We had the visit of Luca Paderni from Google yesterday to take us through digital communications as applied to academic institutions: Google Apps. He gave us a short, simple presentation of the uses of bringing under one house your communications needs; centralised, simplified and unified calendars, shared work documents, chat facilities, message alerts etc. All of this in the language you choose...useful for international students for whom French is neither a first nor a second language. I particularly liked the way he shared Google's philosopy with us; "keep it simple, fast is better than slow, even if it means getting your customer to help develop the product with you (customer empowerment in action) and stay customer centric". He managed to sum up where marketing and in particular digital marketing is heading. One slide stood out from the rest though, a straightforward picture of a cloud with the sun shining through. This is the digital future, 'outloading' your software so that we are no longer encumbered by keys, laptops etc. A true nomad, no matter where you are, you should be able to tap into your software and personal programmes out there in the ether. The cloud becomes your storage platform not the computer. It's a seductive idea, particularly for people like me who are not naturally digital and one that should keep the folks at Microsoft pretty much on their toes. Starbucks have already embraced this idea with free wifi access in their coffee lounges to accomodate the growing number of 'techno bedouins'. Imim student, Fanny Durand put me onto a fascinating report in The Economist on this growing nomadic phenomenon. It makes for enlightening reading.
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950394
8 commentaires:
Unfortunately, we can regret that the development of Google Apps in the school will only benefit to Google. I'm not sure that the firm has created an added value for academic institutions : no revolution, no innovations, nothing more than the Google Apps' service that is already available for a few years on the internet with a gmail adress. The added thing is maybe the creation of a network for calendars between people with a esc-lille.fr adress. For Google, being implemented in academic institutions... is it not better than any other advertising for Google Apps ?
However, the visit of Luca Paderni was great and really emphasises the "simple" side of Google... He looks like Steve Jobs during his presentation (but with a different style)... Simple and efficient, like the image of the cloud that he has used !
I must admit, I raised an eyebrow when I heard about the inititiative but I can't agree with you on the notion of regret. I don't think we should regret, it's not that black and white. added value is not nessarily activity of seismic proportions, the added value to my mind here is that of Google being a facilitator so that the school can provide a better service to its students and its teachers in communications, calendar planning, access to additional resources , all under one house and quickly. Not everyone has a g-mail address ask Microsoft! However for me, it's not advertising that Google gets, that they don't need, but the possibility to create and then sustain a long during relationship with internet users, think longtime customer value, it's pure CRM.
I apologise for the late review. I couldn't attend the presentation due to a certain TOEFL test to re-take, but I personally think that any change from the ESC current apps is for the best.
- For example, the Claroline app can be veru complicated to use: unefficient research tool, names and above all references of the courses absolutely not self-explanatory, in a nutshell the app is a big mess. Is Claroline part of the apps taken over by a Google App?
- ESC mail (OWA): I assume we'll get gmail-type email software now? One thing I hope they will include in the soft designed for the ESC Lille is the "delivery" and "read" reports. They are not on the gmail software (or very well hidden, in over a year using gmail I still haven't found them) and it's seriously a shame when you want to send important docs (group or individual projects, applications for semesters abroad, cover letters/CVs, and so on).
- Will the size of the mailbox be increased? 5Mo is far too small when you try to use your email account to send attachments of any kind.
- Calendar: will that feature be used? I learnt last week that 3rd-year CCA students used that a lot, I didn't even know it existed, let alone was used on a regular basis!
Regarding the 'nomads' article, I think it's fascinating to see how we get uber-connected with everyone (e.g. classmates in Gap year or VIE around the world, or colleagues or your boss) and yet it shows how geeky we've all turned out. The drawbacks on the long run might be consequent, though, as the more time we spend looking at a screen (BlackBerry, iPhone, cellphone, laptop...), the less we spend actually looking around our own body... except to locate the Starbucks cup of coffee on the table. Quite a frightening thought, don't you think? But all the more appealing!
Anyways, thanks for the recap on the Google Apps conference, and keep going with the blog, it's very interesting.
I saw Katrina yesterday and she showed me this blog. I actually taught a tiny bit las year for IMIM3, but on a personal basis I feel very interested by some topics like our future as human beings with technology (for instance the management of privacy by big organizations and entreprises) in our so called civilized worlds* and the distance created in between people when it is claimed that it makes our lives simpler and our relationships more effective and "easy to handle". I did'nt write on it a lot, but I need to put my thougts in shape before I can go further.
So, Fanny I wanted to say that I found your comment very well expressed (except "veru complicated to use".) I agree that our body seems left behind at the end of the day. I see it as a sort of toxic side effect of the use of high-tech machines (machines which we forget more and more when we use them).
Now that wonderful tools of communicating are available to an increasingly number of people, I think the old tools and strategies for perceiving and receiving-getting information and re-communicating it are to be entirely renewed. For your information Alfred Korzybski (Warsaw 1879 — USA 1950) started to elaborate a system of evaluation which "puts my body back in my shoes". He called it general semantics as it deals with words and what they are referring to. More precisely words and what they do to us. More info > http://thisisnotthat.com/
But I'd better stop about GS for now.
Anyway! That was my first reaction to "frightening thought, don't you think?"
And I have put the star above to see things at a wider scale because "how geeky we've all turned out" I originaly thought "all" stood for "all the people in the world" but I suspect now that you meant students and teachers in the ESC (?) Of course not many civilians in Darfour benefit of a very hightech equipment... yet.
I hope as well that Katrina will go on with her blog!
Have a good day.
Hi Lucma,
I just read the Wikipedia article on GS, quite interesting indeed. But then, I may observe, if we didn't use language shortcuts, we would spend hours expressing ourselves the right way, and today, more than ever, we(*) are all running as fast as we can to remain in the competition and keep up with everyone else(*).
However, I also think GS goes with our increasing use of anthropomorphisms, particularly with new technology items. The computer thinks, lags (at least in French they do), we give names to our printers and take care of our iPods as if they were close friends (OK, not everyone does that, but I for one have pet-named every object in my possession that is composed of a screen). Maybe because, somehow, we're isolating ourselves behind a world of screens so much, that we need to find comfort somewhere physically closer to us than the pseudonyms we talk to on the internet..? Just a random thought.
(*) By "We all", and "everyone", of course I was talking about all the people who have access to the "world of screens" on a very (and increasingly) regular basis. I am well aware of the fact that our (that is, of us geeks) perception of the world and of the communication in general, is far different from that of a youngster my age in the Indian deep countryside or another in the South American forest... Even in France, there are people living in yurts with whom I do not share a lot in terms of living habits.
Hi Fanny,
I want to react about what you have evoked in your last post. I hope Katrina will not mind > after all "commerce" and a commercial success deals as well a lot with the ability to communicate in an adequate way. Showing in what you are different from the other ones. Have a look at Apple's communication campaigns...
First of all each of us deserves his/her "right" way (in other words there is no such thing as "the right way" when it comes to human communicating. On the other hand we can imagine different degrees of "adequacy" (like on a scale). I don't see what makes you think that GS is against shortcuts (?)
I found an interesting site closer to your field in the ESC and speaking about Korzybski a bit >
http://www.absara.com/index.html/__show_article/_a000014-000437.htm
and then >
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/9445/Isg1.html
I think GS's ideas show us the difficulty to get an accurate language and propose several tools to avoid unefficient or false to facts "shortcuts".
Are maths' languages efficient ? Yes and full of shortcuts. I'm not saying that we can speaking like robots - on the contrary...
Anyway if you wanted to go further and make your own opinion, may I suggest "The world of Null-A" of A.E. Van Vogt (translated in french by Boris Vian)
Cheers!
Lucma
*****
Hi Fanny,
Just in order to answer to your first comment, unfortunately, Google Apps are independant from Claroline that we will continue to use next year !! (the only change will be that with Google, you will have a sort of page like iGoogle page, with a link to Claroline). But the size of the mailbow will be 6GB...
Katrina made me think again about Google, however, I am still not convinced by Google Apps (but I am maybe too sceptic !). I hope to change my point of view in September !!
Lucma:
GS against shortcuts <=> to speak and describe objects/people/etc, we should remove subconscious thoughts/actions from our heads and bodies. E.g. we should stop thinking, when seeing a map, that it is a territory, and not a piece of paper where the seas and continents are drawn on. Subconsciously, in most of our minds, maps mark territories, but they are not actually territories. I am not sure I am making a point, here, but Korzybski seems to think that the most accurate way (=the right way, forgive my own shortcut here) of expressing ourselves would be to prevent our subconsciousness to show its head at the same time words are forming in our minds. To me, that means he doesn't approve of subconscious shortcuts (nor of any shortcut for that matter, but that's a personal POV). Maybe I got it wrong.
Thanks for the links, I'll have a look when I'm done with all the workload I'm facing right now.
Florent: thanks for the info. I'm not even convinced by the efficiency of Gmail, so I wouldn't bet a cent on Google Apps, either. Wait & see, right? I think I'm gonna like being abroad all my third year and not suffer from all the bugs coming from the transition to Google Apps, haha.
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