Head in the Clouds

Productivity in the Cloud

Chances are that by now you are already using cloud based productivity tools. If you use Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, you certainly do. I suggest that your blog or use of a cloud based corporate wiki is also a productivity tool. However, we are going to focus in this section on applications that most people might think belong firmly with your own computer.

The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing, spreadsheets and presentations) has exploded over the past few years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree; web-based apps have their place.

One large benefit to web-based applications it that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easy accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.

I created the above document in Google Docs and copied and pasted it into my blog. I am used to Microsoft Word for creating my documents and I find this very similar. I continue to be astonished at the amount of applications and tools available for our use on the internet, all with very user friendly help features to make our use of them easy and straightforward. I am very hopeful that some of these discoveries stay with me so I can share them with colleagues and customers alike.

Some of the reading material can be very wordy and disjointed on CCL Learn and I do find it hard to stay focused at times yet feel proud that I have perservered. Upon speaking to colleagues that have completed CCL Learn I don't appear to be the only one that has found it challenging. I have also heard that the powers that be are going to tweak the programme to make it flow more organically and be less disjointed. This will be great for those yet to experience the world that is CCL Learn.