

Bringing Google+ to work - eneveu
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/08/bringing-google-to-work.html

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Matt_Cutts
We use both of these features very heavily at Google, so I'm really happy to
see them launch externally. The ability to restrict posts to within a company
lets you create a corporate social network very easily (think Yammer, Chatter,
etc.). One of the main complaints I hear about Google+ is that specific
friends aren't on it, but that's much less of an issue if your company uses
Google Apps. I spend a lot of time and get a lot of value out of within-our-
company Google+ posts.

And since Google has widely distributed offices, I can't tell you how many
video meetings I've attended, but it's a lot. Having the ability to join a
video conference/hangout from a link in Calendar makes such meetings really
easy to set up.

~~~
danmaz74
How easy is it to reshare a "company" post to the wrong people?

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Matt_Cutts
From the post: "Restricted posts are private to your organization and can
never be re-shared with anyone outside."

Now if you do a corporate G+ post and say "Bob in accounting sucks" and then
share that with Bob--that's on you. :)

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danmaz74
Thanks; so, you would need to copy and paste it to share it.

I don't know why, but psychologically I would feel like this is somehow less
private than, say, a mailing list. I'm probably becoming old :)

~~~
blinks
> I don't know why, but psychologically I would feel like this is somehow less
> private than, say, a mailing list. I'm probably becoming old :)

I think that's a really interesting comment! Perhaps it's because the UX is
more social network-y (FB/Twitter), which are historically public, and less
email-y+historically private?

~~~
danmaz74
That's possible, but a more likely reference is forums. The ones I used were
mostly public too :)

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Zenst
This is a great move for G+, only concerns having not tried it yet are the
following:

1) Free until end of the year, so in effect open roll-out beta testing and
once we have it how you like it and enough hooked, then we charge you a
unknown amount. Not sure in what depths of society that marketing model is
drawn upon but it is something that stood out.

2) Garantee's - when you share data in a closed circle (company or select
group of friends) withing a enviroment that allows open/public sharing and the
identifiers being user changable parameters then I would ask and suggest one
big addition. Make all interface changes approval acceptance only and by that
I mean allow a company to have a technical social person for the whatever
changes are needed but have the ability for all impacting changes (level of
changes definable even) needing approval of at least another person, maybe
even a few down to some needing CEO approval. You may have situations were you
have a internal post and later on wish that to be made fully public in just
the case that you dont want some internal posts ever publicly leaked and
whilst the permisions to say who can see things is there. Perhaps the ability
to add NEVERFORPUBLIC tags indicating that nomater what is changed down the
line with facebook style permision bias in whatever fasion, they will never
ever change unless the user who created them changes them. Also need to have
orga chart ability for higher ups to change incase a person leaves.

3) Think Murdoch - What legal aspects do social media posts have in
comparision to emails and do you have the ability to blind copy people into
posts as you would say BCC your lawyer on emails. Some companies like that
approach and how does G+ cater for them if it is going in the direction many
think it is.

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cyanbane
I really enjoy Google+. It honestly has become my defacto "social network"
when I just want to peruse whats happening in the world. There is a video game
that I have been following for the past few years that went live this weekend
and the community on Google+ is head and sholders above what I have found in
other places. The content (as a whole) has been more thought out and and as a
percentage I have wanted to read more of it than other sources.

That being said I think "circles" caters to niche groups of people wanting to
discuss a certain topic, will be interesting to see how another "post fencing"
appartatus plays with circles.

~~~
rsync
I have never used facebook, twitter, etc., but I have increasingly found
relevant content and discussion on g+ pages.

So much so that last week I attempted, unsuccessfully, to create a g+ account
for rsync.net. You'd think that wouldn't be rocket science.

Then all of that "real name" bullshit that I tried to ignore last year came
back to me. Google refuses to recognize the account, blah blah blah.

No, I am not giving them my personal information for these discussions, and
furthermore, multiple different people will be using this account (it's a
business account) so it's not appropriate to tie an identity to it anyway.

Does the "g+ for business" solve this problem ?

~~~
endtime
I think the use case you describe is that you create a Google account as
yourself, along with each of your colleagues. Then you create a G+ Page and
make them all administrators of it. You can act/post/etc. as the G+ page and
not as yourself, e.g. <https://plus.google.com/+TheCorcoranGroup>

Not saying this is ideal or that you should like it, just that I think that's
how you can do what you want to do.

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darklajid
In my world that makes about as much sense as 'your corporate intranet
facebook'. Heck, just as much as Contoso YouPorn. Zero.

Social networks, ignoring the problems with the current implementations, are
for your social life. I enjoy social interactions at work, but most of my
social life is _not_ connected to work. So social networks and work don't mix
for me.

And in what kind of business would you share stuff on a kind-of-but-not-quite
blogging platform? That seems to be a SharePoint (no fan either) contender
from a very weird angle..

~~~
timothya
I think it depends on the company, but I disagree with your point in general.
There are plenty of companies that would benefit from an easy model for
sharing content internally, whether it be links to articles relevant to the
company, wide discussions about internal (confidential) topics, or pictures
from a recent company BBQ. With the features Google launched today, companies
can safely use a social network and assume that internal information will stay
that way.

~~~
darklajid
Thanks for the reply.

That is done today already. Ignoring SharePoint: Many companies I know of
deploy wikis internally (for content) or just have shared network drives (for
pictures, movies).

Why should that leave the corporate net? And what feature is G+ offering? That
thing is about social interactions ('share content', 'chat', 'follow news').

So I have some issues here:

1) Mixing a type of site that is mostly for procrastination (FB, G+, this
site) into the company culture doesn't seem a smart move

2) All the useful features of G+ are probably already deployed internally
(which company doesn't have a way to share documents/news?).

3) What kind of (business) and size of (numbers of employees) would ever go
for this thing? For lots of businesses storing stuff in the cloud is a no-go.
For small-to-mid sized companies this seems .. laughable. Posting on G+ to
your circle of co-workers sitting behind you/on the same floor, connected to
the same network?

I'm sure I'm extra harsh because I don't even see the benefits of (some/most
of) these products in general, but at work? There's just no way that I can see
any added value.

~~~
timothya
Fair enough; again, it's probably not useful at every company, but in the
companies that I've worked for in the past (big and small) that have used
internal social networks (like Yammer for example), it's definitely been
beneficial to me.

I think that wikis and shared network drives don't work as well for sharing
content in the same way that they don't work for me sharing with friends.
People like the format of a social network, curating content and sharing it
with the right people in a way that it will pop up where they are looking and
provide an easy way to have a discussion about it. And this sort of content
shouldn't really "leave the net" (unless you're talking about the physical
intranet); the idea behind this feature is that it stays within the company's
control, in a place viewable only by employees.

To respond to your other points:

1) An interesting point, and this is where I think it depends on the company.
I don't really view Google+ as a time-wasting site (though I do moreso with
Facebook), because Google+ has a big focus on sharing interesting and relevant
_content_ to the user. In a company that embraces this sort of internal
sharing of content, I think it could be very useful.

2) Perhaps lots of places already have deployed solutions for internal
sharing; Google is just providing another way (a way that is being actively
developed and potentially already is being paid for by the company because of
other Google Apps).

3) I used Yammer at a small startup once, and it proved to be a nice way to
aggregate work-related content. But at really large companies that are willing
to have their data stored with Google, I think this is even more useful
because it provides a good way to communicate with people you don't know at
the company, and a way to follow what is being said by the internal superstar
developers.

~~~
darklajid
I liked the second paragraph. It's possible that I have an inherent dislike
(no pun here) for the 'social' format. It is to be, almost by definition,
unprofessional and low quality.

Maybe that's what colors my view on G+ in general and a corporate version in
particular. Have to think about it - hard to look past an assumption like this
on a whim. :)

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timothya
This is a really smart move by Google. This starts to eliminate the need for
corporate social networks (like Yammer), and lets businesses take advantage of
all the integrations that are happening with the other Google apps. As someone
who has used internal social networks like Yammer at previous companies, I can
honestly say that they are surprisingly useful - it gives other employees the
forum to share interesting and work-related content, and provides a place for
basic discussion on internal topics with a wide audience.

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chrisacky
Steve Yegge is most likely responsible for this feature being pushed through.

[https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...](https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

~~~
jmillikin
Steve Yegge accidentally posted his rant to the wrong account. Google+ for
apps wouldn't stop anyone from doing that, unless there's a way for
administrators to ban employees from using their personal accounts during work
hours.

~~~
gbog
In a subsequent post about his current project and conservative vs liberal
coding he seem to have mentioned it was not accidental.

~~~
gbog
I'm downvoted here, maybe because I'm wrong and misunderstood the last
sentence of Yegges post (1):

    
    
        (Special Note to my fellow Googlers:  
        Yes, I meant to post this externally.
        BOTH times. No, I am not the Mouth of
        Sauron.)
    

What can "BOTH times" mean, but that the first time, the "platform" rant, is
included?

(1)
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSK...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4vQtz)

~~~
cjhopman
My guess is that he accidentally posted it internally first and then posted it
externally. And so, both times he posted it, he meant to post it externally.

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jiggy2011
Great, so now people who don't want to sign away their privacy to a social
network don't get a choice when their employer decides to mandate use of this
company-wide.

This also pretty much forces you to merge your personal and work personas.

~~~
jeffjose
Nope.

Where I work, I have an enterprise account which has a gmail, drive, groups
and calendar which is signed in using a login@company.com account.

My personal stuff is different and is a different account, signed in using
personal_login@gmail.com

The key point is, my company knows only about @company.com (and Google doesnt
have any idea) and the other way around for @gmail.com account.

~~~
jiggy2011
Whilst I know it's possible to have multiple google accounts, I always thought
google+ was supposed to be restricted to 1 account per human being?

~~~
Evbn
Within a domain, yes.

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silverbax88
It's good that Google is trying to think about how companies (and people)
might not want to share everything they do publicly. However, Google should
spend considerable amount of time working on their core products.

Many of them are feature-poor (as an example, Google Calendar doesn't seem
have a setting to prevent your phone from getting automatic notifications, no
matter if you turn EVERY notification off).

~~~
josteink
Core product for whom?

Google+ brings Google valuable information about who you are and what you do
to their ad-words (revenue)engine.

Improving a Calendar app which already provides them with that information,
brings them little extra.

It's sometimes important to remember who Google's _real_ customers are. It's
not you.

~~~
hahainternet
Ah yes the Google's _real_ customers meme again.

It hasn't ever had any validity. __You ___are_ Google's customer as they need
you to click on relevant advertisements.

The advertising companies are also their customer. The intention is to hook
two customers up together.

Google are matchmakers. How you can twist that into what you posted I don't
know.

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seiji
Can we make a Joel Anti-Test? Ideally, you want zero points. Cases: Uses
Google+ Internally. Uses JIRA. Uses a VCS you have never heard of. Entire
product is licensed from an outsourced shop and resold under your own
branding. Extensive use of Windows desktops or servers. Uses one or more of
{MongoDB, Cassandra, CouchDB} at scale. ...

~~~
maayank
Why the first, why the last?

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levesque
Comment felt a bit like this to me : "I don't like Google+, so I'm going to
post a list of things that suck."

