Bow before the Google.

I wrote the following e-mail manifesto for the folks at my ad agency, to help motivate my more technophobic colleagues to embrace new technology. I thought some of you might also get something out of it, so here you go...

Dearest friends and colleagues,

Maybe you’ve heard, but Google is taking over the world.

I, for one, welcome our new overlord. In recent months, Google has launched or streamlined some of the coolest stuff you’ve ever seen in your life. For serious.

In case you’ve been preoccupied by less important things like family, work or America’s Next Top Model, I’ve compiled a brief summary of some of these new Web tools and how they can make you better at everything you do.

Let’s get started!

• Name: Google Reader
• Address: www.google.com/reader
• What it is: A site that collects updates from all your favorite blogs, news sites and other Web pages.
• Why it's cool: You no longer have to bookmark a few dozen sites and click on each to see if the page has been updated. Breaking news and blog postings are sent to you as soon as they’re posted. Instead of cluttering your e-mail inbox, they’re all collected on Google Reader. Yes, it’s just one of many RSS aggregators, but it’s an easy and convenient one.
• How it can make you a better advertising professional: You can follow all those snazzy advertising and marketing blogs without having to check back constantly and see if some slacker consultant/author/visionary has bothered to update his or her site.

• Name: Google Calendar
• Address: www.google.com/calendar
• What it is: A visual depiction of days, weeks, months, etc., organized in a convenient 30-day, Sunday-Saturday format. You know, a calendar.
• Why it's cool: Sure, it’s just a calendar, but it’s one you can access from anywhere, meaning you can update it from anywhere. It also has tons of swank features, like being able to search for public events (aka local concerts) and add them to your calendar. Hey, maybe you have a Blackberry. You know what I have? A habit of losing small, expensive things. So I like this one.
• How it can make you a better advertising professional: You’ll actually notice that you booked yourself for four meetings at 9 a.m. tomorrow. And you’ll remember that wine tasting your spouse wanted to go to but only mentioned that one time and then got all mad because you totally forgot and you can be so inconsiderate sometimes. You’ll just become a better person all around.

• Name: Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Address: docs.google.com
• What it is: Basically it’s Microsoft Word and Excel. Except free, and accessible from almost any computer on the planet.
• Why it's cool: If you ignore everything else in this e-mail, remember this. You just log in, tell if whether you want to make a text file or a spreadsheet, and get started. No download, no frustration. You can save and close it at any time and pull it up from any computer with Internet access. Kiss attachments goodbye. You can keep the documents private or share them with coworkers or friends, who can also be “collaborators”
• How it can make you a better advertising professional: Well, I can tell you what it does for me. I can start writing something here, update it from home, have another writer log in and write suggestions, revise it and send to my boss, all without ever opening an e-mail program. It’s not perfect for everything, but it’s about as flexible as you can get.

• Name: Blogger
• Address: www.blogger.com
• What it is: The dominant free blog-hosting site.
• Why it’s cool: I know, I know, Blogger’s been around a long while. But Google recently finished their beta test of “the new Blogger,” which added tons of improvements. You can now drag and drop features onto your blog; you can make your blog private so your boss...er, I mean your industry competitors...can’t read it; and you can run multiple unique blogs from one Gmail address. You have a Gmail account, right? Let me know if you don’t. I’ve got about 96 invites left.
• How it can make you a better advertising professional: If you’ve never contributed to a blog, then you’ll never be truly comfortable with the potential that blogs offer our clients. Until you poke around with it yourself, it will always seem like a foreign concept. We don’t have that luxury. Our clients look to us to understand this stuff, and it all starts here. Heck, just start a blog, post on it, then erase it forever. Trust me, it’s easier than you think.

Other Google sites that are cool but I don’t have time to explain thoroughly:

• Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) — E-mails you updates whenever there are new results for your favorite search terms. Don’t be the last person on the Internet to read something about your client, our agency or that video of you at the Widespread Panic concert.
• Google Earth (earth.google.com) — Although this one requires a free download, it’s an incredible way to look at the world (or your neighborhood). I can’t even begin to explain the absolutely endless opportunities for this. An academic friend of mine is using it to improve emergency response times for accidents. We could probably use it to sell granola bars.
• Google Patents (www.google.com/patents) — Did you know my dad holds a patent for a “system for the measurement of ultra-low stray light levels”? Neither did I. But hey, here it is. I chose to end on this site not because I think it expands our advertising acumen, but because it expands our understanding of the sheer enormity of this information revolution. And because it shows my dad is crazy smart.

Thanks for your time,
Griner


(Note: My dad has since e-mailed me a lengthy explanation of how he simply filed the patent application, and the root work was not his. This does not sway me from my opinion that he's a brilliant guy. I also probably totally misrepresent Bill's work on response times. The moral is, I don't really understand what any of you do for a living.)