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Be Productive, Be Mobile, Go Google!

By August 16, 2012No Comments

Today is a first here on Shop Talk! We have our first guest blogger, @Lela Donelson! I met Lela at a networking function here in Houston and what a smart lady! We did what good networkers are supposed to do and met for coffee and our paths have always crossed. I invited her to share her passion with you and I’m glad she obliged. Enjoy Lela’s post today!

Small business owners wear many hats. During the course of one day they may go from the office to multiple business meetings, Have a business or networking lunch, pick the kids up from school, then go to an after hours event after which they go home and look at their email before going to bed.  It’s a mobile world. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets.  We are never far from some means of communication.  But how do we make our email, calendars, contacts and documents accessible from any device.  What do we use to create a document on the fly that we can access and edit from any of our mobile workspaces?  Many of us have Windows PC”s an iPhone and an iPad.  How do we make these two platforms play nice with each other?

The answer is in the cloud! Google will host your domain name email giving you  up to 10 email addresses at no cost and real time access to your email, calendar, contacts and documents from any internet connected device.  Add an appointment to your calendar using your tablet or laptop and view that appointment from your smartphone later without having to sync.  Create a document on your office PC and save it to Google Drive.  Open that document later and view it or edit it on your tablet while sipping a latte at Starbucks.    Send documents and information to a client from your smartphone while standing in line at lunch.

Google Documents hich are now part of Google Drive give you a full office suite. Create documents, spreadsheets, drawings, presentations and electronic forms using Googles free office suite.  Google documents are compatible with Microsoft Office but there are sometimes formatting issues when opened in Microsoft Office.  If you prefer to work in MS Office add the Google Cloud Connect plugin and all of your documents can be automatically or selectively saved to Google Drive for storage and access later.  Open and edit your MS Office documents on your tablet or smartphone using Cloudon, a free app for Androids, iPhone and iPad.

Google offers many more free services and applications to help busy entrepreneurs and small business owners stay productive but I would have to write a book to cover them all! Maybe I’ll do that!

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ABOUT LELA DONELSON

Lela Donelson facilitates and develops workshops on Google Apps and services and also trains and on Avaya, ShoreTel, NEC and other telecom systems.  She is the owner of Lela Donelson Training And Development, www.leladonelson.com and blogs about Google, iPhone and iPad apps, http:tipsfromthecloud.com

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