Tag Archives for google docs

Using Google Forms: failing forward for free

When we decided that we’d use Google as our collaborative software I was bummed that the Evil Empire would be able to data mine our project — and that the possibility of the “cloud” evaporating was present — but I relaxed when I realized it would solve one of the major problems I as a web designer was facing: FORMS.

I *could* take hours to build a form and then have the input emailed to each responsible committee but that sounded like it would take a lot of administrative work and could go wrong at many places. But with Our New Friend Google Docs, committees could make a form tailored to their needs, share it with the Collective’s gmail, and also capture all the responses themselves.

So easy! So amazingly easy that the Performance committee form-builder even taught herself to shut down the form when the Call closed. Now if only the web designer could learn to hide the sidebars so they don’t flow over the input area of the form…

Teaching Ourselves & Each Other: Blogging & Sharing

Theory: Making space for folks to engage in self-teaching is empowering others to teach themselves

An opportunity to honor agreements about process and collaboration:

  • With the Femme Conference, when we agreed on using google-docs as part of our process, that meant we would use the file-sharing and form-making capacities
  • Some people kept sending docs as links not “sharing” –> sent gentle reminders twice over a few months to “Share” so we can all access
  • Some people sent me g-docs with their forms in them –> sent a gentle reminder to make forms in gmail and “share” it with me and the Collective gmail account.
  • Are these details kind of trivial? NO! They determine whether the entire technology setup is going to be collaborative or a shitstorm of emails and confusion.

An opportunity to give people access to resources and to support accessibility by providing resources:

Blogging was happening a lot by four committees and not at all from the other five committes. In the interest of accessibility, I created a google doc how-to and shared it. [download it here] It contains both direct links to WP’s documentation on blog posting and a step-by-step Best Practice Guide that uses screenshots from the actual femme2012.com blog to help folks see exactly what/where they are doing: