• there is an easy-to-read privacy policy available
  

Since certification is optional, the absence of a TRUSTe seal does not imply the app has unacceptable or difficult-to-understand practices for data handling and privacy. In fact, the program just launched today, so most apps have not yet applied for certification.

If you have additional questions about what this particular certification covers, please see the TRUSTe customer FAQ. If you’re a vendor with installable Marketplace apps and are interested in certification, please review the application process.

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Celebrating small businesses and integrated, easy-to-use web tools

Posted by Joanne Schneider, Google Apps Small Business Team

In honor of National Small Business Week, we’d like to take time this week to share ways that Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace can help small businesses work more productively and efficiently.

Today, we’re highlighting a few of the Small Business Web apps in the Google Apps Marketplace, and how our customers run their businesses on them every day. Google shares the Small Business Web’s dedication to providing tools that have enterprise-grade functionality, as well as align with small businesses’ priorities.

Apps that work together
Particularly for companies without a dedicated IT team or person, the list of necessary business tools can quickly become unmanageable. Web apps that provide deep integrations with Google Apps and with each other are especially useful for growing businesses that don’t have time to manage multiple, distinct applications.

Olark lets customers live chat with website visitors directly from the Gmail interface through Google Talk, and provides easy access to chat transcripts. Peter Macaulay of KitchenwareDirect.com.au says, “The ability to live chat with customers without leaving the Google Apps interface is a huge productivity advantage. The simple and elegant implementation meant we were up and running in a matter of minutes. Staff members are easily able to set their availability for chat, enabling them to easily multi-task.”

WORKetc is another app that makes Gmail into the front end workspace, but for CRM, project management, and customer support. It let’s you easily share emails related to particular projects with relevant team members without forwarding or copying other email addresses. D. Hogan of Varis Energy says, “Any emails that need to be shared with my team get tagged in the WORKetc gadget that is built right into Gmail. This immediately lets everyone else who is assigned to a project or lead have access to the new information from the received email.”

Access all the time
As compared to larger businesses, small businesses are even less suited to managing servers, and tend to have many employees on the road or in non-office locations. Accessing their data and documents from anywhere, on any Internet-connected device is a core benefit of using web-based tools like Google Docs. OfficeDrop digitizes paper documents to make them text-searchable in Google Docs. Greg Skidmore of Belpointe Asset Management says, “Each month we send a box of paper files to OfficeDrop and have them scanned directly into Google Docs. If I have a document that I need scanned right away, I use OfficeDrop’s scanning software, ScanDrop, and upload it immediately.”

Easy to Use
Small business owners and employees often wear a lot of hats and they’ve asked for solutions that are easy to learn and use. Michael Bower of Michael Bower Digital says, “I always need to know where my money is, without wasting time organizing my paperwork. As my business grew, I was losing control of my cashflow. Both Google Apps and FreshBooks have just enough features to keep my workflow and invoicing organized, allowing me to focus on my work.”

These are just a few examples of the many Small Business Web app vendors in the Google Apps Marketplace who provide the functionality and integrations a small business needs. Over 30 Google Apps Marketplace apps have already joined the Small Business Web and declared their commitment to helping small businesses focus on what they do best. They include:

Finance Bill.com billFLO EchoSign Expensify FreeAgent Freshbooks Harvest Kashoo Outright Shoeboxed

CRM Assistly Batchbook CRM Capsule CRM Connect2Field Disqourse CRM Get Satisfaction PipelineDeals SAManage Solve360 CRM Tactile CRM WorkETC

Doc Management Box.net FormLizard OfficeDrop Collaboration MindMeister Teambox uberVU YoolinkPro

Sales and Marketing Mailchimp Olark SiteKreator VerticalResponse zferral

We celebrate National Small Business Week to recognize the importance of small businesses for promoting a healthy economy, and we’re excited to help them continue to grow and succeed through the smart use of technology.

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