Win a bottle of champagne during a Google Apps training session
Posted by Philippe Creytens at 15:30
The last couple of weeks we have been preparing an international Japanese company to move from Lotus Notes to Google Apps.
Nothing special, right? Not really. Just like any other migration this project has its share of technical challenges but we have grown used to that. More importantly, as part of “Going Google” we also planned training sessions for the employees.
In the past I have explained some useful things for users moving to Apps from other mail systems in this blog post.
However something that users really struggle with is searching instead of sorting emails.
So how can you show the power of search in Google Mail in a playful manner? Probably if you are willing to wager for a bottle of champagne.
The sense or nonsense of conversations –grouping multiple emails on the same subject– has its fair share of supporters and opponents. Conversations are an easy way to bring back to mind the context of certain mails with a minimal effort. Search the conversation, unfold, read the messages and replies again. Done.
Despite the fact that search is really fast in Gmail, typically new users will stick to what they know: folders. Newbie Google Apps users often prefer to organize their mails in different folders. Trying to convince them that classifying mails and later browsing for them in folders is much more time-consuming compared to search with 
Alias domains in Google Apps are really appreciated in organizations with branches in different countries. For these organizations it is often important that employees are able to use domain names that are different from the primary Google Apps domain.
Moving from Outlook to Gmail and at the same time no longer using folders is for many one of the hardest things to do. After a mail migration to Gmail typically your folder structure gets converted to labels.
Google may have great ambitions with their OS for tablets, the reality is that Honeycomb tablets are expensive and (hardly) available. The iPad sets the standards.
Unless you are very disciplined and only open your mail at certain times of the days to avoid disturbances, mostly likely you will want to have notifications of new mail or chat. If you use Gmail with a browser, you need to use external applications to do so: the 
How do I get a visual indication of the arrival of new email is probably one of most asked questions after a migration to Google Apps. There are different solutions for Windows or Mac users. A small overview.
