This you already know: Google this week added a new feature native to Google Docs that makes it possible to export one or all of your Google Doc files. Google’s recently announced Data Liberation Front site includes Google application-specific details on existing options for exporting your Google data, including one added this week that details Escaping from Google Docs.

Oddly, one thing the Google posts fail to mention is that you can also “convert, zip and download” one or all of your Google Docs folders, not just the individual files in them. Just select “My folders” in the left-hand tree pane, and in the right pane select the folders you want to download. Then select “More actions > Export” and have at it. If you export your Google Docs folders, you will be pleased to discover that the zip file you download preserves the same folder structure.

Here’s a simple example of how we use Google Docs within our Google Apps domain to share tech solutions with all staff at LSNC:

Today we felt it was time to let our more ambitious users know how to do a bulk export of their Google Docs to their desktop or other location of choice. So we used Google Docs to create instructions on how to bulk export your Google Docs, with links to the applicable Firefox add-ons and a few basic screen captures to illustrate particular steps. The version of the document linked in this post is shared as a public web page, for illustrative purposes here, but internally what we actually do is simply make the document viewable by all within our domain, and then add a link to it to our endlessly exciting “Team Gizmo Updates” announcement page in Google Sites, plus link it to a special “Google Tools” page, also part of our Google Sites content.

All within our domain can now search for and/or navigate to the solution at our Google Sites. Fewer tech calls on this question. Everyone is happier.

Last week I participated in an NTAP webinar offering a quick-hit intro to various Google applications. My segment was Google Apps specific, showing how LSNC now uses Google Sites as its “official” intranet site for what we call our “Secured Private Network.”

As a modest coda, without any accompanying audio but perhaps of interest as an example how easily one can create a presentation using Google Docs and then publish it to the Web, here are the slides I used during the presentation: Google Apps = Google Sites = Intranet. The slide presentation was created entirely within Google Docs. You should see options at the bottom of the viewport for viewing particular slides, and others options for printing the presentation as a PDF or a PPT, the latter being usable in PowerPoint if that is your druthers. Another useful action is the option to create a copy to Google Docs of the slide presentation, a feature that works in both your domain’s Google Apps or your personal Google account.

What are other ways might one use Google Apps? Among current examples I can think of within our organization, staff use Google Apps to do the following:

• The forms feature in Google Docs is used by the executive office to track compliance by local offices when conducting California State Bar approved MCLE events.
• Very commonly, individual staff use folders in Google Docs to maintain personal document collections on non-case projects, including originals created or shared within LSNC in Google Docs, as well as imported Word and PDF files from those outside LSNC.
• Google Docs and Google Sites were used in combination by one office to create individual “workplan” spreadsheets which were then embedded in a Google Site used as the office’s work plan site. As staff updated their individual workplans, changes were displayed in real time at the shared Google Site.
• Tech staff archive and share among themselves select pieces of reusable code for specific projects, e.g., the custom CSS code used for LSNC’s Secured Private Network site, Google Search Appliance configuration sets and parameters being used for The Findability Project, jQuery and other JavaScript code blocks being used for various LSNC web projects, and so on.
• Vetting of proposed policies and protocols by doing Google Docs shares rather than using email attachment loops.
• While LSNC still relies on the superb Basecamp platform for management of large-scale litigation and advocacy projects, advocates are being encouraged and have begun to create individual project management sites using Google Sites, even for projects with outside participants. For example, LSNC’s Race Equity Project has assembled an editorial team using Google Sites to co-ordinate the drafting of an upcoming Clearinghouse Review article on “framing” issues. The site is also used to archive notes and documents for the meetings and presentations that have been conducted as part of that drafting process.
• Twenty five LSNC staffers, with representatives from all offices, formed their own “LSNC Greening Project.” How do they communicate and share information? They use Google Sites as their home base, in combo with Google Docs to share documents and a private Google Discussion Group to thrash things out. (They could simplify things by using the announcement page feature in Google Sites to conduct discussions, but that’s their call.)
• Office managers use the forms feature in Google Docs to report changes to IT staff about required changes for personnel listings, Gmail changes, and additions and removals from discussion groups.
• A pro bono component in one office has created an internal Google Site with multiple list pages for tracking case vignettes, available attorneys, cases assignments, contact information, dates assigned and completed, and so on. Everyone in the office working in support of pro bono cases has access to the site.

Just a few ideas among many in current use at LSNC. If you move to Google Apps, you’ll pretty quickly discover even more uses.

Think of this as the poor person’s “(Google) HotDocs” for data.

Here’s the context for today’s post: Last week at the 2008 TIG conference I joked during my presentation about how hard it was to keep up with the constantly enhanced features in Google Docs. Well, as if on cue, Google Docs did it again today. Now when setting up a “share” of a spreadsheet within Google Docs, you can create a form that allows others to provide the data you want entered into the shared spreadsheet, without their even having to go the spreadsheet itself. Read all about it in Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information.

Here’s a real-world screenshot of a “shared” form dialog I created for the MCLE spreadsheet illustrated during last week’s TIG presentation. Yes, this new type of “share” means you don’t even have to really share the way I explained last week, i.e., giving others the ability to “view” or “collaborate.” Now you can just share a form accessed via a link in an email. They fill out the form and the data is automatically added directly to your Google spreadsheet.

Just think what you could do with this new feature when using Google Docs for event registration logs, or culling updated information from staff within your organization, or doing quick-hit surveys with in-house staff or outside lists, or … you get the idea. (Oh, if only we’d had this feature available when LSC a ways back requested “unable to serve” data for our clients!)

Like I was saying in Austin, it’s time for “Rethinking Collaboration.” No kidding.

Following up on all things TIG 2008 in Austin last week, I have posted a slightly trimmed version of the presentation given by Tony White and me: Rethinking Collaboration. It is a bit heavy (5MB+ zipped) since the presentation was built with 100+ screenshots. I could have saved some weight posting it as a PDF, but that invariably compromises the quality of the screenshots, so I’ve instead posted it here in all its original PPT glory. I saved you a few KB of download by excising all the lame joke slides, as well as the screenshots of Google Docs with local LSNC office information. (Yes, a copy of the same slides will be available via the LSC 2008 TIG repository.) Hope the slides are helpful to others in getting at least a modest feel for how use of Basecamp and Google Docs can be powerful tools in your organization for managing and sharing projects and documents. That was the goal at least.

I must apologize for attempting at TIG to cram 10 pounds of cement into a five-pound bag. As a result, the Google Docs segment got truncated and I never even got to a planned discussion of the wonders of MediaWiki, WordPress, Live Writer and a slew of alternatives to the Google Docs paradigm. While at TIG I posted links to those various alternatives, so I encourage those interested to try them out as well. Google Docs is fab, for sure, but other options may suit your work style better. (I must admit I do not actually use it, but on my personal Web slick-o-meter, I have to give props to Adobe’s flash-based Buzzword. It’s worth a Web drive-by just to take a look at it. It is a beautiful thing.)

I give public thanks again here to Tony White of Bay Legal for his participation in and support of the presentation. In my book Tony remains the best sounding board in the legal services tech business, and he committed a huge amount of unseen time to help our presentation come together. Thanks, of course, to Glenn Rawdon and Joyce Raby for all the hospitality and their patience and attention helping me out with some last minute logistics. Mea culpa, guys! And it was great to meet and talk with so many familiar names but unfamiliar faces (Gabe, Steve, Siobhan, among many others) and others I knew well but had not seen for many years. Keep up the good work, people.

The following are links to the various web-based apps (and related articles) to which I likely will refer tomorrow during the “Rethinking Collaboration” segment of the 2008 TIG Conference:

• Basecamp
• Buzzword
• Google Docs
• Live Writer
• MediaWiki
• Microsoft Office Live Workspace
• WordPress
• Zoho Office

• Google Docs Bulk File Uploader
• Google Docs Sidebar (for Firefox only)

• The Search Party, Ken Auletta, The New Yorker (January 14, 2008)
• Writing a Book in Google Docs, Philipp Lenssen, Blogoscoped.com (January 23, 2008)

On Friday in Austin at the 2008 TIG Conference, I will be giving a presentation (with the capable partnership of Tony White of Bay Legal) on using Basecamp, Google Docs and other web-based apps for collaborative work. And apropos of that very topic, current users of Google Docs may be interested to take a look at Google’s new Google Docs bulk file uploader. Get your upload on, people! And on Friday we’ll suggest reasons for doing so.

The shortest 40+ paths between your brain and Google Docs: Google Docs & Spreadsheets Keyboard Shortcuts. Turn on, key in, drop out.

At the risk of reinforcing the view some have that all I do is twiddle with Google stuff all day (I don’t), I weigh in here with yet another Google post to mention a few low-profile tweaks implemented last week in the free “standard” Google Apps configuration used by LSNC. LSNC relies on Google Apps primarily for domain-hosted Gmail, but also as a vehicle for promoting use of web-based individual and collaborative tools, principally Google Calendar, Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Notebook, all of which have integrated “sharing” features. Google Apps is not the cure for cancer, but it has a lot to recommend it for non-profits ready to tap its various, typically (but not always) user friendly features at essentially no cost and with minimal maintenance effort.

The latest Google Apps tweaks are modest but helpful and worth noting. Some, most notably the email migration feature, are not freebies. But even the Google App minimalists like us got several real goodies:

Shared LSNC Contacts: OMG! (Oh my Google!) Domain-hosted Gmail now offers a system-level share-contacts option that automatically integrates all domain email addresses into one’s Gmail “contacts.” What this means in practice is hugely helpful. LSNC staff no longer need to add or delete LSNC domain email addresses to their Gmail contacts. The names and email addresses are just there (or not, as staff are removed from the domain). Now when composing I just begin typing the first few letters of any LSNC staffer’s name or email address and Gmail offers it as an option to insert as an email address, without my ever needing to add them to contacts.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets Integration: Since the get-go, our version of the free Google Apps has always included Google Gmail and Google Calendar. Well, last week Google finally integrated its wonderful Google Docs & Spreadsheets features directly into the mix. Now we have direct access to Google Docs from within our LSNC Gmail accounts without having to login separately. Sweet.

(Never used Google Docs? Check out the Google Docs & Spreadsheets video training, a product overview that also explains how you can use it to collaborate with others. Think of the possibilities.)

Option to Open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets in Google Docs: It gets even better, although this is a feature that has long been available in premium versions of Google Apps but only debuted in the freebie version last week. Now that the standard version of Google Apps integrates Google Docs, whenever you receive a Microsoft Word document or an Excel spreadsheet as a file attachment, you will now see a link at the bottom of the Gmail message for opening the attached file directly into Google Docs.

Option to View PowerPoint Slide Shows: This is a new feature for all. If someone sends you a PowerPoint presentation as a file attachment, you will now see a link at the bottom of the Gmail message for viewing the slide show within your web browser. No, you do not need PowerPoint installed on your computer. Really. It works.

While viewing PowerPoints in Gmail this way is new, Gmail has long offered similar functionality for a slew of other file types.