Posts Tagged “google”
Organising 27 x 15 Minute Bi-Weekly Meetings
by andystew on September 21, 2010
The Problem: How to organise 27 x 15 minute bi-weekly meetings effectively and efficiently.
You will need: an internet connection; a Google Calendar; and if you want your personal/work calendar updated, Google Sync installed working 2 ways.
My Solution: YouCanBook.Me
After a few attempts with various tools, including Doodle and SuperSaaS, I settled on YouCanBook.Me. Doodle is a great tool for organising meetings and is a tool I’ll continue to use however I don’t find it easy to use to organise multiple meetings where only one person could choose a particular time slot. SuperSaaS allowed me to easily create time slots that individual projects could sign up for. But it was YouCanBook.Me that offered all this and easily synced with my Google Calendar and work calendar.
To get started go to the YouCanBook.Me website. Enter your Gmail or Apps address and click the ‘Go’ button. This will create a calendar for you that highlights all of your available time (anything you aren’t already marked down as busy for).
If you’re anything like me you won’t have time blocked out for everything but the great thing about YouCanBook.Me is that you can then set certain days when you’re available, change the length of time slots available, set a time when your day starts/ends and block out time for lunch.
It even has more advanced functions like the type of questions you want users to answer when they book a time slot with you. For the calendar I’ve created I’m asking for a contact telephone number or Skype username.
Once a user has booked a time slot with you, your Google Calendar is updated automatically, you receive an email update (to your Google Mail account) and they receive a confirmation email. There’s even a link for the user to cancel the booking if something crops up at the last minute. If you have Google Sync installed it also updates your personal/work calendar automatically. I’m seriously impressed with this service, it’s so simple to set up.
Thanks to: Sharon Perry, Kirstie Coolin, Doug Belshaw and SuperSaaS for your suggestions!
Minute Taking with Google Docs
by andystew on May 19, 2010
I work in a team of three with quite a broad range of activities to undertake and so time is a precious commodity. We have a weekly team meeting where we discuss the latest news, updates and future commitments; with no administrative support to take notes and synthesise actions. Having a meeting that lasts an hour, sometimes taking the same again to write up and prepare for is an absolute waste of time.
To get around this problem our team began using Google Docs. We have one version of our minutes which is in perpetual beta (constant development). Our team updates this document as and when things happen during the week. When we get to the team meeting we have an almost complete document, and one that is much richer than quickly filling it in five minutes before the meeting is due to begin.
After an in-depth discussion about what we’ve been up to, we finalise the minutes with actions. A copy of the minutes is saved as a PDF and stored on a shared drive (or space). We name each file using the same naming convention YYYY MM DD ‘Team Name’ Team Meeting – Minutes.pdf, the reason being so that you can order by date neatly in folder view on the shared drive. This acts as a firm record for future reference although we could always use the history control if required ;-)
