As a business, one way to look and feel professional is to have a custom email address with your domain name. For example, chris@yourwebsite.com is more professional than chrisbusiness@yahoo.com. If you’ve been wanting to overhaul your business’ communication system then you’ll want to look into Google Apps (www.google.com/apps). Google Apps lets you use your domain name to create those custom and professional email addresses and more.
It’s always tough trusting a third party for your crucial business communications. The comforting thing with Google Apps is that they use widely adopted standards and protocols for these systems. The advantage of using a non-proprietary system is that it makes it easy to get your email and calendars into almost any computer application or smart phone.
For example, my business uses Google Apps for all of it’s email, calendars, and instant messaging. Here is how Google Apps works for me and how it can work for you.
Email:
I have a couple of email addresses for my business. Some emails come to me and others go to my assistant (my awesome wife). I can check my email via the web interface (which allows me to access it on any internet connected computer), my MacBook Pro, and my iPhone. They all stay synced up thanks to IMAP. I can create a folder on my Mac and it will show up on my iPhone this allows me to move messages to those folders when I’m on the go or away from a computer. If I delete a message on my phone, then it’s deleted on my computer.
Another great feature is that Google has some of the best junk/spam filters around. So if one of your employees has put their company email address on too many “win a free iPod” sites then this will be a life saver. Google also uses industry-leading security so your confidential information is safe.
Calendars:
Much like email, I have calendars set up that stayed synced thanks to Google Calendar and it’s use of CalDAV. Once again I have access on the web, my computer, and my phone. The thing that can make calendars really useful are the alarms and notifications. We use our calendars to remind us of anything from appointments to phone calls. If I’m sitting in front of my computer I’ll get a pop up message with the reminder. If I’m on my phone I receive another notification with or without a sounded alarm. It’s really interesting when my assistant and I are both on our computers and have our iPhones out (notifications will go off on all four of our devices at once). There is no way we are going to miss a reminder!
An ideal situation is that I’m out on an appointment and my assistant books me a new appointment for later in the day. She sets a notification to go off 2 hours before the new appointment. So even if I don’t look at my calendar I get the notification alarm or vibration on my phone. Next time I look at my phone I will see the new appointment and see useful information like location and notes.
Another great use of Google calendar is it’s ability that each user can have their own personal calendar, it can set up group calendars with multiple administrators, and it can create public calendars that you can put on your website. If you ever need to post events and dates on your site, there is no better way then having a dynamic web calendar that people can interact with and even add to their own Google calendar so they don’t miss an event.
Instant Messaging:
I use Google Talk to communicate with my assistant. Either from iPhone to iPhone, or computer to iPhone and vice versa. Google Talk uses Jabber technology that many instant messaging applications like iChat on the Mac, Pidgin on the PC, and IM+ on our iPhones use.
If you ever received an email from a co-worker that says “Hey, what do you want to do for lunch?” then you may want to move those kinds of employee to employee communications to instant messages. Your email inbox will thank you!
You can do more than just text chatting. Depending on your computer and application setup, you can do multi-way voice chats, video chats, file sharing, and even screen sharing. This can help your office become more efficient if they use these tools appropriately.
This tool has actually helped expand my business outside the borders of Oklahoma. I have a customer on the other side of the country that I do personal Mac training with. We use iChat’s Mac to Mac screen sharing feature to see and control his desktop while talking through our microphones just like we were on a phone call.
Documents:
Google Docs are helpful if I’m away from my computer and I need to jump on a public computer to create a document. I can use Google Docs web based word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation tool and then send it to a customer. It’s not nearly as powerful as Microsoft Office but it is compatible.
So now your thinking “Okay Chris, this sounds great but how much is this going to cost me and my business?” Well, if you have less than 50 users you’re in luck. Like everything else Google it’s free. This free service is called the Standard Edition. For businesses who will need more than 50 users they have their Premier Edition which runs $50 per user per year. This also gives a few more features like 25GB of email storage per user, versus 7GB. You also get 24/7 phone support and more. Google Apps is as little as 1/3 the cost of solutions like Microsoft Exchange 2007.
You can learn more about Google Premier Apps benefits at: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/details.html
Getting all of this setup can be a little daunting. It requires some settings to be changed with your domain registrar. Google gives you instructions on what to do but if your not comfortable then contact your domain registrar. Most can get it all setup with a simple phone call.
The above article I wrote for the new business section of the October 2009 issue of Stillwater Living magazine. Thank you to Sarah Little for letting me republish the article here. Learn more about the magazine and publisher, Peacock Pro here. Be sure to pick up your copy, it’s only $2 at magazine stands around Stillwater.
