Chris Anderson's FREE

An important focus of this blog is that the technologies discussed are free.


Why?  Well, why not?


Time and again the internet is providing free alternatives to otherwise pricey options.  I have been frequently focusing on Google Docs because it epitomizes the free business model offered by Anderson in his book --->


Google primarily makes their money through advertising.  New-age, inventive advertising, but advertising nonetheless.  Interestingly, this is just one prong of the 3 "free" models that Anderson proposes.

Everything that I've posted about thus far has fallen into one of these three, free categories.

Google Docs is based on Free 2.  It provides one group with a useful and free service while charging another group for the advertising service.

Dropbox and Doodle operate under Free 3: Freemium.  You are given a simple version of the software for free with the option to upgrade to the premium version for a fee.  

In his book, Anderson provides razors as an example of Free 1.  Companies like Gillette will give away a razor (seemingly a costly endeavor) and then charge you for the replacements.  The profits from the replacements is more than enough to subsidize the hand-outs.  


This all is extremely interesting because it is, quite simply, the future of online business.  Arguably we, the consumers of it all, stand to benefit the most from this revolution.  Anderson stresses the point that the "free" of yester-year is no more.  In its wake, actually free services, like Google Docs and Dropbox, are here to stay.  


Notably, there is another type of free that Anderson discusses, that of the "gift economy."  Altruism isn't a new phenomena, but the ubiquitous nature of the internet stands to expand and encourage un-reciprocated giving. As a prime example of such giving, Anderson cites Freecycle which is an excellent resource that everyone should look into.


Overall, an excellent read that will motivate you to tap into the free technologies of the future!  


You can find Free: The Future of a Radical Price on Amazon for cheap if you're interested.    


  

Dropbox

Check out this brief video tutorial that I put together on Dropbox.  *I recommend expanding to full-screen view by clicking on the furthest bottom-right icon*

Considering I've only been using the app for a brief time now, I don't yet know how to use all of its features.  What I do know is that Dropbox is free and fairly simple to get started with.

While 2 GB may not seem like a whole lot of space, it's perfect for backing up your computer's documents.  Also, if you enjoy the service you can always upgrade to the Pro version or invite your friends to get more space (this is a handy marketing strategy by Dropbox; you get space, they get more visibility) .

As for sharing your documents, using Dropbox is a far better idea than e-mailing them out.  Similarly to Google Docs, housing the document in a central location online reduces the problem of having alternate versions floating around.  Unlike Google Docs, though, Dropbox won't allow you to collaborate in real-time.  It will, however, keep your document in its native format whereas Google Docs converts all text into its own personal format.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

P.S.  If you would like to try out Dropbox, use this link.  That way I'll get some extra space for my account ;)

Doodle

Simple. Useful. Free.

What more can you ask for?

Doodle is an online application that makes the process of finding a suitable meeting time as simple as possible.  If your schedule is generally wide open then Doodle may not seem so amazing to you.  However if you're like most college students, you probably have a full course load, are in several student orgs, have a job, and you're trying to maintain a social life on the side.  At times, finding even a small block in your schedule to meet up with others in person can seem daunting.

Google docs may be the answer if you have some time to work on your project.  Often, though, time is the one thing missing.  Now the fun part begins.  You and your fellow group members waste more and more of your precious time sending e-mails back and forth, texting, and playing phone-tag, only to still not have the slightest clue of when the meeting is!

So why not streamline the process?

Take the center of control away from each individual and put it on a website.  Doodle allows you to set up a free (really, truly free) account and then create as many events as you need.  After you create an event and invite all the people that need to respond, you're done.

Most recently, I was invited to respond to a meeting that needs to happen next Tuesday.  All seven group-mates submitted their preferences on the Doodle spread and within a couple of hours, we have our time.  The easy to read layout makes it simple to tell which option is best suited for your group as a whole.

Scheduling a meeting time isn't the only way to use Doodle.  This is a wonderful application to experiment with and I'm sure that it can be of great use to you and your student org.  

Google Docs

    There is no way that in a single post I could cover all the wonders of Google Documents.  I do believe though that Google docs will serve as an excellent topic for my first substantive post.

    The largest benefit that I see in using Google docs in your organization is that it makes collaborating with peers an effortless activity.  It doesn't hurt that it's also FREE!   When you utilize traditional word processing software to work on a document with others, you significantly lower the efficiency in which you can produce that document.  Unless you are physically next to the person you're working with, any attempt at cooperative production is destroyed.  The experience of editing a Word document by sending it back and forth via e-mail is hardly expedient.  The process is long, arduous, and at times confusing.  Check out this video for a more crafty display of why this process has become outdated.



   The real-time collaboration that Google docs provides is necessary for a college students' busy schedule. Whenever you have a spare moment, you can log in and make some edits to that group project of yours.  It is no longer necessary to coordinate multiple schedules to find that half an hour time-slot on a Sunday night to meet up and frantically review everyone's work. 


    Personally, my projects with Student Senate have been transformed by the incorporation of Google docs. For those of you who are involved with student government you may be familiar with the, sometimes laborious, task of drafting up resolutions.  Generally when I have gone about the task of creating a resolution there have been two or three other Senate members that I'm working with.  The most popular method of creating these has been to e-mail a bare-bones draft out to all of those involved.  However, this process is frequently preyed upon by the problems highlighted in the video listed above.  Because there were four different copies of the resolution being circulated, I never could tell which copy was the most up-to-date.
 
    Google docs to the rescue!  Now when I draft a resolution I put the bare-bones copy into a Google doc and share the document with all of the necessary people.  Whenever I need to see the most up-to-date copy I simply have to log into the document and there it is.  This single use of Google docs has saved me several hours each and every week that I'm working on a resolution.

   If you don't use Google docs, give it a try!  I think that you'll be surprised with how useful they become. 

All the best!

WHAT THIS BLOG IS FOR

Hello there Everyone!

     This is the first blog that I've ever created, but I'm confident that it will helpful to my readers.  My plan is to cover the online organizing technologies that I think will be most useful to you.  Ultimately, my prospective audience will be college students who are active in Student Organizations on their campuses.  However, the topics that will be covered will be useful to a wide range of other audiences: high school students who are active in their respective schools and pretty much anyone interested in learning about new and creative ways to productively interact with each other online.
     I go to school at Ohio University in beautiful Athens, OH.  The organization that I'm most active in on campus is the OU Student Senate, so it should be noted that the posts I make will be coming through this lens.  As far as I can see right now, I'll make examples of my own personal uses of the various technologies as applied to Student Government.  I think that my own examples will prove to be a good starting point for you to replicate and then improve upon. 

Happy reading!