Posted by Brent Hoag, IT Director, Briggs & Stratton

Editor's note: A few weeks ago, we announced Google Drive for Work, a new premium offering for businesses that includes unlimited storage, advanced audit reporting and new security controls. To celebrate the announcement and show how Drive helps businesses around the world, we’re sharing a few stories from a handful of customers using Drive (and the rest of the Google Apps suite) in innovative ways. Today’s guest blogger is Brent Hoag, IT Director at Briggs & Stratton, the world’s largest producer of air-cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment.

Briggs & Stratton has been in the business of making gas-powered engines for more than 100 years, and if you use a lawn mower or tractor, chances are it’s running one of our engines. Today, we also sell portable generators, pressure washers and snow blowers, and we’re transitioning into a maker of consumer equipment.

A few years ago, our CEO, Todd Teske, set out a strategy to break the company into the consumer market — an expansion from our long history in the original equipment manufacturing industry. To bring his strategy to life, he needed the company to adapt to the demands of consumer markets and invest in innovation. He hired me to help make that change happen with help from the best technology available. When I discovered that 15% of our network traffic was consumed by unsecured content storing and sharing and realized that poor communication was leading to inefficiencies, I pushed for a move to Google Apps. I knew that switching to Google’s platform would not only fix our communications problems, but help our 3,000 employees be both more innovative and more effective.

That’s happening now, in a big way. In a manufacturing plant in Milwaukee, for example, one of our industrial engineers saw a way for Google Drive to replace an outdated, paper-based system to get critical information to production line workers. For decades, step-by-step instructions for assembling engine parts and quality-control checklists were all typed up and printed out for workers on five production lines. This wasn’t just a waste of paper — it often led to damaging errors when processes changed and employees were going about their jobs with inaccurate instructions and manuals. The proliferation of out-of-date information was just inefficient and potentially hazardous. To solve this problem, the engineering team created a page with Google Sites with Drive folders for each piece of manufacturing equipment, with photos, instructions for assembly, how-to videos for each of the steps and line schedules — all in a variety of file types, like JPGs, PDFs and Word docs. Workers can read instructions and learn exactly how to do the assembly using shared workstations on the plant floor.

Drive doesn’t just help us on the shop floor — it’s equally essential for our sales team, who spend a lot of time on the road, meeting with dealers and partners. Reps used to have to spend an hour or two sifting through different Excel spreadsheets and Access databases to find the most up-to-date pricing and promotions data before heading out to customer meetings and jotting down notes or downloading information onto their laptops. We’re now storing the current pricing database and promotions spreadsheet in Drive, and since our Sales teams use Drive sync on their computers, the latest information is automatically synced from Drive to their laptops. They never have to wonder if they have the right prices when they’re talking to a customer. They can also use the Drive mobile app to access the same information on their mobile devices. This means more hours spent with customers and a happier sales team — two big wins for Briggs.

Google is helping us streamline our manufacturing and business processes at a time when we have unprecedented product and corporate growth. And Todd’s strategy around breaking into the consumer market is making its mark: we’ve introduced 40 new models of lawn, garden and outdoor power equipment, won a handful of “Best of” awards and continue to see a growing percentage of our revenue come from these innovations. Google allows us to change our image inside and outside the company in a democratic and creative way, from the assembly line to the CEO’s office.

Posted by Tim Smith, Vice President of Digital at Imagination

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Tim Smith, Vice President of Digital at Imagination, a Chicago-based content marketing firm. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Imagination is a content marketing agency that helps companies connect and engage with their target audiences. Businesses like Wells Fargo, General Mills and US Foods turn to us when they want to reach their customers, and we make it happen by creating interesting and engaging content and distributing it across print, digital, broadcast and social media. We place a premium on creating smart strategies and executing on them quickly, so efficient and clear communication matters to us.

Last summer, we realized our technology was getting in the way of our ability to connect and engage with our own customers. We’d recently switched to Microsoft Office 365 as part of a larger company-wide move to the cloud, but ran into a number of problems we couldn’t ignore. Server connection issues prevented us from accessing our documents and Outlook crashes kept us from reading or sending email. Fifty percent of our help desk tickets were for email alone. And whenever a problem arose, we had to hire an expensive Microsoft consultant to fix the issue. When I stopped and realized we had a managed service provider in our office two to three times each week, it struck me: this was not the right IT solution for our agile, quick-moving and collaborative company. So we turned to Google Apps.

Once we had the support of the executive team, I reached out to Cloudbakers, a Google Apps Reseller based near our office in Chicago. They had done numerous deployments for companies like ours before, so they had a well-informed, specific step-by-step plan in place when we first sat down to talk details. They came on-site and ran in-person training for our employees, so everyone felt properly prepared to tackle their work using the new technology without skipping a beat.

Moving to Apps made our IT headache disappear. Help tickets have decreased by 50 percent and we’re on track to save $24,000 per year in help desk and downtime reduction alone. Employees no longer complain about VPN logins or email client configuration; now they can sign on to their account from any device and have everything they need at their fingertips. We don’t encounter hardware issues that make work come grinding to a halt; employees can simply sign into a spare device and instantaneously access their email and files.

Our employees have really embraced Apps, and we've seen a strong trend where teams are adopting new products and features organically. Everyone stores their important documents, presentation and spreadsheets on Google Drive. There’s also been a massive drop in the use of Microsoft Excel in the past few months as people start picking up Google Sheets and Docs. As a data enthusiast, I can’t get enough of the Drive dashboard. It’s revealed a fascinating trend where use of Excel and Word is dropping while the number of Docs and Sheets is shooting up.

We’re in the midst of evaluating a new CRM system, and our COO has one requirement: it has to integrate with Google Apps. Now that’s a success story every IT manager likes to share.

Posted by Daniel Shemtob, owner and founder of The Lime Truck

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Our guest blogger today is Daniel Shemtob, owner and founder of The Lime Truck, a Los Angeles-based food truck that serves new American cuisine. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

My passion for food started before my seventh birthday, when I taught myself how to make mushroom and olive Passover Matzo pizzas. Over a decade and many pizzas later, I decided to make food my career: I opened a food truck, The Lime Truck, in 2010, and won the Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race” in 2011, just a year later. We’ve been moving full speed ahead ever since.

I love running a food truck company, but it’s also a chaotic undertaking. We employ more than 25 people, dish out at least six menu items, and make stops at more than 30 different locations in the Los Angeles area each week. Organization is key and having the proper lines of communication is essential. I moved the company to Google Apps in June of 2011 primarily for dependable email, but we realized quickly that Calendar and Docs were just as indispensable.

Our shared Google calendar is our time management lifeblood. We have an invite for each truck that details each day’s menu and shift schedule, so everyone can see who’s working where, when they have to be there, and what they’re serving. Most importantly, we can update it at any time and know our whole team is looking at the right information. That way, if we run out of Crab Ceviche and have to switch in the Yum Yum Lamb Sandwich, we just update the shared calendar invite, and everyone knows what’s on the menu.

We got one of our partner farms to switch to Apps, and it’s made our communication with them significantly faster and easier. Now, we track everything in Docs - ingredients, quantities and delivery addresses - so all the the latest information is in one place. Getting notifications when someone adds a comment in a doc lets me and our farm know exactly where someone needs help or that something has changed.

Before using Google Apps, I felt more like a project manager than a business owner. Now, I get to focus on what I love - helping my company grow. I just opened my first restaurant, TLT Food, in Westwood and I'm writing a cookbook. Food is my life and The Lime Truck is my passion – well, that and our amazing Ahi Tuna Poke Nachos - and I wouldn’t be where I am without the help of Google Apps.

Posted by Kim Plahn, President, Dunn Bros. Coffee

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Today’s guest blogger is Kim Plahn, President of Dunn Bros. Coffee, a franchise based in Minnesota with over 80 coffee shops. See what other customers that have Gone Google have to say.

When Ed and Dan Dunn started Dunn Bros. Coffee in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1987, they refused to open just another coffee shop. They would be different -- their high-quality craft roasts would be as popular as the community of fans that flocked to them. Like the legendary Eugene, Oregon coffee houses that inspired them, Ed and Dan sought to foster the connection between customers through their shared appreciation of exceptional coffees, fresh roasted in the store every day. As CEO of Dunn Bros., I’ve made sure our blends change while that core value stays the same.

Kim Plahn, CEO, Dunn Bros. Coffee

Dunn Bros. Coffee has grown to over 80 locations in eight states since we opened our first shop. But that growth wasn’t always easy: until a few years ago, we were bogged down by the limitations and costs of our servers and legacy hardware. We needed a new IT system that was more cost-efficient and would let us focus on scaling our business.

Since we don’t have a dedicated IT department, we turned to our partner, Agosto, to help us find a better way for our corporate team and dozens of franchisees to communicate, coordinate and operate easily, whenever and wherever we were. They told us we needed Google Apps for Business, and it didn’t take us long to agree.

All the tools available to us as part of the Google Apps suite make partnering with our Support Center staff and franchisees a breeze. We use Groups to encourage discussion between our store owners, who have in turn transformed it into a forum for sharing best practices, troubleshooting and brainstorming. Sites lets us share our recipes, roasting profiles, training documents and marketing plans all in one place, so our employees don’t have to search through dozens of emails to find the latest version of the document they need. We have a shared Calendar with our weekly calls, new coffee releases, and promotions, so everyone’s in the know and on time.

We can’t imagine a day without Google Apps, and neither can our franchise owners. All we need is a cup of Dunn Bros. coffee to get us started in the morning, and the rest falls into place.

Posted by Jeremy Davidson, CEO of Monroe Restoration

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Today’s guest blogger is Jeremy Davidson, CEO of Monroe Restoration, a disaster restoration company based in South Bend, Indiana. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

When I first joined Monroe Restoration, the company couldn't afford to pay me, but I took the job anyway. I'd seen enough homes destroyed by tornadoes, floods and fires that I was willing to take a personal risk helping people get their lives back together after disaster. It didn’t take long to realize I wanted to run the company myself. I saved enough money to buy out the owner and took over as CEO in 2003. In the last ten years, Monroe has grown from a three-person operation to 27 employees across two locations. At that kind of scale, we can help a lot of people: when a tornado hits, we receive 150 to 200 calls in just a few hours, and on any given day, we’re managing between 50 and 100 projects.

Two years ago, we found ourselves in the face of a different kind of disaster: our Microsoft Small Business Server crashed, effectively stripping us of the tools we needed to help our customers. I turned to Boyd Smith, the founder of Google Apps Reseller TechKnowledgey Inc., for help. I’ve known Boyd for over a decade - we live in neighboring towns, we’re both training for our pilots licenses and he’d been our go-to IT guy for a few years. I told him we needed a new and reliable platform that would help streamline communication between branches and keep our field techs connected while they traveled on-site. He told me we needed Google Apps. We started migrating the entire company the next week.

TechKnowledgey didn’t just help us move to Apps - they’ve helped us become a better business. We buy a lot of materials from the road, so Boyd and his team built a custom purchase order system using Google Sites and Forms that lets our field techs request POs directly from their phones, wherever they are and whenever they need something. Our accounting team receives the requests and can approve them immediately, letting our employees buy the tools they need on the spot.

We’re always looking for new ways to grow the business and TechKnowledgey is continuing to show us how to use Apps to make it possible. When we opened our second office, I wanted our employees to feel a sense of camaraderie regardless of where they sat. Boyd and his team introduced us to and trained us on Google+ Hangouts. Now we can’t get enough of them. I’ll fire up a hangout to catch up with my General Manager or host an all-hands without even thinking about picking up a landline.

I know how to help someone whose roof has been torn off by a tornado or whose basement has been filled with water by a flash flood. I also know that Google Apps makes us better at saving and restoring these homes, and that TechKnowledgey helps us get more value from Apps than we could have on our own. And anything that makes it possible to get more people back on their feet after a disaster is a win for everyone.

Posted by Nathaniel Ru, Co-Founder, Sweetgreen

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Today’s guest blogger is Nathaniel Ru, Co-Founder of Sweetgreen, a retail food chain focused on making healthy eating easier. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Sweetgreen started as an idea I had with two of my friends, now my co-founders, while we were studying business at Georgetown University. We were frustrated by the lack of healthy eateries in Washington, D.C. and wanted to make eating healthy an affordable and easy option, especially on our undergrad budgets. We decided to make it happen ourselves, and launched our first Sweetgreen restaurant shortly after graduating in 2007.

We sell local and organic food, but we stand for a lifestyle: being healthy and environmentally conscious while creating great experiences around food. All of our Sweetgreen restaurants are designed with reclaimed materials, use biodegradable utensils, and compost waste. Our wooden tables and seats are made from pre-1980s bowling alleys, and our bowls, cutlery and cups are all 100% plant-based.

Google Apps allows us to be more than a traditional brick and mortar restaurant. We’re constantly evolving, changing and growing, and we realized early on that we needed our technology to be as flexible as the ingredients on our menu. We’re growing quickly - we’re opening two new markets this year - and we need technology that can grow with us.

We change our menu every month to highlight seasonal ingredients and keep things fresh. Our customers are generally curious about what they’re eating and what farm the ingredients come from, so we send talking points to the store managers. Google Sheets and Docs make this all happen for us. We have a running spreadsheet with the local ingredients and plan out each month in advance. The spreadsheet is then turned into a newsletter, and the great thing about Google is throughout that process every group has a chance to jump in and contribute. Once it’s completed, we send the newsletter out to our stores.

We also use Google Drive, which allows us to collaborate between departments. Marketing, Finance and HR can all look at one document at the same time, add their thoughts, and keep track of the changes each person makes along the way with revision history. It makes transparent communication easy, especially when we’re moving really fast (which is always).

Five years after the first seed was planted for this idea, we have more than 400 employees and 17 restaurants in four cities. At Sweetgreen, we believe in creating experiences that go beyond the transaction, and Google Apps has helped make that possible.

Posted by Mike Salguero, CEO and Co-Founder of CustomMade

Editor's note: Today's guest blogger is Mike Salguero, CEO and Co-Founder of CustomMade, an online platform for buying custom goods from local Makers. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

CustomMade is built on quality craftsmanship. We’re an online marketplace that matches our customers with a network of nearly 11,000 of the world’s best craftspeople - we call them Makers - to give them access to high-quality, custom-made goods. My co-founder, Seth Rosen, and I started CustomMade because we love working directly with Makers to build things that matter to people. We’ve been able to make it successful because we have tools that let us maintain the high metabolism that small companies require.

We started in 2009 as a two-person company working out of my one-bedroom apartment, and by being nimble and operating quickly, we’ve grown to 45 full-time employees working out of our headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Google Apps for Business is the agility engine that helped us get there. It’s been the backbone of our communication and collaboration, letting us focus on getting work done rather than how we get it done - a crucial distinction for a small business.

Google Apps helps us smooth out the rough edges of running a small business, like onboarding employees. Teaching new hires about the business and culture is inherently difficult, but since most of our hires use Gmail on a daily basis, we don’t have to spend as much time teaching them how to use our technology. By giving them the tools they’re already familiar with, they’re able to adapt quickly and jump right into their jobs without worrying about how to set up a meeting with Calendar or share a Doc with their teammates.

With thousands of Makers selling tens of thousands of different products, we’re a very numbers-focused company. Google Apps makes tracking goals across all of our teams incredibly simple. Our sales, concierge, and product teams all work towards weekly goals, such as site traffic and requests for custom items, which they update constantly in a shared Google Sheet. This gives me visibility into each team’s performance and metrics, and I know the data I’m looking at is always up-to-date. We also use Docs and Sheets for operational tasks, like storing creative briefs and tracking licenses, contractors, addresses and funnel conversions.

Google+ Hangouts are our secret productivity weapon. We work with 15 freelancers and consultants, including 10 in India, one in the UK and the rest across the US. Hangouts make it feel like they’re right here in the office with us. Our team hosts five to 10 Hangouts each day - they’ve become an integral part of our day-to-day routine.

Moving fast and staying nimble is essential to CustomMade’s success, and Google Apps keeps us on our toes and forging ahead. Instead of spending time worrying about IT problems or outdated Excel worksheets, we focus on connecting Makers like Marv Beloff with bow tie enthusiasts and helping bring dreams of custom wood tables to life.

Posted by Susan King Glosby, VP of Operations at FIT4MOM

Editor's note: In honor of Mother’s Day, our guest blogger is Susan King Glosby, VP of Operations at FIT4MOM, a company that offers fitness programs for moms at any stage of motherhood. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Being a mom to three boys is my favorite job, but helping moms is a close runner-up. That’s what I get to do as VP of Operations at FIT4MOM, a franchise that offers fitness classes to help mothers stay healthy and in shape. We’re not your typical gym session; we run pre-natal classes for pregnant women, stroller classes for new moms with their little ones in tow and workouts for mothers of all stages to get their pre-baby bodies back. Since launching in San Diego in 2001, we’ve grown to 275 franchises and 1,300 locations nationwide, helping moms from California to Cleveland stay in shape, meet other mothers and have fun with their kids.

We’re a mobile company. Our franchise owners are busy moms who don’t have time to sit in an office and answer emails. They’re teaching classes in the local park, picking up their kids from daycare and taking care of their families. Unfortunately, when we looked at our technology, we realized our email and collaboration system wasn’t doing our on-the-go business owners any favors. After looking at some underwhelming solutions tailored for franchise operations, we discovered Google Apps and knew we’d found the platform we needed to help us get our work done whenever and wherever we had the time.

Our only remaining concern was whether moving from our old system to Google Apps would be difficult without a dedicated in-house IT lead. Our worries disappeared as soon as we spoke with Lark IT, our Google Apps Reseller. Lark walked us through the process step-by-step, from the moment we decided to switch to Apps to the moment we successfully migrated all 300 of our business owners and corporate team members.

Apps has been a game changer for our 11-person corporate team. We store all our essential documents in a single shared folder on Drive, so everyone on the team has on-demand access to HR-related forms, time-off requests and contact information for our franchisees and partners. We also have a shared Google Calendar that’s always up-to-date with training sessions for new franchise owners and opening dates for new FIT4MOM locations. That way, we know all our moms are always in the loop. Google+ Hangouts have become increasingly ingrained in our daily routine, both for recurring events, like our corporate staff meetings, and impromptu one-on-one check-ins with franchise owners.

Our franchise owners are also over the moon about Apps because they finally have the tools to let them work efficiently and on their own schedules. With Gmail and Calendar on their phones, they have constant access to class schedules and can communicate easily with their instructors and the moms in their groups. No more time is wasted running home to check their laptops.

FIT4MOM isn’t just about fitness - it’s about bringing together active moms who want to be both healthy and part of a like-minded community. Between our Fit4Baby, Stroller Strides and Body Back classes, our employees and customers are getting fit and creating long-lasting friendships. And while we’re having fun on the playground, we know Google Apps is keeping the company running smoothly in the background.

Posted by Jeffrey Noe, CEO at My Receptionist

Editor's note: In honor of National Receptionist's Day, our guest blogger is Jeffrey Noe, CEO at My Receptionist, which provides virtual receptionists and front office support services for small businesses. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Receptionists aren’t just the welcome committee for your doctor’s office - they’re the directors of first impressions for companies everywhere, from one-person e-commerce start-ups to global manufacturing corporations. My Receptionist provides virtual receptionists for small businesses who realize the importance of having someone on the front line but don’t have the resources to hire someone full-time. Our 65 employees across two offices provide phone answering services and front office support for our customers, so they can focus on what they do best: growing their business.

In our line of work, a technology hangup is on par with a dropped call, and in 2011, we realized it was time for an upgrade. We had a jumble of Microsoft products that didn’t work well together and made our day-to-day operations difficult. We needed a new platform that required fewer IT resources and helped our employees and clients communicate, collaborate and schedule better together. We experimented with Microsoft Office 365, but the pricing felt unnecessarily complicated and it relied too heavily on additional software to be the fully baked cloud solution we wanted. When we tried Google Apps, we immediately knew it was the right fit: not only was it cost-effective and easy to understand, but we could tell that Google had a more developed product and vision.

While the ease and popularity of Gmail was a key driver in our switch to Google Apps, Google Docs and Drive have completely changed the way we collaborate internally and with our clients. Before, we put our training material in plastic binders, which would then be sent out to 70 people, including clients. Every time we needed to make a change - even to one page - we would need to reprint 70 copies of each page and send new binders out. You couldn't help but sigh heavily when you had to update a piece of information or update a process, because it meant another trip to the printer. Now, with Google Docs, the process, printing and need for mailing disappeared entirely. We just go online, make the change in our doc, and rest assured that everyone has the same up-to-date training manual for immediate access.

Google+ Hangouts have also become a mainstay of our day. Every morning our executive team, which is split between our two offices, huddles on a Hangout. If someone is travelling, they’re patched in and don’t miss a thing. Hangouts are also tightly integrated with Google Calendar, so our meetings are just one click away.

Our virtual receptionists are the first line of contact between a lot of small businesses and their customers, so it’s essential that we give our employees the resources to stay up to date and be knowledgeable about our clients. Our receptionists may not give out candy or cold water to the folks they interact with, but with the help of Google Apps, they have the tools to make our clients - and their customers - happy.

Posted by Tom Muraca, Director of Marketing at Katz Americas

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Tom Muraca, Director of Marketing at Katz Americas, the largest manufacturer of beverage coasters in North and South America. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Katz Americas may not be a household name, but when you put a drink down at a tavern or restaurant, our product is probably under your glass. We’re one of the biggest manufacturers of drink coasters in the United States, with over 100 employees across our two facilities in Buffalo, New York and Johnson City, Tennessee.

We weren't always such a large company - we grew quickly through a handful of mergers over the last few years - and when we finally had a chance to come up for air, we realized our technology hadn’t kept up with us. We were stumbling along with a fractured email and collaboration platform built around Microsoft Exchange 2003 and a few file-sharing servers. It was expensive and unreliable, especially for a company without a dedicated IT department. Upgrading our hosted system didn’t make financial sense, and Microsoft Office 365 didn’t win our team over. Google Apps did both, and its stability and security features were especially attractive. We decided to make the switch to Google Apps in September of 2011, and with help from Dito, our Google Apps Reseller, we were up and running by January of 2012.

Google Apps has helped us streamline and modernize our day-to-day work. By using Google Drive, we’ve cut the average time it takes to deliver an estimate and mocks to a customer from one week to just three days. Instead of sending different versions of huge files around by email, we create a single shared folder on Drive and house each proof there. That way, we can easily share, edit and collaborate on our work as a team in less than half the time it took before.

The Gmail and Google Drive mobile apps have changed how we interact with potential customers and sell our product when we’re on the road. Now, I can pull up a design on my phone while I’m speaking to a customer at an industry event or even create a rough prototype on the spot. I can also add their information to my contacts, get a quote started for them immediately, and follow up via email within minutes of finishing our conversation. Google Apps lets us give our customers on-the-spot, personal service, and that gives us a huge advantage over the competition.

Google Apps has been the keystone of our revamped company strategy at a time of significant change. The way I see it, it’s also just the beginning: our employees are constantly finding new features and sharing their favorite use cases, so I can only imagine the benefits we’ll see a year from now. In the meantime, we’ll get back to focusing on our core business - protecting tabletops from condensation and spills with surfboard-shaped coasters (and some normal shaped coasters, too).

Posted by Phil Soper, Royal LePage Real Estate Services

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Phil Soper, President & CEO, Royal LePage.

Buying a home is typically the largest purchase a family will make in their lifetime. It is no wonder that prospective buyers approach the task of finding their perfect place with such fervour. Today’s house-shoppers seek detailed, current and useful information on prospective properties and neighbourhoods. They are sophisticated users of search technology, but have traditionally been frustrated by the tools available to them. It is with this as a challenge in mind that we tackled a major redesign and rebuild of our popular real estate website, www.royallepage.ca, using Google technology.

The website integrates a new service from the Canadian Real Estate Association called Data Distribution Facility or DDF. Utilizing DDF, which our firm played a significant role in bringing to market, we will more than double the number of home-sale listings on www.royallepage.ca. For the first time, our website will showcase home listings from multiple property brokerage companies, not just Royal LePage, providing consumers with their one-stop real estate resource.

A good part of the magic behind the new www.royallepage.ca is hidden in the site’s architecture. While many real estate websites use Google Maps and Google Places, Royal LePage went a step further by constructing the website with Google Cloud Platform using Google App Engine and Google Cloud Storage. Real estate websites tend to store a large number of property records and photos, and require a large amount of location-based processing to render consumer search results. Utilizing Google Cloud Platform allows us to deliver that critical consumer information quickly and accurately. It will also allow us to scale our performance and our costs effectively as our real estate data and consumer base grows.

Uniquely, the site also employs cutting edge search technology from Google Cloud Platform, which enables consumers to go beyond traditional search to hunt for homes near local landmarks. For example, consumers can search for homes near the CN Tower, near Stanley Park or near Olympic Stadium. This innovative technology brings industry-leading search to the real estate consumer.

Relying heavily on a number of Google technologies, we were able to create an online experience unlike anything previously seen in Canadian real estate. The revamped website utilizes Google Maps and Street View for map-based search with visual assist. Many properties will display a Walkscore® ranking, which helps families understand what can be easily accomplished on foot in the area they are investigating. Additionally, tailored information is available for property listings, including Wikipedia neighbourhood photos and information, agent-produced video and descriptions, an overview of local amenities via Google Places and a list of other properties for sale in the area.

We are thrilled to unveil the new www.royallepage.ca in this, Royal LePage’s centennial year. Our website, powered by Google tools, will enable Canadians to explore their real estate dreams as never before. It will provide quick and efficient delivery of more listings, fresh neighbourhood insights, and extensive property details. It’s all there. Happy home searching!

Posted by Justin Hiltz, Media Futurist at Johnny Cupcakes

Editor's note: From the founding of Faneuil Hall in 1740 to the opening of Franklin Southie in 2008, Boston’s businesses have embodied an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit. Today, we’re wicked excited to hear from Justin Hiltz, Media Futurist at Johnny Cupcakes, a designer, manufacturer and retailer of unique, limited edition t-shirts founded in Boston. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

We’re fans of individuality and expression at Johnny Cupcakes. Our t-shirts are specially made in small batches to help express and reflect our customer’s unique styles. This independent ethos helped propel our brand from a cult favorite in our hometown of Boston into a multi-million dollar, international business with stores in London, Los Angeles and, of course, across Massachusetts.

We’ve grown a lot since Johnny Earle started Johnny Cupcakes in 2001, but we’ve always put a premium on staying fresh – both with our designs and the technology we work with. When I joined the company two years ago, I realized our email system was causing more harm than good, especially at the rate we were growing. I knew we needed an upgrade, I knew it didn't make sense to install a server that required constant maintenance, and I knew most employees were already using Gmail on their own. Moving to Google Apps seemed both attractive and obvious.

Google Apps for Business makes communication a snap. We’ve grown to 50 employees, but still work at the same breakneck speed we did when it was just Johnny hustling to get the company off the ground. That’s why it’s essential to have the tools to keep up with our pace. Google Chat makes that possible. We love that we can send a quick ping to someone with a question, an idea in need of feedback or a project update without having to leave our desks.

Google Apps saves us a lot of time and prevents a lot of headaches. Take our recent website redesign, for example. Our customers are our biggest fans, so we wanted to show them some love by highlighting a handful of them on our new site. At first, the thought of coordinating, collecting and curating that amount of content seemed daunting. I was worried we’d have to use a 3rd party questionnaire app or do everything over email and pull it all together manually (and painstakingly). Then I realized I could do it all through Google Forms. I set up a questionnaire, sent it to our customers, and saw the responses show up in real-time in a single spreadsheet. It saved me hours of work I would’ve wasted emailing, copying and pasting.

Johnny Cupcakes is all about our customers – we love them and they love us. This connection fuels our drive to make clothes that are both exclusive and accessible. Google Apps allows us to communicate more effectively, which helps free up our time so that we can concentrate on the things that really matter: our customers.

Posted by Steve Johnston, Second City Communications

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Steve Johnston, president of Second City Communications, the business solutions division of the legendary improv theater company, The Second City, and our partner in yesterday’s April Fools’ joke. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

The Second City, the venerable Chicago comedy theatre known for its creative method and improvisation, is a far cry from a Silicon Valley start-up. Nonetheless, in a very real sense we’ve been in the “interactive” and “social collaboration” space for five decades. We believe in providing a great experience for our audience and are hardwired to innovate and attack convention whenever possible.

The Second City has been called the “Harvard of Comedy,” and our alumni list includes stars such as Alan Arkin, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Our business division, Second City Communications, brings the same audience-empowered approach to the boardroom, creating content marketing, entertainment and training programs for some of America’s best-known companies. You can see some of our handiwork on this blog.

Second City Communications has been using Google Apps for over a year. Apps provides the interactive collaboration with our clients that’s necessary to co-create compelling, engaging videos that enhance companies’ training communications. We begin by using Google Docs to get multiple companies brainstorming ideas around hot corporate topics such as ethics and compliance, as well as sales effectiveness. From there, we bring our special brand of humor into the mix. We then share scripts in Google Drive to get real-time feedback from clients, helping us make sure the videos resonate with employees and reflect real challenges in the workplace.

Because you can’t really get the full effect of a script without hearing it, we meet with clients over Google+ Hangouts. Our actors do fun “table read” sessions so clients can listen and react while we observe it all. Our clients make sure we talk the talk of their audiences and bring a whole new level of authenticity to the creative development process. We continue to create these videos, called RealBiz Shorts, with more than 250 Fortune 1000 clients, who use them to change behavior and transform company culture through smart comedy.

When you look at these training videos, you see something that’s not only humorous, but also anchored in reality. RealBiz Shorts get employees more engaged with existing programs. It’s like marketing for training! See for yourself.

It’s 2013, folks. New approaches for a new time. Google Apps plays a key part of our creative development process to build big ideas with our clients. It gives us vital tools to bring improv agility and nimbleness to enterprise collaboration, and helps us bridge the gap between comedy and the corporate world.

Funny thing is, it’s working. Beautifully.

Posted Tim Luckow, Founder & Owner of GHouse

Editor's note: From the founding of Faneuil Hall in 1740 to the opening of Franklin Southie in 2008, Boston’s businesses have embodied an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit. Today, we’re wicked excited to hear from Tim Luckow, founder of Boston-based GHouse, a record label, management and promotion company. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Photo by Christopher Evans, Boston Herald

One of the most enduring critiques of the record industry is, as Q-Tip rhymed in 1991, "Industry Rule No. 4,080: Record company people are shady." While some things have improved since then, there are still plenty of ways the industry could be better. I started GHouse, a Boston-based music label, management and booking agency, to make that change happen.

Transparency reigns supreme at GHouse: we’re dedicated to showing our artists what happens behind the scenes on the business side so they can focus on their music. We want them to know exactly how much they’re making from digital sales, how many people are streaming their songs online and what each venue contract really means. It’s good both for the artists and for us: we’ve doubled our profits quarter-over-quarter since the start of 2012.

Google Apps makes that transparency - and the vision I have for my business - possible. The foundation of this clear communication sits in Google Sheets. We create, share and constantly update a spreadsheet for each of our artists that tracks performance across multiple channels, from the number of times their songs are live-streamed on certain sites to how many tickets they’re selling for upcoming shows. That way, the band can hop into the spreadsheet at any given time and know how much they can expect in royalties and sales.

As we’ve grown, so has the geographic distribution of our bands. Thanks to Google+ Hangouts, it feels like we’re still in the same neighborhood. Instead of having to venture down the Eastern seaboard on a bus each week, we’ll catch up with them over video conferencing. That’s eight hours I spend focusing on my business rather than commuting along I-95.

Most importantly, Google Apps has helped me prove the legitimacy of the business side of GHouse to the investors, who are an increasingly essential part of the company’s future. I track everything about the business in Sheets, including quarterly distribution and tour numbers, divided by artists and labels. The investors I’ve shared these with love how all this information is centrally located, impeccably organized, updated in real-time and accessible to the team at any time, from any device.

Google Apps is truly the core of my business. It’s helped GHouse function as a company for four years without an office, whether we’re updating our artists’ performance spreadsheets over lattes at a coffee shop or doing last minute planning for a SXSW showcase in Austin. I’m able to run a record label like I think it should be run. To me, that’s real success.

Posted by Aimee Anderson, Vice President of Business Development at Daily Grommet

Editor's note: From the founding of Faneuil Hall in 1740 to the opening of Franklin Southie in 2008, Boston’s businesses have embodied an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit. Today, we’re wicked excited to hear from Aimee Anderson, Vice President of Business Development at Daily Grommet, a Boston-based online marketplace for new, innovative consumer products. See what other companies that have gone Google have to say.

At Daily Grommet, we love finding the next new thing. Since we started in 2008, our site has launched more than 1,500 products from companies with innovative consumer product ideas, including luggage, solar-powered lights, funky watches, headphones and skin care products. We’re a fast-moving company that embraces the entrepreneurial spirit, both in our own culture and in the products we help go to market.

Building a business around a steady stream of product launches demands a strong technology platform that enables quick and constant collaboration for a team that works all sorts of hours from all over the country. Our office is in Boston, but we have remote workers in Colorado, California and Minnesota, and people often work from home or on the road. Whether it’s catching up on a project using Google Chat, firing off an email or collaborating in real-time with co-workers using Google Docs and Google Sheets, our employees are connected wherever they are. Our marketing team has even completely dumped wired phones and relies entirely on Google+ Hangouts. They may be dispersed geographically, but with video conferencing, they feel like they’re all in a room together.

While Google+ keeps us connected, Google Sheets drives our product launch cycle. We launch something new each day at noon, so getting each product ready to go live is an intense process that requires significant coordination and collaboration across multiple teams. Every ounce of information about all of our product lines is held in a shared spreadsheet, from purchase orders to contact information, manufacturing details to photos and videos. Each spreadsheet is shared with the discovery, marketing and development teams and gets updated as every product moves through the process to launch. Releasing a new product takes a lot of coordination and our teams need to know the information they're working with is up to date and can be accessed anywhere by anyone. With Sheets, that’s never a question.

Finding the next new thing requires a technology backbone that lets us be nimble, fast, and always connected. Google Apps does just that. Right now, we’re celebrating National Craft Month by highlighting more than 30 cool pieces of jewelry, food, crafts tools and other amazing things our partners create. Google Apps helps us make good on our commitment to the companies we work with by giving them a springboard to build their business. That’s a commitment we take seriously and are proud to uphold.

Posted by Mike Volpe, CMO of HubSpot

Editor's note: From the founding of Faneuil Hall in 1740 to the opening of Franklin Southie in 2008, Boston’s businesses have embodied an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit. When we looked at several recent lists of the top startups in the Boston area - from Bostinno, Quora and the Boston Business Journal - we were pleased to discover that about 75% of these companies are running on Apps. 

Today, we’re wicked excited to hear from Mike Volpe, CMO of HubSpot, the industry leader in inbound marketing software and one of those top startups. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Back in 2006, two MIT alumni decided there had to be a better way to do marketing. Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan knew that loud, interruptive and unwanted advertising wasn’t the way to help businesses attract customers, not to mention that new technology like caller ID and spam filters was simultaneously rendering those legacy efforts less effective. So they started HubSpot, and with it, a new paradigm that would be better for both marketers and customers, replacing loud, interruptive advertising with marketing consumers actually love.

HubSpot has grown to 450 employees since launching in 2006, and along the way, we've settled on a core mantra when it comes to how we work: “use good judgment.” We don’t tell employees where they have to work or when they have to be here - we care most about results. It’s imperative, then, that we leverage enterprise tools that make work easy and accessible anytime and anywhere. That’s why we use Google Apps. It lets us work together whether we’re at our desks or halfway around the world. That, combined with the fact that it grows with us and is simple to use, makes it the perfect solution for our company.

Our employees use Google Apps every day on nearly every aspect of our business. With Docs, Sheets and Slides, we’re able to collaborate on our most important documents with our colleagues, no matter where we are. We can store all our files in one place with Drive, so each team knows they can find their templates and notes whether they’re sitting down with their laptops or traveling with their smartphones. And Google Forms makes tracking executive speaking requests simple and seamless. Any time an organization wants a HubSpot expert to talk at an event, we send them a form with a set of standard questions, and the information they submit about the opportunity is automatically populated into a spreadsheet that houses all other requests. It's perfectly efficient.

Google Calendar helps us stay transparent, which we consider essential to empowering our employees. Many of our executives book office hours on Google Calendar and share them with our company. Any employee at any level can sign up for an hour with them, where they can bring up anything from product development ideas to problems they’re having at work.

Working for a fast-moving company isn’t easy, but with Google Apps, we’re not burdened by the hassles that can otherwise grind busy days to a halt without a strong technology platform. We don’t have to deal with attachments, version history screwups, email outages or fussing around with our phones to get our email to sync. We open up Google Apps and it works. It’s the same experience we offer with our software – simple, effective and lovable.

Posted by Kristin Phelan, Marketing Director at Faneuil Hall Marketplace

Editor's note: Boston’s changed a bit since Paul Revere set out on his famous midnight horseback ride in 1775. Belichick and Brady hadn’t met yet, the curse of the Big Bambino had yet to be cast (then broken), and Ben and Matt hadn’t won an Oscar for “Good Will Hunting.” But one thing has stayed the same in Boston over time: the city has been driven and defined by self-starters and homegrown businesses.

We’re wicked excited to highlight a few Boston businesses using Google Apps over the next few weeks. Today, we’ll hear from Kristin Phelan, Marketing Director at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, a historic Boston landmark. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

It’s not every day that you get to work in the same spot where Samuel Adams brought Bostonians together on the eve of the Boston Tea Party or where George Washington toasted the United States of America on its first birthday. As the Marketing Director at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, I help carry the legacy of America’s first marketplace forward.

Faneuil Hall is entrenched in its rich past, but part of my job is to make sure it also stays modern. We’ve recently started adding programs that reflect a new, more innovative and independent spirit: on top of the bustling retail space we’re historically known for, we’ve also hosted local musicians, NBC’s The Today Show, an LED light and sound show, pilates bootcamps and the Urban RAID obstacle course race. And each new day brings another new idea.

Coordinating all these activities requires a lot of communication and organization. It also requires a reliable technology platform - something we didn’t have until we moved to Google Apps last year. I remember the night I knew we had to switch. I was working late on a project, when all of the sudden I got a notification that my mailbox was full. I’d been using Gmail for my personal email and knew it would be a better solution for our team not only for storage, but for the rest of the tools in the suite.

Getting Apps up and running was a snap. I’m no IT expert, but setting the team up with email and teaching them how to use Calendar, Drive and Docs was simple. In our first week, we set up a shared calendar to track our street performers, visiting artists, and events, so now everyone can see what's going on and when.

Apps doesn’t just help us stay organized – it also helps us work better together when we’re away from our desks. Just a few weeks ago, I was doing an on-site walk-through for an upcoming mural when a reporter called looking for pictures for an upcoming article. I jumped on my phone, opened the Drive app, and with just a few clicks, gave her access to the photo folder I had created for press inquiries.

I may not be an American Revolutionary, but I still get to help bring millions of people together at one of the country’s most revered landmarks. And thanks to Google Apps, we have the tools to keep our 271-year-old building in the 21st century.

Posted by Jared Tabler, Vice President of Operations at ICOM Productions

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Jared Tabler, Vice President of Operations at ICOM Productions, a Calgary, Alberta-based eLearning company. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

ICOM Productions is a 100-person company focused on helping companies better engage and develop their employees by freshening up their training programs. We pride ourselves on being progressive, young and vibrant; we encourage our employees to question old habits, push the envelope and change the way we teach and learn every day.

When I joined as VP of Operations less than a year ago, I was shocked by how our progressive mentality clashed with our old, slow and unreliable technology. We were using a piecemeal technology solution built around Microsoft® Exchange that made everyday processes disjointed and inefficient. We wanted employees from each of our three offices to be able to collaborate on projects, but the process of emailing versions back and forth and editing them in silos wasn't quite the collaboration we were looking for. We knew we needed something better, but upgrading to the newest Exchange Server would have cost us a fortune and still leave us three years behind the latest technology.

It turned out that our forward-thinking employees were pushing the envelope with technology on the side, too: they'd started using their personal Google accounts at work. They were sharing files through Google Drive and creating project hubs with Google Sites. Over the next few months, we talked with our employees and Agosto, a Google Apps Reseller, and we came to a clear conclusion: moving ICOM to Google Apps was the best path forward. In the Fall of 2012, Agosto partnered with our technical team to put a migration plan in place, and 30 days later, all 100 employees were on Apps. It was the fastest IT implementation I’ve ever done.

Google+ Hangouts have completely revolutionized our recruiting process. Instead of relying on phone screenings, which don’t really convey a candidate’s personality, or flying people to Calgary, which is expensive, we use Hangouts, which cost nothing and bring each prospect’s character to life. We like to do group interviews via Hangouts to see how people think and interact - group collaboration is huge at ICOM, and you get a good sense of that over video conference. Our candidates love that we’re using new technology and we love that we’re still getting the same valuable insight about our candidates.

Google Apps has helped us be more efficient, more forward-thinking and more cost-effective. It’s also helped us strengthen the ICOM culture we pride ourselves on - being creative, asking thought-provoking questions and working as a team. All of this, of course, means that we’re getting better at what we do: helping other companies teach and train their employees more effectively. Just like what Apps has done for us.

Posted by David Gendel, Corporate IT Director at Allrecipes.com

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is David Gendel, Corporate IT Director at Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest digital food brand. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Allrecipes.com started in 1997, when Tim Hunt couldn’t find his favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe online. He vowed that other cooks like him shouldn’t have to deal with the same problem, and started CookieRecipe.com. From there, he created even more recipe sites that eventually came together into the site we know today: Allrecipes.com. Fifteen years after that cookie baking epiphany, we have more than one million user-generated recipes and 30 million visitors per month. That’s a lot of people looking for more than just chocolate chip treats.

I took over as IT director for Allrecipes.com a year ago, and fixing our aging email system sat at the very top of my first to-do list. We culled our top options—Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office 365, and Google Apps for Business—and put them through the ringer. After testing, analysis, and focus groups, Google Apps came out on top. With the help of our partner, Cloud Sherpas, we moved all of Allrecipes.com employees over. Changing old habits is hard, especially when it comes to technology, but after just five months, it feels like Google Apps is second nature to us.

We want all of our employees to be able to work from wherever they are, with whatever device they have with them. With Google Apps, they can do just that - we use a mixture of mobile devices and operating systems, and our teams can switch seamlessly between them. I don’t always have my laptop with me, but with the Google Drive mobile app, I just jump into a doc on my smartphone or tablet to review or edit it, whether it’s during a meeting or on the way to the airport. Needing to fix a document on the fly doesn’t mean needing a computer anymore. We move quickly. Apps moves with us.

Hangouts also help us stay connected. Our social media manager recently moved to Australia, but with Hangouts, it’s almost as if she never left. We have video conferences with her throughout the week, and you wouldn’t know she’s halfway around the world. Our technical teams also use Hangouts for off-hours maintenance. They get excited about being able to see who they’re working with as if they were both in the office, interacting as if they were in person, and sharing their screens to help expedite problem solving. We love that video conferencing is so seamlessly integrated with the entire Apps suite, and we don’t have to use or pay for a separate program.

Food is more than just food – it brings people together and creates shared experiences. At Allrecipes.com, we’re proud to provide so many people with the foundation for those experiences. Google Apps brings our company closer so we can focus on helping home cooks make magic in their kitchens, one cookie or casserole at a time.

Posted by Bill Schechtman, IT Director at Quixote Studios

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Bill Schechtman, IT Director at Quixote Studios, a Los Angeles-based company that rents stages, vehicles and production supplies for photo shoots and movie and TV productions. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At Quixote Studios, we work with the bleeding edge of American pop culture. We’ve hosted pop legends like Madonna, brought Jay-Z’s “On To The Next One” to life, and stood in for countless precinct offices, crime scenes and killers’ hideouts on the CBS show “Criminal Minds.” We have more than 200 employees at six locations giving studios what they need to make movies, helping photographers and fashion houses make their clothes look stunning, and playing a part in bringing the television shows you love to the small screen every week.

We work in a forward-leaning industry, but until we moved to Google Apps for Business, we worked with painfully outdated technology. Our server was unreliable and our employees couldn’t access email from their smartphones. Fixing these and a host of other problems was my first priority when I joined Quixote Studios as IT Director two years ago. We considered Microsoft Exchange, but the storage, licensing and support costs were more than we bargained for. We also looked at Office 365, but it didn’t offer the full suite of tools we needed or the simple pricing structure Google Apps has. So, with the help of our reseller, Dito, we switched to Apps.

We started with the fundamentals: moving everyone to Gmail and setting up device syncing so people could access email from their phones and tablets. Before we knew it, we started seeing employees picking up more advanced product features on their own: shared calendars became a company standard and Docs became the norm for team meeting notes.

But Google Drive has been the real revelation. Every important document in our company is stored in Drive, from onboarding and exit forms to organizational charts, permits and checklists. It's a far cry from our old system, a complicated file server that was stuffed full of different versions of Microsoft Word and Excel files, all with their own cryptic names for versions or dates.

Drive has also dramatically improved the way we collaborate. Creating our company all-hands presentations, for example, is a team effort that involves up to ten stakeholders working together on a single document at the same time. It's powerful to see that many employees collaborating so seamlessly and efficiently. It's even more exciting to think about how much time we save by eliminating the need to send attachments back and forth or check that we're working on the most up-to-date version.

Google Apps has helped turn technology into an incredible resource for our employees – smooth, hassle-free email and an easy collaboration hub. Now we can put all of our energy into helping our clients do great things. As someone in charge of IT, it’s comforting to know those systems will grow right alongside Quixote Studios as we continue to help make Hollywood’s big ideas come to life. And Scene!