Wednesday 16 February 2011

Just Do It

In Loughborough at the moment for two related seminars. Yesterday was the first UK Universities Google User Group. A roughly even spilt between people who are already using Google Apps, and people who are evaluating it or considering options. As a representative of the latter group, I chaired a panel on 'Building the Business Case', and got to quiz Aline Hayes of Sheffield Hallam and Chris Sexton of Sheffield on why they adopted Google Apps, and how they made the case to do so. Lots of questions from me and from the floor about worries over security and loss of control, and some very good answers from Aline and Chris. Hopefully a recording of this session, and the others, will be up online soon.

Today is the UCISA Cloud Computing Seminar, so a more general agenda. Yesterday I felt like a bit of a laggard - I was talking to some of the same people I first quizzed 12 months about Google Apps & MS Live@Edu. Some were very surprised we haven't just got on with it! Today I can hold my head up a little higher, giving a 10 minute talk on something we did Just Do - Deploying GetSatisfaction at the Bristol. It's a great online forum / community support tool, and it took us very little effort to get it into service. Some lessons learnt from the experience though, which I hope others may find interesting.

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