Mike: How do you foster the close collaboration we see among Minnesota teachers?

Mark: I think a lot of our collaboration comes from the tradition among Minnesotans of a strong work ethic. People are willing to put in the time to help their communities.

Ben: Minnesota is an education-forward state. There’s a large community of people who have connected over the years at various events and online who share a passion for changing education.

Sean: Teachers are a special breed of folk. They give themselves over to making a difference in others’ lives. The thing that I do to foster that collaboration is provide space, time and tools.

Katrina: I look to three key ingredients: culture, tools and time. Culture is seeing the “we” and “our” in everything. These are our students, not my students. Tools like Google give us a starting point — a place for collaboration. The last piece is time: giving teachers the dedicated time to work together every day is essential.

Molly: We know that we’re better together. We’ve created an amazing network of teachers and specialists that share ideas and best practices, and know the lessons we have learned can really help other schools in the area. We share ideas at local conferences, present and attend the Summits featuring Google for Education, and participate in our Twin Cities Google Educators Group — all of which create an amazing network.

Mike: How do you help teachers support each other? 

Mark: In my district we offer year-long training for educators to become technology leaders in their schools. Molly Schroeder actually created and teaches the program, and it’s made a big impact. Participating teachers get 10 semester credits, and the school district pays part of their course fees. After this year, one in 10 teachers in White Bear Lake will have completed the program.

Ben: One great channel for teamwork is the Google Apps Hive, an interdistrict professional development program. The Hive connects pockets of innovation in schools throughout the region and brings together teachers in Google Apps for Education districts to share their best ideas, workflows, lessons and strategies. The goal of the Hive is to increase the quality of professional development and spread the word about good technology integration practices.

Mike: Which educator are you thankful for, and why? 

Sean: My dear friend Andrew Rummel, a former English teacher who’s now teaching English education at St. Cloud State University. We share a sense of the possible and the potential in education. He challenges and encourages me to remain dedicated to learning about the hard stuff. How do we do better for all kids? How can we use teaching to improve the world for our own children, and the children of people we'll never meet?

Katrina: I am profoundly thankful for our middle school media directors: Karen Qualey, Tara Oldfield and Christina Lindstrom. They get stuff done with a can-do attitude — they’re focused on students and learning and they’re willing to experiment, fail, learn and iterate. Because of their leadership, Bloomington Public Schools smoothly introduced 2,500 Chromebooks for all of our middle school students, a process that would have certainly been less successful and more painful without them.

Molly: My mom. She was a kindergarten teacher for 36 years, and touched the lives of so many people in our community. When I became a teacher, I knew that I wanted to know the students I taught as well as my mom knew her students. She showed me that being in education didn't just mean teaching the students, but really knowing them and their families. To this day, former students stop my mom and tell her what a great teacher she was, because she cared about them.

Posted by Rob Forkan, Co-Founder, Gandy’s

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’ll promote entrepreneurship in the UK through a handful of stories from early-stage disrupters and trailblazers who are using Google Apps for Work to overcome the challenges of starting a new company and inspiring others to start businesses. Today, we hear from Rob Forkan, co-founder of Gandy's, a flip flop brand dedicated to helping orphans.

My brother Paul and I started Gandy’s with the idea that something as simple as a flip flop could be inspiring. In 2004, when Paul was 11 and I was 13, we lost our parents in the Indian Ocean tsunami while on a family trip in Sri Lanka. After returning to London and finishing our education, we wanted to find a way to honor our parents’ spirits while helping children less fortunate than ourselves. We decided to create a sustainable brand to give back to children in need.

Since 2011, we’ve sold more than a quarter of a million pairs of flip flops, online and in department stores, to people around the world. The proceeds have funded a children’s home in Sri Lanka, and we plan to keep building more as the Gandy’s movement grows. Inspiration goes a long way toward building a company, but we also needed the right technology. Google Apps for Work tools have helped us lower the barriers to entry in the following ways:


1. Starting a company around an idea rather than infrastructure
From day one, we faced the challenge of immersing ourselves in Gandy’s without worrying about IT issues. We started with an enthusiastic group of young people, many who worked part-time from home, and needed technology that matched our flexible style. Google Apps helped us get the team set up quickly, easily and cost-effectively. It took me five minutes to give the whole company their own accounts. Because everyone had used Google technology before in their personal lives, I didn’t have to train anyone, which allowed us to focus on the product. A year and a half ago, we bought Chromebooks for our team of seven so they could work from home, our kitchen table, a music festival, or wherever they happened to be.

2. Competing with established players by moving quickly
As we started selling our flip flops, we realized we faced competition from companies that had been in the business for decades. Our success depends on reacting quickly to trends and adapting to consumer desires. We use Apps to work more efficiently, whether that’s viewing one another’s calendars to set up meetings or using Google Drive to share a photo of artwork that could inspire a new flip flop design. We rely on the mobility of Gmail, Docs and Drive to share ideas as they strike, and keep on track of our work when we’re on the go.
3. Staying organized in the face of complexity
One of the first barriers we faced was breaking into both wholesale and online retail, two different markets with different processes. We started using Drive to keep track of our product designs, marketing materials and merchandising assets so we can stay united as a team. Shared folders organize everything product-related, which lets us work faster on design and ensure our final products look great. Our designers easily store and share inspiration artwork, product sketches and design files. Once the design is complete and the product manufactured, we share photos with retailers so they can see how the product will look on the floor as well as on a computer or mobile screen.

We face a different challenge every day, especially as we continue to set our sights higher. Hundreds of thousands of flip flops and cups of coffee later, we’ve proven to ourselves that we can overcome these challenges using the fast and flexible technology of Google Apps.

Click to expand the full infographic below.

Posted by Ricky Kapur, Managing Director Asia, Google for Work

Posted by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security Google for Work

As an IT manager, we realize you spend a lot of time managing devices, applications and security settings for everyone at your organization. To make your job a bit easier, today we’re announcing new security tools to help Google Apps users take more control of their security online.

A new Devices and Activity dashboard gives your users additional insight over the devices accessing their Google account. The page shows a comprehensive view of all devices that have been active on an account in the last 28 days, or are currently signed in. And in case any suspicious activity is noticed, there’s a setting to immediately take steps to secure an account and change a password.
We are also launching the security wizard for Google for Work accounts. The security wizard guides users through steps they can take to turn on or adjust security features, like providing contact info for account recovery (if the domain security policy allows it), or reviewing recent account activity and account permissions. Plus, it only takes minutes for users to update their settings. This tool prioritizes all administrator settings for security features that end users are permitted to turn on. Access the wizard at g.co/accountcheckup.
Security in the cloud is a shared responsibility and keeping your company information secure is at the core of what we do everyday. By making users more aware of their security settings and the activity on their devices, we can work together to stay a step ahead of any bad guys.

Posted by Kiyan Foroughi, Founder and CEO, Boticca

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’ll promote entrepreneurship in the UK through a handful of stories from early-stage disrupters and trailblazers who are using Google Apps for Work to overcome the challenges of starting a new company and inspiring others to start businesses. Today, we hear from Kiyan Foroughi, founder and CEO of Boticca, a curated global marketplace for original fashion accessories.

While traveling in Morocco in 2008, I met a jewelry maker named Myriam who commuted four hours daily between her village in the Atlas Mountains and the market in Medina. I knew there had to be a better way for talented independent designers to sell to consumers and share their stories with the world. I returned to my role in finance with my interest piqued in solving this new problem. After a year of research and planning I quit my job to start building an initial team and website. Since launching in October 2010, Boticca has connected global customers with high-quality, handcrafted fashion accessories, designed all over the world.

We built our website with the vision for a different way of buying: telling a unique story for each product, and shipping directly from the designer. By creating Boticca, I’ve learned how technology can connect a global community and overcome the challenges of building a company from the ground up. Here are four of the biggest barriers we faced in growing our business, and how we broke through them with technology:



1. Finding a cost-effective solution that supports our growth
In the early days, we had to move quickly despite the constraints of a limited budget. Our team of six used separate tools for email, calendars and document-sharing, but when you stacked them together, our Frankenstein solution cost up to £30 per user each month. In July 2010, we switched to Google Apps to bring email, calendar, docs and sheets together into a single product. Since we can pay on a monthly basis with Apps, we didn’t have to invest a large sum upfront or sign a binding contract, as is common practice with other vendors. I can add accounts for staff as they’re hired rather than buying 100 licenses but using only 40. Besides saving us money, Apps gives us flexibility.

2. Creating seamless workflows with freelancers and external partners
Before we built our editorial team, we relied on clusters of freelancers to outsource work. We wanted to give external partners access to our workflows, brand guidelines and internal information in an efficient way. Google Apps helped make the experience working with freelancers seamless. When we worked with a freelance editor to write the product descriptions on our website, we used Google Sheets to share product URLs and deadlines for each 100-word description. Our development team could open the shared Sheets to see the descriptions take shape as the writer typed them, and then use the content to populate the website right away.

3. Focusing on product and service instead of administration
One of the first balancing acts we faced as a new company was managing the administrative side of the business while building our product. We like to test our product, break it, then re-test something new. If we had burdensome IT concerns about our tools, we wouldn’t be so nimble. Fortunately, Google Apps is easy enough for us to manage on our own. It’s so easy to use that the technical team can focus on running our platform and addressing customers, rather than managing users. When a we hire a new person to their team, we have access to set up a new account in the admin panel ourselves.

4. Communicating effectively to build an inclusive culture
As we grow, we need to maintain a culture enabled by technology rather than hindered by it. Google Apps tools help us maintain transparency and inclusion through immediate communication and easy sharing. One of our style-hunters uses Google Slides to create weekly presentations about new brands she has found to join our website. People working remotely can follow along with the latest version in Google Drive without having to email her for the file. Effective communication is the first step toward empowering each person in the company to take ownership.

Customers love being surprised and inspired, over and over again. With this in mind, we strive to come up with new ways to fulfill our purchasing philosophy. Tools like Google Apps step out of the way and let us focus on consistently delivering these ideals to both our customers and designers. If we didn’t have the ability to work and communicate together so nimbly — both inside and outside the company — Boticca wouldn’t have been able to achieve the success we have today.

Posted by Ben Pugh, Founder, FarmDrop

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’ll promote entrepreneurship in the UK through a handful of stories from early-stage disrupters and trailblazers who are using Google Apps for Work to overcome the challenges of starting a new company and inspiring others to start businesses. Today, we hear from Ben Pugh, founder of FarmDrop, the UK's first "click-to-harvest" online farmer's market.

Technology has the potential to bring consumers and producers together to make food tastier, more convenient and more sustainable. In 2012, I left my career in finance to test this potential and started talking with farmers, fishermen and consumers about how to improve the food supply chain. The following March, after months of researching and experimenting, we launched the FarmDrop pilot. More than 8,000 customers and 400 independent, local producers across the UK have signed up since and thousands of pounds of local food is being bought and sold through the platform each week.

For us, building a high-growth company has been about getting consumers and food producers excited about our online farmer’s market vision and assembling a team of talented people who believe in it even more. From scratch, Google Apps helped us tackle three of our biggest challenges head-on:

1. Establishing instant credibility without costly business tools
We started FarmDrop with no funding, but using Google Apps for Work right from the start helped shorten the otherwise difficult financial barrier to entry. Inexpensive email and collaboration tools equipped the team for work within a matter of hours, avoiding the complexity of software licenses, pricing structures and IT administration. A seemingly small thing like having an @farmdrop.co.uk email addresses made our day-old company feel like a real business. Apps helps us present ourselves professionally, which boosted morale and built trust among partners and customers from the outset.

2. Creating transparency throughout the company from day one
Joining a startup is a risk but it’s also great adventure and it’s important that everyone in the company feels like they are part of the adventure. For that to happen, everyone needs to know what’s going on in the business. It sounds simple and easy but with so much going on all the time it isn’t. Google Drive allows us to share business strategy documents, goals and performance metrics, as well as product roadmaps, even as they evolve. We’ve created a detailed timeline in Google Sheets that tracks all of our activities leading up to a major launch, so anyone can check team progress in real time. With granular sharing controls, I can grant view-only access to protect crucial data while still providing team members with access to information.

3. Enabling team members to work flexibly from anywhere
Flexibility is an important benefit of startup culture, but we don’t want it to interrupt work. On any given day, we’ll have a handful of people in the office, another handful working from home, and the rest on a farm, meeting fishermen and bakers or meeting people from new pick-up points. Apps connects us no matter where we are or what device we’re using. The development team uses Google Hangouts for their daily meeting, and can easily share their screens or move the camera to a whiteboard to share information with team members who are working remotely.

With our growth accelerating, we need to retain our sense of mission whilst the team expands. That means working together in total collaboration and being connected as a team which Google Apps enables. Our love of authentic, sustainable food and the people who make it will continue to drive us forwards to a world of better food and a healthier planet.

Posted by Ryan Bretag, Chief Innovation Officer at Glenbrook High School District 225

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog)

Editor's note: Continuing our EdTech leadership series, today’s guest author is Ryan Bretag, Chief Innovation Officer at Glenbrook High School District 225, in Illinois. Since age six Ryan has “thought big” about education, questioning why we do what we do and how we can do better. After spending 15 years in schools, his current role focuses on innovation, whole-child education and technology initiatives. Ryan is also completing his doctoral work on spaces people inhabit for learning. To learn more check out the full interview with Ryan or view these recorded sessions on innovation at work from Atmosphere Live.

It’s probably shocking to hear this, especially now that I’m an educator, but when I was a student I really disliked school. I had a hard time because there was not a lot of freedom — there were so many constraints. But one day something memorable happened. My teacher asked us to write a story about a place of interest in the United States. I drew an underwater school of the future. My teacher gave me a zero and said I had not addressed the assignment, but she also gave me 100 points of extra credit for creativity. It was the first time that I was really rewarded for being creative. That teacher lit a fire in me.

When I became a teacher, I realized that technology was one of the best levers I had to give power to students. During my second year teaching, my director of technology came to me and said, ‘There’s this thing that people talk about where every kid has a computer — what do you think you could do with that?’ I responded, ‘Oh, I hate technology; I couldn’t do that.’ She said, ‘Just think about it.’ I spent a weekend thinking and came back to school Monday with about 50 pages of sketches and diagrams of things that I could do and shared with students to get their ideas. Next thing I knew, my class was one-to-one with a device for every student. I was hooked. Technology fundamentally changed everything about how I taught and more importantly how students learn — it created student choice and empowerment. It opened doors that I had never even seen before.

Now as the Chief Innovation Officer at Glenbrook I am trying to help the whole district improve learning for students by supporting learners, teachers and students alike, with technology and innovation. In my role I focus constantly on creating two things in our district: more ownership and agility. We want teachers and students to have more ownership to bring their own creativity and passion to their work. And we want them all to have more agility — to be able to move quickly with new ideas.

One thing we did to create more ownership and agility for our teachers was to audit of all our common practices. We asked ourselves, ‘do these practices create more ownership and agility or less?’ We then scaled practices that did and adjusted those that did not. This was one of the reasons we switched to Google Apps for Education. We saw that our old email and writing system didn’t provide enough ownership to students and teachers, but Google Apps did.

After a few years, I am happy to report that we’re seeing teachers take ownership of the IT tools. For example, when Classroom was introduced to Google Apps for Education, I simply sent an email announcing this to 500 faculty members. I included a few links to get started — that was it. A few weeks later, we had more than 200 people already using it. Five years ago, if I had sent that email people would have asked for training first, or been more apprehensive of a new tool.

We’ve also put curriculum in place to support autonomy and agility for students. One of the things that we’ve borrowed from Google is the notion of 20% time. It fascinated me that employees could spend 20% of their time learning whatever they wanted. We now do this across our schools. We run a program called Spartans Connect. It’s a one-day conference during which students run workshops about their passions. For example 250 kids attended one student’s workshop on Harry Potter — they dressed up and played Quidditch while also exploring the thematic components from mythology and religion. The student leader had hundreds of kids in the room, and she had them sitting on the edge of their seats.

At Spartans Connect, students got hands-on experience with the human body

My advice to other educators trying to create more ownership among teachers and students is to question what you are doing, the “why”, and encourage people to experiment with new ways to solve problems. When your teachers are empowered, they empower their students too. I think successful schools “embrace the crazy.” Be OK with some ideas being a little bit out there and be comfortable with some failure along the way.

Posted by Lisa Rodwell, CEO, Wool and the Gang

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’ll promote entrepreneurship in the UK through a handful of stories from early-stage disrupters and trailblazers who are using Google Apps for Work to overcome the challenges of starting a new company and inspiring others to start businesses. Today, we hear from Lisa Rodwell, CEO of Wool and the Gang, a handcrafted knitwear brand bringing fashion from factories into the home.

The rise of “maker culture” has revived craftsmanship in the last few years, but our co-founders Aurelie and Jade were ahead of the trend. They started Wool and the Gang back in 2008 to modernize knitting, and began selling DIY “knit kits” through retailers. In 2013, Aurelie and Jade raised funding and hired a team of seven to embark on a new journey: building an online fashion brand powered by the maker movement.

I joined in February of that year, when we moved into our first offices and began selling handmade products knit by our ‘Gangstas,’ the name we've endearingly given our employees. Three months later, we started using Google Apps to work better as a team and communicate with our network of 2,000 makers around the world. As a small and fast-growing company, we had the opportunity to move quickly by testing lots of ideas and focusing on the winners. Thanks to the momentum of the maker movement and the accessibility of powerful, easy-to-use technology, we’ve been able build a successful business in spite of three daunting obstacles:

1. Managing a global network of makers through real-time collaboration
More than 2,000 knitters have applied to be part of our gang, ranging from novices to experts, everywhere from London to Lima. We work with 200 of these “Gang Makers” at any given time, and thanks to Google Apps, communicating and collaborating with them is a breeze. Our Gang Maker manager uses shared Google Sheets to track the progress of all 200 knitters in real time; each one is updated constantly and instantly by knitters, providing greater transparency into our supply chain and enabling us to respond better and faster to market demand. It’s more cost-efficient and far less laborious than building a custom backend solution or emailing version after version of Excel spreadsheets as attachments.

2. Coordinating complex development of a physical product
We launch new products every week and ship them around the world, which poses a significant challenge as a company of 25 people. We coordinate product development more effectively by using Google Drive as a project collaboration platform. Our knit developers, who create the patterns for our knit kits, use Drive as a repository for all pattern-related files. They create pattern templates in Google Docs and share them with tech editors for approval. Then, the knit devs adapt the patterns to InDesign files, which they can upload to Drive and share with designers to finalize. Warehouse staff print the pattern files directly from Drive, then assemble them in a knit kit. Sharing our content easily allows us to reduce the complexity of product development and get our products out the door.

3. Prioritising the most important activities
As a small company, we have seemingly infinite challenges to tackle with limited resources. Google Apps help us make the most of our time and our technology investment. We can test something new, like an at-home knitting party, using tools we already have, like Drive for sharing and Gmail for communications. And because Apps for Work is easy to use, we don’t have to spend time on extra training. We can spend our energy on improving our products.

Wool and the Gang is all about creating, teaching, sharing experiences, and having fun while doing it. Our technology gets out of the way so we don't have to think about the barriers of growing our business. We can focus on pushing our knitting movement forward.

Posted by Adam Seldow, Executive Director of Technology for the Chesterfield County Public Schools

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog)

Editor's note: Continuing our EdTech leadership series, today’s guest author is Adam Seldow, Executive Director of Technology for Chesterfield County Public Schools in Virginia. In June we shared that Chesterfield purchased 32,000 Chromebooks for distribution to middle and high school students over the course of two years. Today, Adam explains how Chromebooks have impacted Chesterfield, and gives advice to other schools planning technology roll-outs of any size..

In the last few weeks, we’ve distributed approximately 14,000 Chromebooks to our middle school students in record time. This has been a welcome change — in the past with other tools the IT department had many hurdles. With Chromebooks, deployment has been easy. The simplicity of the devices combined with a lot of planning helped us enjoy a smooth (and painless) deployment. Below are our top six tips for districts preparing for their own Chromebook roll-outs:

1. Be transparent and communicate often 

Communicate often—more than you think you should. We communicate via our Anytime, Anywhere Learning website, which includes a section where people can submit questions. We post the answer to many of the questions we get on the site. Having a public website has two benefits. One, it informs the community when they have questions, and two, it unifies our message and provides the school administrators with a clear way to communicate about technology.

2. Check off prerequisites to make sure you’re ready to start

Before you get close to deploying devices, make sure the technology prerequisites are in place. For example, we tested and reconfigured our wireless network a number of times. We tested the Chromebook configuration and our settings in the Google Admin console a number of times. We gave Chromebooks out to a few kids to take home last year to test the home content filtering. We tested and tested and tested again. We had huge support in this preparation from our vendor, Dell, and their sub-contractor TIG (Technology Information Group), who had logistics like this down to a science.

3. Empower the schools in the planning 

In order to be successful when deploying Chromebooks, we involved the district's schools in planning. We met individually with each Principal and discussed everything from which room we’d use for Chromebook distributions to how they could enhance existing curriculum to benefit from the new technology. These meetings helped the schools realize that we weren’t going to take a one-size-fits-all approach for each school. The Tech Department alone should not run device distribution.

4. Make professional development fun and engaging 

We did three things that made our teacher training event a success:

(1) we made it fun; (2) we put the teachers in the students’ shoes; and (3) we made the full training optional. We asked for volunteers from the middle schools to join us for a two day training over the summer called “Camp Chromebook.” We didn’t know what to expect for sign-ups, because we weren’t offering to pay teachers to attend. On the day registration opened, all 300 spots filled up within a few minutes. At “Camp”, the teachers became the students: they went through a dry run of our onboarding process and visited different classes to learn different topics. Camp also helped us load-test our wireless network since we had 30-40 Chromebooks in each room. It was an unbelievable success, not to mention a really fun way to help faculty get to learn hands-on about the devices. When these teachers returned to school, they shared their knowledge with others who didn’t attend.

CIO by day, channeling "Camp Chromebook Director" Adam Seldow for training

"Campers" (teachers and administrators) at Camp Chromebook hard at work during training

5. Streamline the distribution of devices 

We aimed to get each school’s Chromebooks distributed in two days. To do this we:

• Worked with schools over the summer and the early weeks of schools to send and collect all the necessary paperwork (e.g. parent permission forms, acceptable use policies, fees). 
• Created a card with a scannable barcode for each student to show they had paperwork completed. 
• Distributed devices to students during their English classes (since that is the only subject that every student has every year) and gave them cards with barcodes and their student ID number.
• Brought students to the gym or media center by class. We’d scan the card and then have the student walk to stations to pick up their Chromebook, their charger, and their device case. We already had everything unboxed and ready to go. 
•  Returned students to their English class immediately for an onboarding session

6. Have students and teachers learn about Chromebooks together 

After receiving their devices, students returned to their English classrooms for a 15 minute onboarding session led by one of our designated technology coaches. We had a technician on hand for any immediate support (e.g. spot changes for passwords). The session walked them through set-up: from logging in to taking selfies (what is it with people and selfies!?) and navigating the home screen. We also had each student activate the content filter, a critical step to keep them secure on the web.

After receiving their Chromebook, students returned to class for a 15 minute training session

Chromebooks have met their promise of easy set-up and management. I am happy to report that we exceeded our goal of getting all devices to each school in two days per school. When we roll out devices to other grades next year, I think we can get it down to one day per school. But we’ll keep “Camp” as two days — that was too much fun and too useful to shorten.

Posted by Kevin Ackhurst Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand, Google For Work

Starting a business requires passion, dedication, and a clear vision—and powerful tools that help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life. In September, we shared the results of a new Deloitte report that showed that companies using an above-average number of cloud services grow 26% faster and drive 21% more profit than those that use no cloud tools.

Now we’ve teamed up with international research agency GfK to study cloud adoption among new SMBs—those established up to three years ago—in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Like their peers on the other side of the globe, these businesses are using the cloud as a tool for growth. Here are a few of the key insights we uncovered:

Most new SMBs are cloud users. 77% of companies that participated in the study have adopted cloud services. Cloud technology tends to be easy to set up and manage, so new business owners can let their IT run itself and instead focus their time on the work that matters .

New SMBs that take advantage of the cloud envision a brighter future. 70% of companies that use cloud services expect revenue to increase over the next 12 months, compared to 48% of businesses that don’t. Like the Deloitte study, these results point to a correlation between cloud adoption and fast growth.

Cloud services can help new SMBs build their brand. 72% of companies that adopted a custom email, like name@yourcomany.com, saw an increase in engagement and 74% saw an uplift in sales. Small businesses rely on the use of cloud services to get up and running quickly, and professional email addresses for domains are a common first step.

Getting a new business off the ground is always challenging, and building momentum in the early years can be even harder. Our latest research suggests that cloud services can help young companies build further engagement with customers, drive sales and set the business up for growth.

Posted by Hal Friedlander, Chief Information Officer, New York City Department of Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education blog.)

Editor's note: The New York City Department of Education Division of Instructional and Informational Technology recently approved Google Apps for Education as a supported tool for their schools. For the first post in our EdTech leadership series we interviewed the Chief Information Officer, Hal Friedlander. We’re inspired by his approach to understand schools’ needs, so asked him to share more about his team’s work and their decision to authorize Google Apps for Education & Chromebooks..

Part of what makes New York City unique is its diversity. Each of the five boroughs has a rich mix of people and cultures, which is reflected across the more than 1 million students at over 1,800 schools. While some see this variety and scale as a challenge in offering technology for schools, I see it as a benefit. In NYC, we have more schools innovating, more schools piloting technology and more schools leading the charge in finding the right tools for teachers and students.

At their core, schools are learning organizations. Teachers learn something new then help their kids learn it; they’re professional learners. And they know what they need much better than I do as an administrator. The Division of Instructional and Informational Technology (DIIT) team at the Department of Education listens to what educators want, understands what drives these asks, and then translates their needs into technology requirements and an IT strategy that helps students learn.

We take the same approach here in NYC as I did in my years working in the private sector — we use the customer engagement model. We treat schools as customers and engage them as advocates of the technology. The educators who live in the community and teach students every day have the best ideas about what they need in technology, not a guy like me who works at the 30,000-foot view. The job of my team is to support technology choices that will help the schools.

Over the last year, we saw more and more schools using Google Apps for Education. After evaluating it centrally we decided to add Google Apps to our list of approved and supported tools for NYC schools this year. A number of factors drove this decision. First, a number of schools were already using Google Apps for Education. Second, since Google Apps doesn’t require special technical skills, schools were able to customize the tools to meet their specific needs. This included everything from fostering parent engagement, to managing classrooms, to creating and sharing online curricula. Administrators told us they liked Google Apps because they could be as open or restrictive as they wanted in terms of how much communication they allowed beyond the school domain.

From a central office perspective, we authorized Google Apps because it integrates easily with our existing systems and we find it very easy to manage. This means tasks like setting up student sign-on for identity management are straightforward, and we don’t have to spend a lot of resources to manage domains. The tools are intuitive, so we haven’t had to offer much training. We created a NYC DoE Google Apps for Education Resource Center to help people get off and running.

We take the same approach to evaluating devices as we do to evaluating other tools. We saw that many schools wanted to use Chromebooks, and in our assessments, found them to be an affordable, manageable option for learning. So we worked with the OEMs to ensure Chromebooks met all our specifications, and added them to our list of approved school devices. We want the schools to have choices — whether it is a laptop or a tablet or both — across price range and functionality.

People say that things can’t move quickly in the public sector, but I don’t believe that. If you’re committed to listening to the schools, finding out what they need and setting goals against getting it done, you’ll make things happen.

Posted by Alex Klein, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Kano

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’ll promote entrepreneurship in the UK through a handful of stories from early-stage disrupters and trailblazers who are using Google Apps for Work to overcome the challenges of starting a new company and inspiring others to start businesses. Today we hear from Alex Klein, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Kano, a London-based startup building DIY computer kits that are inspiring a new generation of coders.

At Kano, we're creating a new type of computer that anyone, anywhere, can build and code themselves — we've designed it for all ages, all over the world. It's part of our vision to democratize computing, to give the majority world a way to take control, make, and play with technology -- instead of just consuming it. We started off in November 2012, when my little cousin Micah challenged us to create a computer he could make himself, "as simple and fun as Lego." Just under a year later, our Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign exceeded its goal of £59,000 in 18 hours and went on to raise £900,000. Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak pledged for a kit.

To tackle the major challenges we knew we would face on our journey to a new, physical, worldwide product — shipping to 87 countries — we needed to deploy tools that would allow us to work in the best possible way. We also needed technology to help us overcome barriers we would face in getting Kano to market. Here are a few ways Google Apps for Work helped us overcome our challenges.



1. Developing an idea into a company, from anywhere in the world
The idea for Kano started in a Google Doc, quite literally, right at the very beginning of our journey. I was in the UK and my other co-founder, Yonatan, was in Israel so we wrote the story of our business in Docs, commenting back and forth frequently. Then, we would get on Hangouts to discuss the ideas. This went on all night, and by the next day we had a beautiful launch plan. Google Apps helped us overcome geographic barriers from the outset, enabling us to work from anywhere and reach early collaborators and advisors from the UK, US and Israel. All our collective ideas melded together in one living, breathing document, taking Kano from concept to company.

2. Selecting a collaboration platform to supercharge our product development
We’re fast, agile workers who thrive on getting creative ideas suggested, digested and tested as fast as possible. In order to keep up with the fast pace of product development, we needed a collaboration platform that could store all our thinking, content and planning. When we looked at Google Drive for our storage needs and weighed it against other options, like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, we concluded the latter environments were too static. We needed the fluidity that Google offers with an interconnected family of Apps. Google Drive plays a key role in storing, sharing and syncing our ideas and planning. Given the pace at which we work, we can’t be held back by working in silos. Drive enables us to work in a new way by enabling our spontaneity, giving us freedom to improvise against many brainwaves at once.

3. Connecting with customers simply and effectively
We weren’t initially sure how much mass appeal Kano would have. Today we’ve delivered our first 20,000 units to over 80 countries. Suddenly, we have thousands of customers with valuable insights that can help us grow. I found a great way of getting insights from them on how to improve Kano was through Google Forms, which we used to assemble our first customer insights survey. We reached 13,000 customers and got over 1000 responses in 12 hours. The form only took 45 minutes to assemble. We learnt that if we compiled a resource of ten easy projects and put them front and center in our online community, we’d have Kano kids engaging for longer. At our next board meeting, we impressed investors with the customer love Kano received, as well as the granularity of the feedback we were soliciting. It’s key to our culture that we have the freedom to reach our customers instantly. Their feedback allows us to iterate Kano faster, and keep our ears to the product pulse.

4. Bringing the tools we use as consumers to work
We’re a small team of 20-somethings with eclectic backgrounds. Google Apps speak to our generation’s business needs. We expect the same technology at work as we do in our personal lives. I’m 24 years old and, like my co-workers, wouldn’t expect anything other than Google at work. The regular stream of Google Apps product updates make us confident we can continue stay nimble and work better together. What really matters is the way all these services integrate harmoniously, with simple setup, and allow us, the entrepreneurs, to focus on our main mission — delighting our customers. With busy travel schedules we stay connected with Hangouts and the Gmail app on our mobile devices. We collaborate and store all of our business files in Drive and ensure we stay in sync with deadlines by using shared Calendars.

We like to think of computers as open boxes, filled with possibility — once you dive in and learn how to change the rules, you unlock new powers, and new ways to play. Our goal is to help you find a way into this exciting world. What we’ve done with Kano is a starting point. We’re extraordinarily excited to see it reshaped and re-imagined in the hands of thousands around the world.

Posted by Matt Thorne, Head of IT, Pinterest

Editor's note: Today’s post comes from Matt Thorne, Head of IT at Pinterest, the discovery and inspiration tool that has attracted 70 million users worldwide. To learn more about this story live, join Thorne in an upcoming Hangout on Air to talk about infusing startup innovation into any culture by reimagining the way we meet.

As we approach our fifth year, we continue to embrace our startup culture — the fast-paced, dynamic work environment that keeps us innovating. Staying agile means prioritizing face-to-face collaboration between our employees, which was easy when we first launched and worked from a single building. As our workforce has grown to 400+ employees, we’ve spread beyond our headquarters in San Francisco and opened offices worldwide. We had been using a mix of conference bridges and mobile phones for meetings but needed a better way for people to connect with one another.

We’re always using technology to work more creatively, so when I was invited to take part in a beta test for Chromebox for meetings, I jumped on it. The price was right, which is important for a young company. While legacy video conferencing systems can cost millions, we’ve spent a small fraction of that with Chromeboxes. Setting up our 60 devices was easy and people can use them without constant IT hand-holding. They’re now in nearly all of our San Francisco conference rooms, as well as smaller all-hands spaces and in every remote office that has a conference room.

One of our core company values is “knitting,” which translates to working across disciplines for the best possible outcome. Chromebox for meetings has enabled us to knit and maintain important parts of our company culture by helping people in remote offices feel connected to us in San Francisco. We erase the distance between offices (and desks) and empower people to make an impact when they come to meetings.

Our employees have found ways to use Chromebox for meetings beyond our internal meetings, including interviewing job candidates with Hangouts and conducting new-hire orientations via video calls. It’s an easier way for everyone – even remote employees or those in another building – to get the training they need.

At Pinterest, we’ve come so far so fast because we help people save and discover their favorite things online. To keep our users engaged, we also need to keep that spark of creativity alive in our employees. Chromebox for meetings helps us engage with our colleagues near and far, so the marathon runner pinning tips to train for the big race or the DIYer remodeling his bathroom — and everyone who loves to discover new ideas — continue to get inspired every day.

Posted by Diego Echeverri, US Army Veteran, co-founder of Bull and Moose


Editor's note: As 11/11 rolls around each year, we’re reminded of the veterans who selflessly serve our nation with great honor. We’re especially inspired by the veterans who return to civilian life to build successful small businesses — the engine of our economy. To celebrate those who serve our country in more ways than one, we sat down with vet-run companies to learn the stories behind their vision, the influence of the military on their business philosophy, and their advice for aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. Here, we hear from Diego Echeverri, US Army Veteran and co-founder of Bull and Moose, which provides luxury, quality neckwear at a disruptive and fair price point.

The military sometimes inspires and influences in unexpected ways. For me, the Army taught me the self-discipline and leadership skills that ultimately prepared me to start my own business — but that didn’t surprise me. What I didn’t expect was the way I began to adopt the military’s belief in the power of a physical impression and the importance of pride in one’s appearance. As ambassadors of our country, we represent our country physically in more ways than one and must look as sharp in our suits as we act in the field. And so, 13 years after enlisting in the aftermath of 9/11, and 10 years after I deployed to Afghanistan, I started Bull and Moose, a company that provides military-inspired, fashionable neckwear for men.

Fashion has actually taken quite a few cues from the military over the years: trenchcoats, blazers, military boots and bomber jackets are staples of historical military outfits and lynchpins of the classic, preppy American wardrobe. When I started Bull and Moose, I launched with a product that perfectly married my bond with the military and my passion for high quality clothing: a camouflage bow tie. Another one of our first pieces, the DC Metro pocket square, was inspired by the maps the military printed out on silk for infantrymen, which lasted far longer than the paper maps they used before. We just launched a new tie, the Sergeant, that’s built from the same 3M reflective yarn that was woven into the belts we wore for safety in the Army.

The military doesn’t just inspire our product design; it defines our company and brand and has been a part of our DNA from the start. We sponsor Got Your 6, a campaign that helps drive the conversation and public perception that veterans can be leaders and civic assets. We also donate a portion of our profits to fund micro loans on Kiva. We’re a for-profit, but I’m driven by the knowledge that the more we sell, the more we can give back to the veteran community.

Sometimes the best kind of support a vet needs is just another vet to talk to, and what’s great about vets in business is there’s a close-knit network where someone always has your back. We come back from the military with a mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses, so navigating the entrepreneurial maze requires a lot of thinking, learning and changing. For some, the biggest challenge is shaking off the formality; for others, it’s adapting to ambiguity and navigating without a clear chain of command. At the same time, with vets, there’s no “can’t” — there’s always a way — and you learn that you’re capable of things you could never have imagined. Having other vets to talk to about those difficulties and successes — or just shipping or social media strategy — is huge.

Bull and Moose isn’t all about the military, and most of our products aren’t camo or built from 3M, but being a veteran and supporting other veterans is an undeniable part of our brand. I’m just as motivated to run a successful business as I am to help other vets and prove to the broader community that vets can do some amazing things. This generation in particular faces a daunting challenge: in addition to transitioning to a civilian world that doesn’t necessarily value their specific experience skills, they face the public perception that they’re inherently flawed. I know that’s not true, and I know how passionate and impactful they can be. And it’s my mission to ensure that vets are essential to society’s fabric as they are for our military.

Posted by Mark Rockefeller, former Air Force officer, co-founder and CEO of StreetShares

Editor's note: As 11/11 rolls around each year, we’re reminded of the veterans who selflessly serve our nation with great honor. We’re especially inspired by the veterans who return to civilian life to build successful small businesses — the engine of our economy. To celebrate those who serve our country in more ways than one, we talked to a few vet-run companies to learn the stories behind their vision, the influence of the military on their business philosophy, and their advice for aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. Here, we hear from Mark Rockefeller, former Air Force officer and co-founder and CEO of StreetShares, a socially-oriented online lending platform where investors compete to give loans to high-growth vet-owned and main street business.

Veterans today return from service to a country that bears little resemblance to the ticker tape parades and land of opportunity that characterized the end of World War II. With ready access to capital and local banks willing to lend money to former service people, nearly half of the vets from my grandparents’ generation went on to own or run a business, driving one of the most remarkable economic growth periods in recent US history. Now, with fewer regional banks and more red tape, large global banks base their lending decisions on little more than a FICO score. This makes it nearly impossible for vets, who have incredible skills but limited financial history, to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations.

I had a front seat to our country’s most recent financial unraveling, which only worsened this situation. After nine years in the Air Force —including a stint as a Jag lawyer in Iraq — I joined a law firm that represented some of the creditors trying to get their money back from Lehman Brothers. I learned how bad mortgages started, moved hands, took on more risk, and ultimately wreaked havoc on our economy. I saw how businesses across the country lost their savings and were forced to shutter their doors, while new businesses couldn’t gather the capital to get off the ground.

I started StreetShares to breathe life back into the American dream for a new generation of veteran entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners. As a vet who saw firsthand how hostile the economic climate can be for a young company, I want to help people access the capital they need to start their businesses. With StreetShares, businesses tell their stories and create pitches on our online platform, and investors compete to fund parts of that loan at rates they set themselves. That way, investors learn about the people behind the ideas and their loans are both financial and personal.

When I was stationed in Iraq with the Air Force, I worked on a project with a 24-year-old platoon leader whose responsibilities resembled those of a mayor — he ran an entire town’s public projects, security and education systems, and even started a community microloan program. While most people his age were dipping their toes in their first jobs out of school, he was running a small city. It’s guys like him that make me wonder, if they handle this kind of responsibility and lead in that kind of environment, imagine what they can do back in the US. And I want every one of them to have a shot at showing what they’re capable of, to pursue that dream.

There’s a battle for how this generation of vets is characterized, and my mission is to prove they’re our country’s future leaders. The US economy is looking for a catalyst, and I believe vets can be exactly that — they can fight the financial battle here at home just as they fight the military battle abroad.

Posted by Todd Connor, Operation Iraqi Freedom Navy veteran, CEO of The Bunker


Editor's note: As 11/11 rolls around each year, we’re reminded of the veterans who selflessly serve our nation with great honor. We’re especially inspired by the veterans who return to civilian life to build successful small businesses — the engine of our economy. To celebrate those who serve our country in more ways than one, we sat down with vet-run companies to learn the stories behind their vision, the influence of the military on their business philosophy, and their advice for aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. Here, we hear from Todd Connor, Operation Iraqi Freedom Navy veteran and current CEO of The Bunker, an incubator for veteran-owned technology companies.

Entrepreneurship is a commitment to solving problems, and I’ve committed to solving one that’s especially close to home for me: helping veterans start and grow businesses they believe in.

My own military journey began as a freshman at Northwestern University, when I joined the school’s ROTC program; four years later, I was commissioned as a Navy Officer and eventually served in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After returning to civilian life, I got my MBA, worked as a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and started a few companies. While I loved the excitement of entrepreneurial life, I missed the purpose and community of the military. Then the idea for The Bunker took shape, and I finally found a way to marry my passion for entrepreneurship with my desire to work with vets.
The Bunker is an incubator for vet-owned technology startups and aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. We help them with strategic business decisions and plans, connect them with investors and mentors, and guide them through the unique regulations around running a certified veteran business. We just launched last month, and with support from the likes of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, the Tillman Foundation and 1871, we’re off to a solid start.

In many ways, military experience gives vets a skill set that naturally lends itself to entrepreneurship. They’re trained to be leaders in any situation. They put their mission first and don’t let uncertainty or obstacles get in the way. They have an unwavering work ethic and don’t give anything short of their best. Bringing vets with these skills together at The Bunker creates a powerful ecosystem of like-minded, ambitious entrepreneurs who share a common mindset and an incredible bond.

But military experience also creates some difficult challenges. When vets return to civilian life from the military, they’re so far removed from the startup space that they lack the access to execute on their vision — they don’t have the capital, mentors, investors or the networks to turn their idea into a company. The Bunker is their gateway to the entrepreneurship community. It opens the door to the larger startup world and the people, companies and resources that come with it. That’s one of our primary goals — to help them find the tools they need to be successful.

Vets and their businesses need to be embedded in mainstream society, too. That’s why The Bunker sits inside 1871, the epicenter of Chicago’s startup scene — so our entrepreneurs are as much a part of the city’s business hub as they are of the veteran community.

The Bunker is young, but we’re already growing our footprint. News of and excitement around The Bunker spread so quickly to vet groups nationwide that we’ve built a network of Bunker incubators in 7 cities across the US. The best part? I’ve met less than half of the folks leading the charge in those 7 cities, but because they’re all vets, I trust them to carry the Bunker vision forward — just as I trusted the guys next to me when I served in the Navy. That’s the kind of community that has each others’ backs.

Posted by Derek Herrera, Marine Special Operations Officer, CEO of RuckPack

Editor's note: As 11/11 rolls around each year, we’re reminded of the veterans who selflessly serve our nation with great honor. We’re especially inspired by the veterans who return to civilian life to build successful small businesses — the engine of our economy. To celebrate those who serve our country in more ways than one, we sat down with some vet-run companies to learn the stories behind their vision, the influence of the military on their business philosophy, and their advice for aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. Here, we hear from Derek Herrera, active duty Marine Special Operations Officer and CEO of RuckPack, a peak performance nutrition shot (you may also remember them from last year).

Two years ago, I was leading a Marines special operations team on patrol in Afghanistan when I was shot through the back by an enemy sniper and paralyzed from the chest down. I wanted to be in the military as long as I could physically serve, so when I suddenly lost that ability far earlier than I ever imagined, I was faced with a scary reality: I had to find something else that inspired the same passion and purpose that drove me in the Marines.
I returned to California and shifted my focus from physical service to physical rehab, but it didn’t take me long to realize the power of the military skillset in the business world. I’d learned to lead a team through chaos, to motivate and inspire the people around me despite the challenges ahead of us; I’d learned how to approach a mission by gathering as much information as possible and developing a well-informed strategy. In August of 2013, I enrolled in the Executive MBA program at UCLA, and this summer, took over the reins as CEO at RuckPack — a peak performance nutrition shot founded by a fellow Marine, Rob Dyer, who I met in Marine Corps Special Operations Command.

Leading RuckPack brings back the passion and purpose I worried I’d never find after my injury. Its mission is as challenging and exciting as those I experienced in the Marines — a mission where I get to lead a team of really incredible people I trust and respect, a mission that’s equal parts exhilarating and daunting. I also couldn’t be more proud to be at the helm of a company that wasn’t just born on the battlefield, but also believes in supporting veterans who return from it: we have a Veteran Distributor Program, which allows any veteran to sell and make a 10% commission on RuckPack products, and we give 10% of our profits to military charities. That kind of philosophy that motivates me.

As the CEO, I represent the company externally, but to me my role is that of team leader — more about serving the company and its employees and making sure their success always come before my own. In the military, officers don’t eat until all of their troops have eaten; as CEO, I live by by the same servant-leader philosophy. To me, getting the team to feel as invested in the company and cause as you are ultimately builds the collective trust, earns you respect and builds a strong community.

Growing the RuckPack team is one of my top priorities as CEO, and my approach to hiring is inextricably linked to my experience in special ops. I saw firsthand the potential and power in smart people who learn quickly and adapt to the situations (and challenges) at hand. My team was assigned to missions and projects they had very little prior knowledge about — anything from building a self-sufficient local police force in Afghanistan to mapping night patrol plans — so they had to teach themselves everything about their mission at the time in order to succeed. They knew to identify the problems, gather information, identify potential solutions and determine a detailed action plan. That’s exactly the kind of mindset I want working with me on RuckPack. Experience in the industry isn’t a bad thing, but for me, it’s not the driving force in my hiring decisions.

Leaving the military for civilian life can be scary: you go from knowing your mission and having the support of people you trust with your life to being surrounded by people you don’t know and who don’t have the shared military experience. But there’s so much untapped potential in these vets, in the leadership and management experience they carry with them that the civilian world can benefit from. That’s the other reason I’m so proud to be CEO of RuckPack — I want to show other people, from vets to civilians to employers, the power of the military skillset in business.

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Lead Product Manager, Chromebooks for Education

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Students and schools have done some amazing things with Chromebooks since we first launched in 2011. At the Urban Promise Academy in Oakland, Calif., students are using the Scratch program to create their own video games on Chromebooks. In Chesterfield County, Virginia, students get access to feedback and support from teachers after school hours using their Chromebooks. And in Fairfield County, South Carolina, schools saw double-digit gains on their state performance tests after they started to offer Chromebooks, Google Apps for Education and other technologies to their students, who often don’t have Internet access at home.

A student at Urban Promise Academy uses a Chromebook to design video games

Schools tell us that Chromebooks fill three big needs: they’re easy for students and teachers to use, they’re easy to share, and they’re easy to manage. That’s critical for schools that often want to give their students the best technology, but don’t have a large IT department to support it. And it’s part of what has made Chromebooks such a hit in schools. In fact, according to IDC’s latest report on tablets and laptops in K-12 education, Chromebooks are the best-selling device in the U.S. this year. And they’re continuing to grow in popularity—in districts like Montgomery County, MD (more than 50,000 devices), Charlotte-Mecklenberg, NC (32,000 devices) and Cherry Creek, CO (26,000 devices), who have all begun using Chromebooks in 2014.

Beyond the U.S., countries are looking at how they can use technology in the classroom on a large scale—like in Malaysia, where the entire national school system is using Chromebooks. This week, we’re hosting the Global Education Symposium, a gathering of education ministers from 18 countries working to implement technology that will help them meet their country’s educational agenda. We’ll hear from education leaders who are exploring new educational models, and look at how innovative local schools are using technology to help teachers and students excel.

It’s been thrilling to see how Chromebooks—alongside Android tablets, Google Play for Education, Classroom and Google Apps for Education, which is now used by 40 million students and teachers around the world—can help students meet their learning goals. We can’t wait to see what’s ahead as more students around the world gain access to new learning opportunities through technology.

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Senior Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education blog.)

We've tried to make managing Chromebooks for an entire district as easy as managing just a few. But when managing hundreds or thousands of Chromebooks, you may want to know about changes that are coming before they go to all your users. With the Chrome Beta Channel, you can do that easily. When you place devices on the Chrome Beta channel, you’ll be able to see what changes are coming weeks before they’re rolled out to all Chromebooks.

To make the most effective use of the Chrome Beta Channel, we recommend you place at least five percent of your organization's devices on the Beta channel. This allows you to become familiar with new features before they appear on the Stable Channel and prepare faculty and students for any interface changes. You’ll also have insight into specific problems that might affect your school and provide feedback to our team.

Enable the Chrome Beta Channel using the Release Channel setting in your Admin Console. With this setting you can assign devices to the Beta Channel by organizational unit, making it easy to control who in your organization will see these updates. Chrome Beta Channel is now at your service to help you protect and prepare your school.

Posted by Antonio Galloni, Founder, Vinous

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Antonio Galloni, founder of Vinous, a website and media platform providing first-hand insights into the world of wine. See how other forward-thinking organizations are investing in mapping technology and transforming their business: Maps are Going Google.

Every wine tells a story. In a sip, you can learn what region the wine is from, the type of grapes grown to make it, the vineyard and even the winemaker. Together, these components paint a picture of the wine’s history and personality. At Vinous Media, we aim to share these stories through videos, images and information that feature our winemakers and the vintages we produce. Google Maps for Work helps us make those stories come alive.

Vinous caters to wine collectors and enthusiasts who want to know more about where and how their favorite wines are made. We realized that overlaying those details on a map would give visitors insights on specific regions and wines without needing to travel to vineyards in person. We also wanted to marry our maps with the decades worth of reviews and analysis I amassed during my time as the founder of Piedmont Report and lead critic for The Wine Advocate. We needed the maps not only look good and be easy for our members to navigate, but also be able to integrate layers of data. Google Maps met these challenges perfectly.

Using Google My Maps Pro, we created Vinous’ first maps on Italy’s Barolo and Barbaresco regions. The vineyards are color-coded by our own classification system, outlining what locations we deem to be “exceptional” or “outstanding.” Clicking on a vineyard opens a window with more information, including ownership and history, and notable wines they make. We also provide information on any reviews or tasting notes we’ve done for wines from that vineyard. This is a unique approach to the wine publishing business, bringing together maps and content to offer a complete picture of what a wine’s all about.
We anticipate even more innovation in our vineyard maps, giving wine connoisseurs stronger connections to the birthplaces and stories behind their favorite wines. We’re glad we chose a company that’s as excited about our maps as we are.