Candidates Use Google Apps To Run Their Campaigns

Google Groups part 1


Google Groups part 1



Google Docs lets you create, share, and collaborate on documents online.


Sharing your Google Docs while maintaining control over who can access your files.

Email has been the most common way to communicate online, even for a political campaign. Most campaigns have their own email address with their own domain name (like Michael@michaelfortexas.com). An alternative to paying for a commercial Internet service provider (ISP) for a website domain with email email is a very power and free solution: Google Apps.

As long as you have fewer than 50 users the system is free. The domain (i.e. www.michaelfortexas.com) is linked to a Google email server.

The interface looks almost exactly like a gmail account. You have access to not only email, but docs, calendar, etc.

Furthermore, it provides smart phone access with Google’s phone application, Google Sync.

Google Apps is a great solution for any campaign. It is relatively quick to set up so if you have a simple site with a tight budget, you might as well tell your webmaster to go ahead and set it up. At the very least, having your domain name in your email address would be free advertising.

Google Groups lets you quickly find and and participate in ongoing discussions among group members.

Google Groups is a little like using email to create and post messages. But Groups is a discussion forum where all members can read and respond to discussions in various topic threads.

Google Docs lets lets multiple people collaborate together to concurrently read and update one copy of documents like spreadsheets, slide presentations and word docs.

You'll be able to stay in the loop even when you're on the move, with the new mobile browser experience.

Robert Willington, online campaign strategist for Scott Brown’s campaign to win special election to Edward Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, was a major proponent of using Google apps. (WSJ) Willington's Twitter feed was littered with references to Google apps. He even tweeted that “It’s amazing how google docs is the foundation of the Brown campaign.”

Mr. Willington said in an interview that the campaign made so much use of Google apps because the tools were efficient and readily available to campaign workers. “We didn’t have much money,” he said. “We needed to be as efficient and quick as possible.” He said he wouldn’t have exact figures on the campaign’s online ad budget until after the election.

Google Apps
Google Sites
Documents
Spreadsheets
Presentations
Forms
Drawings
Docs list
Gmail
Google Enterprise