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.

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.

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.