By now it seems that everyone who has an email account or a social media profile has been invited to be a part of the grand experiment that is Google+. What’s not so clear is what makes the new tool special enough to justify the exclusive red-velvet-rope roll-out. We like the way G+ allows us to post to the G+ stream as well as Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. We’re enjoying the minimal lay-out and lack of advertising. But how can G+ help to improve your next presentation?
G+ offers a number of tools and gadgets that aren’t specifically designed for presentations, but we are discovering that they can easily be adapted to your team’s creative structure to enhance and streamline the presentation building process.
Circles
While it’s not a revolution, the malleability of the Circles in G+ can be a valuable tool for team organizing and it’s really the foundation of the rest of the gadgets we’ll be looking at. In short you can add any of your G+ friends to any number of circles, so multiple friends can be added and deleted between any number of projects, client or workplace specific Circles you might choose to create.
Hangout
A hangout is a group video chat done extremely well. Users simply call up a Hangout and add individuals or entire circles for a face-to-face conference at-a-distance. Now you can have that emergency brainstorming session anywhere, anytime without the glitches and drops that other platforms are notorious for. G+ uses it’s own video codec and in our experiments it’s worked extremely well. While skeptics say G+ is no threat to Facebook, the Interwebs are abuzz with gossip that the G+ Hangout will be the end of Skype.
Huddle
The Huddle option is another team organizing tool that works like a group instant messaging app for mobile users. Again, no miracle here, but the Circles system makes it very easy to call necessary team members together instantly.
Instant Upload
The Instant Upload feature allows users to upload smartphone pics with near timeless speed. Beyond that, the G+ Circle sharing and the slick image browsing make this a great way to capture, share and peruse creative images, charts and designs on the fly.
How is your team using Google+?
