Posted by: Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

Editor's note: The Google Apps Adventures series features stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud.

Back in January we shared the story of Berlin-based multimedia agency Traffic Konzept + Film, and award-winning polar explorer Børge Ousland as they set out to film a record-setting expedition to document global warming in the Arctic. Ousland’s goal was to be the first to sail through both Passages of the North Pole in a single voyage, and the first to circumnavigate the Arctic in a single season – a feat other explorers have tried and failed to do for 500 years. Unfortunately, due to global warming, such a journey is now possible.

To stay connected and coordinate the expedition, the explorers and Traffic relied on Google Apps and YouTube. They also outfitted their boat with a special GPS tracker, so everyone could follow the voyage in real time via Google Maps.

To capture the adventure, Traffic created a short documentary that combines exclusive footage from the expedition with the first post-voyage interviews of Børge Ousland and co-captain Thorlief Thorliefsson. While the film will be aired at the 2011 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival today, you can enjoy a preview right here.

Google technology helped bring the journey to life as it happened. Børge Ousland tells us, “The film allows viewers to look back and get a real sense of the climate change effects that everyone witnessed and documented.”

Editor's note: We're thrilled to share stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud.

Our fourth Apps Adventure profiles Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, a racing organization based in Monterey, California that hosts world-renowned motorsport events at the track in Laguna Seca.

The famous corkscrew at Turn 8 defines how racers push the limits of speed at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. One of the most challenging turns in racing, drivers experience a blind uphill approach then a dramatic drop in elevation in the second half of the corkscrew. The turn is part of a 2.238-mile long track that’s been navigated by racing professionals from around the globe.

Every season, our organization hosts world-class races at the track, bringing thousands of motorsport enthusiasts to the Monterey Peninsula. From Ferrari Racing Days to the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix motorcycle races, our staff is dedicated to hosting events that showcase extreme speed. To accomplish this, we need the right technology behind the scenes that works for onsite employees as well as our hundreds of volunteers. As a result, last year we switched to Google Apps and it’s been a natural fit for our organization.

Before Google Apps, we used Microsoft® Exchange and it was maintained by more than a dozen volunteers. When I started at Mazda Raceway, I spent about 20 percent of my time just keeping the email servers going. We needed to speed up how we worked and Google Apps offered this with email and other productivity apps at a fraction of the cost of our old system. There are no upgrades necessary, no server maintenance, no downtime, and worldwide availability. It just works—without any effort from me or our volunteers.

Google Apps has quickly become a core part of how we run our organization. We rely heavily on Google Calendar for scheduling and have added shared resources like conference rooms and VGA projectors that can be booked at the same time a meeting is scheduled. We’re accelerating teamwork internally with Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office and are using Google Docs and Sites to improve a range of business processes.

For example, volunteers are critical to our success and Google Apps makes it easier to recruit and manage them. We now have a volunteer resource site, created from Google Sites, where we embedded a Google form to track sign-ups. Instead of having volunteers print out a form and fax or mail it to us, they submit their information online and it automatically fills an internal Google spreadsheet.

Everyone at Mazda Raceway is constantly on the move. From executives traveling abroad to staff members who are often out on the property (the track is situated on more than 500 acres), Google Apps gives everyone the ability to communicate from anywhere. Mail, contacts and calendars are automatically synced to each person’s mobile phone without any work on my part.

At Mazda Raceway, we all have a passion for racing and want to share that passion with our fans. Watch the video below to learn more about how Google Apps is helping us do this. And if you love racing as much as we do, experience our track using the Street View feature in Google Maps.



Posted by George Krieger, Technical Services Manager, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

Editor's note: We're thrilled to share stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud.

Our third Apps Adventure profiles Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH, a Berlin-based multimedia studio that supported polar explorer Børge Ousland in a record-setting expedition to document climate change in the Arctic. Assisting Traffic was post-production house Magna Mana.

As a multimedia studio, nothing gets us more excited than a project that demands film and interactivity to take an audience inside a story. When the story is about a world record Arctic voyage, and a close-up look at global warming, our passion goes totally off the scale.

In 2009, Traffic began working with Norwegian polar explorer Børge Ousland to support an expedition planned for Summer 2010. His goal was to be the first to sail through both Passages of the North Pole in a single voyage, and the first to circumnavigate the Arctic in a single season. A feat explorers have tried and failed to do for 500 years.



Now global warming has melted the polar ice caps to such an extent that an expedition is possible. Børge’s intent wasn’t just to set a record, but provide a visual example of climate change that could reach out and motivate people. To accomplish this, our shared vision was to use film and multimedia to bring the world on the voyage as it was happening. A multimedia event that would use adventure as a draw to education and action.

On June 23rd, Børge and veteran sailor Thorleif Thorleifsson set out from Oslo on a small 31-foot trimaran. On board were several film and still cameras, a laptop, and an Inmarsat satellite uplink. Power came solely from a generator connected to a wind vane.

For nearly four months, the team battled raging storms, maze-like ice fields, lethal shallows and sub-zero temps. Because their small boat had no ice breaking gear, any collision or scrape could have been fatal. Long stops also weren’t possible, because they had to stick to a tight schedule to make it through before winter trapped them in the Passages.

Throughout the journey, Børge was able to communicate and correspond online via regular blog posts, YouTube films, Flickr galleries, and e-mail. The boat was also outfitted with a special tracker, so everyone could follow the voyage in real time via Google Maps.

Behind the scenes, Traffic used Google Apps as our project hub — creating a 24/7 connection between us, the expedition and media partners and sponsors around the world. We worked on pre-production planning in real-time with Docs, updated and shared schedules via Calendar, and the whole team could get a snapshot of the latest content and news via our Google Site. Gmail was the email backbone of the project. Using Google Apps saved an incredible amount of time, and because everything was in the cloud, everyone had access on the fly. Even from the Arctic.

For me, the greatest feeling was being right there with a camera crew — on an Oslo fjord — when the expedition began its final leg home in October. After watching the journey online for months, I was so touched to share the last mile with them in person. Being part of their team is an inspiration to us, and in the months ahead, we’ll continue to explore how multimedia can bring their story of climate awareness to new audiences.

Posted by Len Dickter, Creative Director, Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH

We're thrilled to share stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud.

Spyder has always been a company that pushes the limits of design and performance, proving that it’s as important to adapt with speed and grace to conditions on the mountain as it is in business. At Spyder they value speed and innovation in all that they do, and that includes their information systems. Google Apps helps Spyder design high-performance products and work with their athletes and manufacturers all over the world.

While Spyder has grown and expanded its product line over the years, its roots are in ski racing. Founder and championship skier, David Jacobs, started Spyder as a ski sweater company out of his kitchen in 1978. As a former coach of the Canadian National Ski Team, David understood that athletes depend on quality equipment to gain a competitive edge. For more than 30 years, Spyder has focused on engineering superior skiwear for its athletes, whether they’re Olympic skiers like Julia Mancuso and Tommy Moe, back country enthusiasts, or just beginners. Rigorously tested by top athletes on some of the toughest terrain and the most competitive races, Spyder products embody a passion for performance.




Spyder is a business that needs to go where their athletes go. And these people feed on adventure and thrive on adrenaline, so they find themselves in some pretty interesting places - Alpine Ski World Cup stops, Chilean photo shoots, and wherever the Olympics are, to name just a few examples. Google Apps helps Spyder set up shop on any mountain. With Google Apps Spyder employees can just pick up their laptops, check their email on the go, and get to the next race or the next photo shoot.

Spyder works with designers and manufacturers all over the world, so they need to be able to share documents and spreadsheets, have meetings over video chat, and find what they’re looking for in their inboxes - fast. Google Apps has helped Spyder’s internal teams work more cohesively and efficiently, enabling them to get the best quality products to market, wherever they happen to be in the world. If Google Apps helps them get their work done faster so they can get back on the mountain, that doesn’t hurt, either!

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

We're thrilled to share stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud.

Our first Apps Adventure profiles Mark Thiessen, a 20-year veteran photographer for National Geographic who works on the front lines of some of the world’s most powerful fires.



I wanted to become a photographer because it allowed me to see parts of people's lives and lifestyles that I've never seen any other way. What I love about my job is not so much getting my pictures published – that used to be really important to me. For me, what I love are the people I get to meet along the way. They say it's the journey, not the destination that's important, and that is so true.


A lot of people think I just go on vacation and take pictures. That couldn’t be further from the truth. To impress picture editors who have seen the best pictures in the world, I need to show them pictures they’ve never seen before. At National Geographic they give you the time and resources to go do stories no one has ever done before.

I have a deep personal passion for photographing wildfires and the people who fight them. A couple years ago I went to Russian Siberia. Russia is twice the size of the United States and two thirds of it is covered in timber. They have about 4,000 smoke-jumpers and their job is to put out fires anywhere they’re burning.

We flew in helicopters with them for hours over vast forest, with no signs of human life. There’s no place to land, so they rappel out of helicopters straight into the fire with nothing but the metal part of a shovel. Then they’d whittle a handle in five minutes and get to work. These guys do it for barely any pay – no hazard or overtime pay. We were there for five weeks, in the middle of Siberia, with mosquitoes the size of jet planes all over us. It was terrible, but it was such a great story.

No one else had done that story. There are so many aspects to fire that intrigue me – the people who fight them, the forests’ need for fire, the human impact, people’s desire to build in fire-prone areas. Most people don’t even know the Russian smoke-jumpers exist, but with National Geographic, I get to experience their lives and share their experiences with the world, and Google Apps helps me do that.

With Google Apps my data is backed up in the cloud. So no matter what happens to my laptop, I know that my data is safe. That’s important with a job like mine. Google Apps allows us to do things we never could have done before. We can collaborate on a master plan for a story, we can share a calendar with story deadlines and shoot dates, and because of Gmail’s search capabilities, I know I can find any email whenever I want it. Google Apps allows me to be flexible. I can access emails or my documents on any computer or any mobile device. That’s critical when I’m out in the field.

Posted by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic