How is Your Migration Going?
Wednesday, February 21st 2007 | Ismael Ghalimi
Over the past six months or so, I have met more and more people who have decided to make the switch from Office 1.0 to Office 2.0. Along the way, these pioneers are finding out what works and what does not, and are accumulating a wealth of experience that would most certainly benefit early adopters down the road. So, how about we compile them into some best practices?
What I am really looking for is the following:
- Primary reasons for making the switch
- First three or four applications migrated
- Things that worked
- Things that did not
- Strategies for remaining productive when being offline
- Mobile devices used, if any
- Most critical lessons learned
- Requests to service providers for making Office 2.0 work better
Granted, I am asking for a lot, while I am usually the one providing all the information. Nevertheless, I have a pretty good excuse for it: my wife and I just got our first baby (Neige Haley Chang Ghalimi), and I decided to take it easy this week. So, please take the stage, and share your experiences with the rest of us. Once things settle a bit, I will try to compile them all into some kind of Office 2.0 Early Adopter Guidebook.
Entry filed under: Office 2.0
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Wow, congratulations…
Don’t touch your keyboard for a few days (other than for mandatory baby photos).
I use a variety of Google applications to keep me organized and functioning, but there are a few key things that don’t exist, yet should.
1. A functional agenda for use with the calendar that doesn’t just send me my primary calendar.
2. A to-do list, and not just something on my Google Homepage. If Google could make a Project Management/To-Do List System, I could be almost completely Google integrated.
3. Better Gmail/Google Calendar integration. I should be able to add anything to my calendar directly from Gmail, not just the things Gmail notices as events.
There are more things, but those are my three big ones, especially the agenda.
I’m hard at work converting. Having a blast.
Primary reasons for making the switch
Desire to reduce my own infrastructure maintenance time/costs. Desire to increase functionality, while eliminating upgrade headaches. Desire to adopt alternative OS platforms without pain (a precursor would be to make the browser my platform, thereby making the OS an unimportant choice).
First three or four applications migrated
- Email, Calendar, Documents (Google Apps for Your Domain, a.k.a. GAYD)
- Contacts (Salesforce.com)
- To-Do/GTD (Salesforce.com, but not committed yet)
- RSS Reader (Google Reader)
Things that worked
GAYD is great, love the accessibility. Salesforce.com is rock-solid.
Things that did not
MS Money/Quicken—still struggling with this aspect. Tried to augment my online bank with Wesabe, but it just doesn’t gel for me. QuickBooks Online Edition is overkill and too expensive
Strategies for remaining productive when being offline
I don’t have one, other than pen/paper/Hipster.
Mobile devices used, if any
BlackBerry
Most critical lessons learned
Need a better password management solution. Right now, that is GenPass from Zarate. I can use it anywhere pretty easily, and yet still have horribly complex passwords.
Requests to service providers for making Office 2.0 work better
- Calendar integration between Salesforce.com and GAYD
- Email integration between Salesforce.com and GAYD
- I need a killer GTD application, and I am wasting massive time trying out 3 a week right now. Someone needs to nail this—though personal preferences may make this impossible, I realize.
Office 2.0 is a HIT!
Primary reasons for making the switch
Move away from proprietary local software in favor of accessible non-platform specific alternatives.
First three or four applications migrated
1. Gmail
2. Google Reader
3. Google Docs & Spreadsheets
4. Google Calendar
Things that worked
1, 2, and 3 above.
Things that did not
Google Calendar doesn’t quite integrate as well into my work/play life as I would like.
Strategies for remaining productive when being offline
Offline? Oh, you mean like driving the car, or taking a shower. I would like to give up driving, and I will probably invest in a water-proof keyboard.
Seriously, my work and my life-style are such that I am seldom out of Wi-Fi range. Those times when I am actually offline are the times when I really should be (e.g. paying attention to my wife and children, mowing the lawn, etc.).
Palm PDA, Small voice recorder for ‘got-to-haves’, small digital camera for image retention, Yellow legal pad & Ticonderoga #2 pencil.
Mobile devices used, if any
- Palm T|X (Wi-Fi enabled natively, oh yeah…)
- IBM Laptop (ditto)
- Cellular Phone (voice only)
Most critical lessons learned
When my computational needs are more closely aligned with my actual practical needs, I can make do with a much ’smaller’ computer. Translation: If I can use Google’s computers, then all I really need is a system that can run Firefox.
Requests to service providers for making Office 2.0 work better
PIM data that can be down/uploaded from PDA devices.
Hint: Palm T|X would be a great device to start with…
Zoli,
Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated.
I will send some pictures.
Best regards
-Ismael
Quazie,
Thanks for sharing!
Best regards
-Ismael
Frank,
Nice setup! Very close to mine.
Thanks for all the information.
Best regards
-Ismael
William,
I love your answer regarding working offline.
We need more of this kind of pragmatism.
Take care!
-Ismael
Frank,
Hi, I’m Jason the CEO of Wesabe. Thanks for trying out our service, and I’m sorry to hear that it didn’t work for you. I wonder if you could share what about the service didn’t click, and what we could do to improve it? You can respond here, email me, or call me at +1 (800) 511-8544.
The best way for us to make the product better is to hear from people like you.
Jason,
I sent you an email. Thanks for reaching out.
-Frank
Primary reasons for making the switch
I used to be an early adopter of just about everything. Three years went by the wayside as I moved back to the U.S. and had two kids (welcome to sleep deprivation, Ismael). I was looking for an inexpensive way to feel back in line with coming technologies.
A more practical reason is that I started traveling more. Coordinating between a home PC, a laptop, and an office thin client was becoming cumbersome. I was also completely out of sync with my wife and what she was doing. Having everything online seemed like a good solution.
First three or four applications migrated
First thing was calendar. I ended up going with Google Calendar for ease of use and ability to run and share multiple calendars with multiple people. There is other stuff out there, but this was just the easiest. Definitely the most successful transition.
Second thing was personal email, to Gmail. Easier archiving and searching was probably the main reason, along with access from anywhere.
Third thing was task lists, to Remember the Milk. Mobile access, integration with Google Calendar, dynamic searching and category creation, really responsive development team. Again, very, very happy with the transition.
Things that worked
Sharing and “social” aspects of online technologies—huge improvements in my productivity. Usability and functionality of the software is generally better than what I was using on my desktop. Access from anywhere—multiple platforms with same look and feel. Mobile access (for the most part) is acceptable.
Things that did not
Presentations. I need to use a corporate (OpenOffice.org) presentation format. I have yet to find an online tool that will allow new presentations to be created based on a saved template, and render them appropriately (colors, formatting, etc.). It’s just ugly, slow, and buggy, and keeps me tied to a laptop.
Corporate Mail. Would be happy to use Gmail, but that’s frowned upon for security reasons. I could do it surreptitiously of course… More of a corporate problem than a software or technology problem I guess.
Music. I use Pandora, listen to Radio-Indie-Pop.com, etc. but I would really like to have somewhere online (and cheap) to store my 45 GB of music. I may eventually decide that a streaming subscription is a better bet, and just dump it all, but I haven’t gotten there yet.
Strategies for remaining productive when being offline
Try not to be. I think you (Ismael) referenced some research a while back that people are never more than 30 or 40 minutes from a network connection. The only time I’m that far is when I’m on a plane. Even when I’m driving, I’m connected. Second stab is mobile (see below). Even if I’m not connected (e.g. on a plane), I still use my mobile to capture notes and thoughts.
Mobile devices used, if any
I have a Cingular 8525 that I use pretty constantly when I’m in motion or out of the house. Between Wi-Fi, UDPS, and basic GSM, I’m pretty much always connected to at least email, to do list, and calendar.
Most critical lessons learned
It only works if you’re willing to dive in completely. That doesn’t mean your entire life, but it does mean the entirety of task X. Keeping a list of to do items on sticky notes in my home office, while also trying to maintain a list online, just fails—especially when I find myself at my company office going “where did that phone number go?”. It has to be all or nothing.
Before you make that “all or nothing” plunge, try out a lot of tools. For any given task, there are lots of tools out there, some more suited to your needs than other.
Ease of use over functionality. If it isn’t easy to use, you won’t use it. Only use online tools if they will make your life easier.
Requests to service providers for making Office 2.0 work better
Mobile access still needs to be better. I can communicate with Google Calendar via SMS, which is nice, but not perfect. There isn’t an easy way to move a meeting. I can’t see the notes and comments on SMS. The website won’t render right on my mobile. This is just inexcusable—RTM gets it right using a separate HTML architecture, Java midlets/applets can solve the issue (e.g. Google Maps), etc. But most companies/sites just don’t bother yet.
The corporate world revolves around presentation slides. It’s great that I can do a text document online or a spreadsheet, but that’s not what I need for an Executive who wants a report on Y. They want slideware. That has to get a whole lot more robust.
Storage is still too cumbersome. Omnidrive is a huge step in the right direction, but they need to build in preferences better. Click on a file, it should automatically ask you to set the preference for that file type—open it online or on your desktop? With what site/program? Do that, and offer mass storage at reasonable price, and I’m there.
Lastly, hardware (and operating system). I’m totally with William Meloney. If I can run my life through a browser, I don’t need a high-end computer. I’d love to live my life through my mobile with a larger display and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for when I’m at home. Someone needs to come up with a stripped down operating system that will still run a full version of Firefox (with add ons) and the various drivers for peripherals. Make a phone version, and make an ultra thin laptop version. I’d buy one.
Quazie,
You might take a look at Remember The Milk.
Integration of task lists with Google Calendar is pretty good.
Matthew,
I am the CEO of Omnidrive. We are currently building a plugin architecture (as well as working on the protocols to define how application inter-operate with storage) to make what you described a whole lot easier. It will end up working a lot like file associations do on the desktop. We aren’t too far away from your Omnidrive being read/writeable from many different applications, with the user being able to dictate which applications can access which files.
And congratulations Ismael, I second the motion that you should take some time off.
Matthew,
Thank you so much for sharing all this. Really cool.
On the presentation side, have you tried ThinkFree Show? I have made my last three Board presentations using it, and it’s as close to Microsoft PowerPoint as it gets. Make sure to use the PowerEdit mode though.
Best regards
-Ismael
Nik,
Thanks for the offer, but Neige is a pretty easy going baby, at least for the time being. And there are too many good things going on at Intalio right now for me to take any time off without missing out the action. If only I could find some time to finish my IFR training…
Best regards
-Ismael
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