Google docs is becoming the work-around of choice for people wanting to get around weaknesses or constraints of their organisation's document storage systems.
At recent training course I was told about:
- a charity where staff in the marketing department use Google docs to create and store their documents because it allows them to collaborate on documents with people from other parts of the charity (whereas their shared drive is restricted to deparmental silos)
And
- a bank with a very strong compliance and information security regime, where some colleagues were using Google Docs to create and store business documents in order that they could work on documents at home (corporate systems were were extremely slow to access remotely, and banned the sending of word documents as attachments to a web based e-mail address)
One one level the rise of Google docs is simply one large US corporation battling another (Google versus Microsoft). Google docs is a less sophisticated version of Microsoft Word available via the web rather than from your organisation's servers.
The interesting thing is that whereas Microsoft are using a traditional IT business model of selling software to organisations, Google are using a web 2.0 model. Like other web 2.0 applications Google docs is aimed at individuals not at organisations, is free to individual users, depends for its success on achieving a critical mass of users, and wants to grow virally.
The one significant advantage it has over Microsoft Word is that I can invite anyone willing to get themselves a Google account to collaborate with me on one of my Google docs. This gives Google Docs the potential to grow virally: once someone has been invited to collaborate on one of my documents there is a high chance they will then use it to create their own documents, and in turn invite others to collaborate with them.
A further advantage to an individual of using Google docs for work documents is that they then retain access to these documents even after they have left their organisation.
The biggest weakness in Google docs is that although it allows a user to share documents with colleagues it does not allow them to share folders with colleagues. It is not possible for a folder to be created on Google docs that all team members can access. This means that teams are still dependant on their organisation's systems to capture and keep records of their work.
Here are two potential scenarios for how the future of document handling will go over the next five years:
Document management in 2012: Scenario 1:
The functionality of free web applications like Google Docs and Gmail, and hotmail developed rapidly between 2007 and 2012. Individuals started to use them for more and more business purposes, and to rely on their work provided applications less and less.
By 2010 many organisations had ceased providing staff with e-mail accounts and in-boxes, and ceased providing personal storage areas on network servers or document management databases. They saw little advantage in providing these facilities when the organisation could not access the material due to data protection considerations (and their staff preferred web-based alternatives anyway!)
Organisations concentrated instead on:
- providing staff with secure web connections for them to use their applications of choice to communicate and collaborate
- providing staff with a connection to an electronic records management system where staff could transfer or deposit those documents that they want stored as an organisational record.
Document management in 2012: Scenario 2
By 2007 the web had already provided individuals with generic word processing packages and webmail which they could use instead of their organisation's systems.
By 2010 generic collaborative software became freely available via the web, with functionality equivalent to those of the major software vendors. Groups of colleagues could use these free applications to create a workspace/project site. They could then invite others (inside or outside the organisation) to join, collaborate on documents, and share news with each other.
Organisations ceased providing collaborative or records management systems in-house. Instead they concentrated on ensuring that the organisation could identify, access and protect all of those workspaces/project sites in which work is conducted in their name.
The nature of the contract between organisations and individuals has changed:
- In 2007 an organisation's IT department could decide whether or not to allow a particular member of staff or team to access and use a particular application or database hosted on the organisation's servers.
- By 2012 it was down to the individual or team to decide whether or not to allow the organisation to access and share in the administration of their workspace/project site, hosted on the web.
