Google Atmophere Conference Session 7 Notes

November 16, 2009 by Edwin Wang · Leave a Comment
Filed under: CIO

Google held a conference called Atmosphere on Oct.22 in London. They invited several CIOs to talk about Google Apps and Cloud services on the Panel of “Collaboration in the Workplace”. The CIOs participated in this session 7 included:

Paul Cheesbrough – CIO, Telegraph Media Group
Francois Blanc – CIO, Valeo
Todd Pierce – SVP & CIO, Genentech
Andy Beale – CIO, Guardian Media Group

Key Take-aways:
- Real benefits of collaboration; research findings from The Telegraph Media Group
- Consumerization: user expectations and skills are set in the consumer realm
- Adoption: highly intuitive with progressively declining learning curve
- Mobility: enhances collaboration and accelerates time-to-market
- Innovation: users finding unanticipated ways to deliver business value

Here are some notes that we took from this discussion:

Presentation by Telegraph Media Group:

TMG began its transition to Google Apps in July 2008 and completed the migration in July this year. A survey of workers in October this year found that in their first six months of using Gmail about 45 per cent of staff rated it as worse or the same as using Microsoft Outlook as their mail client.

TMG introduced Google Apps with a set of measures to help their employee for sake of a smooth migration, including initial training, deploying migration tool from outlook to Gmail, Open workshops, personal support, etc.

After six months of using the new system, the survey found that 82 per cent of employees rated using Gmail as superior to using Outlook, and 65 per cent of employees feel they are able to work more effectively than they could before the shift to Google Apps.

The survay conducted by a third-party agency also showed that:
From the email and messaging aspect, it showed 0.95 greater efficiency in the first six months adoption, which grew to 1.6 times greater after six months.
From the communication aspect, with the better integration of Google Apps suite, staff started to talk collaboratively, they spent 36% more time to communicate, most of those were recognized to be productive communication.

The Genentech case:
1) Genentech introduced Google Apps without promotion, while it turned out to be huge adoption among the employee. Moving to Google allows users to organize around their works rather than their tools. It helps a lot for employee to share documents within the company and with partners. It lets people to have more control over their information and over their work, to avoid over-communication.
2) Google Calendar with customized mobile application — Finding Your Room (Google API compliant Customized Application) helps to better organize and manage of the hundreds of meeting rooms and spaces.

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日本語抜粋：

イギリスのTeleｇraph Media Groupより：

Telegraphは、Google Appsを導入する際に従業員がスムーズに移行できるようなソリューションセットを紹介しました。初期トレーニング、OutlookからGmailへの移行ツール、オープンワークショップ、ユーザサポートなどが含まれています。ユーザの受け入れは、最初の1ヶ月で50％を超えていましたが、半年後82％となりました。

第三社によって行われた調査によると：

メールとメッセージングからみると、効率性は、導入より6ヶ月内には以前の0.95倍となりましたが、6ヶ月以降は1.6倍上がりました。

コミュニケーションからみると、Google Appsの良くできているインテグレーションによって、スタッフ間の話し合いが始まって、コミュニケーション時間は以前より36％長くなり、ほとんどは効率的なコミュニケーションだと思われます。

結論として、65％のスタッフは仕事が以前よりもっと早く、もっと効率的というふうに感じられています。

Genentechの場合：

①Genentechは販売促進なしでGoogle Appsを導入しましたが、それは従業員の中で巨大な影響があると判明しました。Googleに移行することによって、従業員はツールより自分の仕事に専念できるようになりました。会社内部及びパートナーとのドキュメント共有はもっと簡単にできるようになって、過剰コミュニケーションを避けるために、従業員が自分の情報及び仕事を制御させるようになりました。

②Googleカレンダーとモバイルアプリケーション（部屋を探せ！Google APIによってカスタマイズされたアプリケーション）は、数百のミーティングルーム及びスペースの管理をもっと簡単にできるようにしました。

イギリスのTeleｇraph Media Group(TMG)より：

TMGは、2008年7月から今年6月まで約一年間かけてGoogle Appsに移行しました。今年10月に行われた従業員向けの調査によると、約45％の従業員はGmailはMicrosoftのOutlookと又はメールクライアントと同じように利用不便とコメントしました。

TMGは、Google Appsを導入する際に従業員がスムーズに移行できるようなソリューションセットを紹介しました。初期トレーニング、OutlookからGmailへの移行ツール、オープンワークショップ、ユーザサポートなどが含まれていました。

Gmail導入の半年後、同じ調査によると、

約82％の従業員はGmailがOutlookより使いやすい、約65％の従業員は自分の効率性はGmail導入前と比べて上がったとコメントしました。

メールとメッセージングからみると、効率性は、導入より6ヶ月内には以前の0.95倍となりましたが、6ヶ月以降は1.6倍上がりました。

Genentechの場合：

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The Q&A part:
Q: What is the biggest resistance when moving to Google Apps?
A: The biggest resistance came from the IT department, the IT department has to deal with a lot of transition, partically for the network security issues, then people start to recognize the function benefits.

In Telegraph’s case, the biggest problem is conflicts between the new collaboration pace and the business pace, they are motivated to change their business pace step by step.

Q: How are you addressing collaborations crossing enterprise boundaries as compared to within the enterprise boundary?
A: The cloud really is a good fit for providing flexibility to cooperate with partners or competitors. You do have to rely upon employee to use information responsibly, that’s always the case. The good news is the speed efficiency. You can give the right information to the right collaborator without delay.

Q: Have you abandoned the extra security layer, or do you just rely on the normal approach that we are taking on consumer space , or you added additional security protection on top of what Google does natively?

A: Guardian and Genentech have kept as is their advanced authentication, such as two -factor authentication. Genentech is still only allowing authenticated equipment to access Google Apps and keeping them in house.

Telegraph has abandoned the extra layer with cautious decision.

Update:
Google’s offering within the Gmail suite now includes voice and video services that a typical corporation will find nearly impossible to provide at the Google price. Voice and video features enhance the capabilities of e-mail and instant messaging for Communication and further enable Cooperation within the corporation and beyond.

At the recent Google Atmosphere conference at a Communication and Collaboration panel made up of CIOs of companies having deployed Google Apps the Genetech CIO emphasized that collaboration features of Google Apps allowed them to increase the productivity of their typical user. Users and their partners can for example work together at the same time on the same document regardless of whether they are inside or outside the firewall.

Update:

Silicon.com has a article about Telegraph Media Group’s transition to Google Apps in details. They also mentioned that Telegraph Media Group is hosting their CRM system on salesforce.com and utilizing Amazon EC2 to support their Business Intelligence and analytics work.

Check out this article at businessweek.com

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