Why we love Google Hangouts

We were recently invited to the Google Plus Page, 'Google Live Events' and just had to share it with you. The page lists all the Google Hangout Events happening right now, visit and Google+ connect with them here:

You can save the live events to your Google calendar and even publicise your own. Google Hangouts launched last summer at the same time as Google+ in the summer of last year is growing in popularity. 

There is a really useful post over at Social Media Examiner, which talks about five creative ways that businesses are using Google+ Hangouts. Including a live Q&A session with Cadburys UK and their customers. Read the article which talks about businesses using Google Hangouts here:

Google Hangouts enables you to share expert level information with your audience wherever they are. The free service is great alternative to Webinar's and are very simple to set up.

Google Hangouts allow individuals, groups and businesses to:

• Easily stream broadcasts directly into Google+, your YouTube channel and your website. (And if you are feeling confident enough you can broadcast live to the world).
• If the customer on the Google Hangout just wants to ask you a question they can sign on, chat and bring their questions. 
• Host a video chat instantly with up to 9 people (useful for in-house & partner meetings) Share files and documents with your hangout.
• Watch a YouTube video together and chat alongside it.
• Share your screen with others.
• Record your hangouts for viewing later. (useful for in-house meetings)

How businesses can use hangouts

Businesses may wish to hold themed hangouts and invite their customers to bring questions to the hangout on particular topics, for example a 'commercial property consultant' could invite their customers to ask questions on ‘flexible leasing options'. The following week the 'commercial property consultant' could hold another Google Hangout on a topic that was brought up at the last.  The main benefit of inviting customers to 'hangouts' is that you can segment customer needs and target them at a later date.

Businesses may also wish to:

• Offer customised coaching sessions using Google+ for time saving benefits as broadcast and published (to YouTube) virtual coaching sessions will help replace query emails and lengthly training documents.  This however could just be a simple 10 minute Q&A between your team and clients.
• Host a hangout where you interview a key member of your team or related partner or client.

How Rocktime are planning to use Google Hangouts

To reduce travel time, Rocktime are soon to set up virtual brainstorming hangouts with their client's and client's partners for training and brainstorming sessions. We have plans to host a few ‘how to chats’ with regards to search marketing, mobile websites, ecommerce and social media.
If this article has interested you and you are keen to look into the possibility of using Google Hangouts for your business, please get in touch with our sales team to discuss further.
 
In the meantime learn more about Google Hangouts and connect with us on Google+ by adding us to your circles,  Rocktime's Google+ profile page can be found here.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Intro to Google Apps for Education

As we have clients in the education market, this morning we have taken time out to find out a bit more about “Google Apps for Education”, which offer free (and advert free) set of customisable tools to enable faculty, staff and students to work together more effectively. More than 10 million students use Google Apps.

A quick scan of the news and official posts from Google shows that this is really taking off.

The 3 key benefits are listed as:
• Communication – Enhance your community's dialogue with hosted email, shared calendars and integrated video chat.
• Collaboration – Google Docs and Google Sites enable students and teachers to share documents online, at any time and from any location.
• Customization – Easily integrate your existing IT systems with Google Apps while keeping your school's domain safe and secure.

On quick review it appears to have mainly taken off in USA; however, we did read a blog from a former UK header teacher who had become a certified “Google Apps for Education trainer” via The Google Teacher Academy and set up her own business to push technology innovation in the education field. So it is happening here people. We also found this statement from Leeds University, there are further case studies on the Google Apps for Education website:

Leeds Metropolitan University Higher Education "We had Microsoft Exchange but we found that it wasn't being used by students. They preferred Hotmail or Google Mail. We're trying to be very contemporary and that includes our IT strategy. We believe in working together with organisations that complement us and can add value. That was a big part of moving to Google."
Barbara Colledge, Dean of Partnerships.

The Google Teacher Academy (mentioned above) is “a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies”. There are several videos on YouTube on Google Apps for Education, here is a video from the Google Apps Education team: If you go to YouTube and search Google Apps for education and you will find several videos from Head Teachers.

To give further insight, into potential growth of the 'The Google Teacher Academy' and 'Google Apps for Education', we found a great post , published just yesterday from bclocalnews.com titled “Power of social learning can help students, teachers”; which reported that: “A massive, six-year study was completed in 2009 by Project Tomorrow (http://www.tomorrow.org/), which involved the “largest collection of authentic, unfiltered” stakeholder participation in any known similar study, with the involvement of 1.85 million K-12 students in more than 23,000 schools and including 26,312 parents and 38,642 teachers”.

They also noted that: “The study report revealed three “essential elements” for effective, 21st-century education:

• socially-based learning helps students process and personalize their learning,
• un-tethered learning allows students to not have to rely solely on teachers for information, and • digitally-rich learning enables students to access and process material in a variety of ways, as well as driving productivity”.

Read more about:
Above mentioned post: “Power of social learning can help students, teachers” Google Teacher Acadmey Google Apps for Education

We have recommended Google Docs, which form part of the Education Apps, previously on this blog; read our post on Google Docs just got better.
Also, don’t forget that “We grow our own” at Rocktime, if you have ideas to increase your productivity with an intranet system or application, then talk to us about it, so we can discuss the development further call Rocktime Sales Team, or visit our Intranet / Extranet page for more information.

Author: Sarah Griffiths