Draft without drafts

Those of you who play fantasy football know how crucial the draft is. The decisions you make in August can have you jumping for joy on Sunday or tearing your hair out on Monday morning. I'm a fantasy football addict and I love the game - but not the paperwork. Unfortunately, before using Google Docs & Spreadsheets, there was a lot of paperwork.

Like most leagues, my buddies and I relied on lots of email with scores of attachments. The commissioner would create a league spreadsheet and send it to each of us in an email. Then we'd fill it out and send it back to him. The poor guy would tirelessly compile everyone's draft picks and send it out again. This awful cycle would begin anew each week as the commissioner tallied the scores and updated the standings. Thanks be praised, the olden days are gone, and this drudgery is over.

My league now uses Google Docs & Spreadsheets to compile and compare the information for that all-important draft. Now my commissioner creates an online spreadsheet and invites each league member to collaborate. Each of us enters our information online, in one place. Nobody ever has an out of date version and we can see everyone else's changes as they happen. With Google Spreadsheet's integrated chat feature, we can even trash talk in real time.

Since switching to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, I have a lot more time to research my draft picks, my league commissioner has his life back, and the world is a better, more collaborative place. Now I just need Frank Gore to put up some serious points.

(Docs & Spreadsheets user Dave Kaufman also shared his experience with the draft.)

How Docs & Spreadsheets grew at Google

Posted by: Ken Norton, Product Manager, Google Docs & Spreadsheets

When we first launched Docs & Spreadsheets last fall, we brainstormed different ways to drive awareness and adoption inside of Google. Should we hold a contest? Put up posters? But before we knew it, something interesting happened -- Googlers just started using it. They didn't need to be encouraged to reduce their email attachments. They didn't need to be told that having a single copy of their document would reduce confusion and allow access from any web browser. They didn't need a demo on how to import and export from traditional desktop applications. In sum, they didn't need us to tell them it would change the way they work together.

At Google, it's common to use our own products internally. In software industry parlance, we "eat our own dog food." (We like to think that Google products are tastier than kibble, but we'll leave that alone for now.) This is especially true for Google Apps. We use the same product as customers like Arizona State University and Prudential Preferred. As you can imagine, few tools in the corporate world are more important than email, calendar, instant messaging and document editing, so a vote of confidence from our co-workers means a lot. Since we use all of the Google Apps every day, we experience first hand what works and what doesn't, and we can apply that knowledge to making the products better.

Here are some statistics: 87% of Google employees worldwide used Docs & Spreadsheets in the past week and 96% have used it in the past month. Googlers have created and shared more than 370,000 documents and spreadsheets and they create more than 3,000 new ones each day. In fact, I wrote this blog post and shared it with colleagues using Docs & Spreadsheets just a few moments ago. If it works for us, it might just work for you too.

Peek-a-boo, I see you (on this spreadsheet)

Posted by: Micah Lemonik - Google spreadsheets engineer

As we mentioned in the Docs & Spreadsheets help group last week, we added a few cool (in my opinion ;) features to the collaborative spreadsheets editor. What we didn't mention was the hard work of a few interns which led to these features.

Matt Ziegelbaum gave us the new Sortbar, which is a huge improvement to our old Sort tab. It's that new gray bar you'll see towards the top of your spreadsheets. You can drag and drop the handle at the left to quickly and easily freeze your header rows, but it also gives you one-click access to sorting. Just click it once above the column you want to sort; click again to reverse the sort.

James Walker gave us the collaborator location indicators. This one adds even more "wow" to the Real-time collaboration capabilities of the product. When you are working in the same spreadsheet with other people, you can now see where they are - as their selected cell will be highlighted with a colored box. If you don't see them, just click their name in the discuss tab and you'll be taken to the part of the spreadsheet where they are working and watch, in real-time, as they move around the sheet. You'll also be given a visual indicator when a cell is being edited (it turns gray) to help avoid those "oops - I think i just edited the same cell as you" moments. If you've never actually edited a spreadsheet at the same time as other people, go create a spreadsheet of your favorite videos or musicians and invite a few people to give their ratings... or whatever. Real-time collaboration might change your perspective on productivity... and fun!

If anyone ever tells you that interns do un-important tasks and get coffee for their managers - don't believe it. In fact, I'm going now to get coffee for James and Matt and the rest of the team who helped get these features done!