New for Google Apps Admins: an online community

Listening to Google Apps admins talk – with us and with each other – made it clear: as IT professionals, admins wanted a way to connect online somewhere in the Google environment. We heard a clear call for a gathering place, or community – a meeting point where admins could meet one another, identify each other by business type or geography, discuss topics unique to their roles, and share learning and best practices in a way that helped in their professional roles.

We wanted to make the site relevant and easy for admins to use, and we also wanted to use Google Apps as fully as we could. So we used Google Sites, of course, and integrated the Google products that most admins already use, like Google Maps, Moderator, and Forms. A few highlights:

• The Admin community map – allows admins to easily see where their fellow community members are located; also highlights further information with a "click" on the marker.
  
  

• "Share your perspective " – uses Google Moderator to let admins easily add their own comments to posted topics, or vote on comments added by others. We've set this up to feature four topics at a time, so there's always something to talk about.

• "Stay Current " – the latest product information and posts to the Admin Help forum, so that Admins can see what's being discussed in Support
  

We want this forum to create a sense of connectedness and community among the people who work as admins for Google Apps – a place where they can learn from each other, share what they've learned, and create a dialog that can help all of us learn. We also want it to be a place where people considering Google Apps can come in and find out more about what it offers, so we made this an "open" environment, where people can easily invite colleagues who might want to know more. There's even a way to send an email right from the forum itself.

The Google Apps team hopes that this community adds value for admins, and we hope you'll take a look today.

Posted by Monali Narayanaswami, Google Apps team