I use all three of these, so here are some thoughts about them!
Google Docs
I love Google Docs – I first started using it when I was doing my Masters, partly because of the benefits when doing group-work, and partly because I commuted to university, used my netbook at home and while travelling, used cluster/library PCs when I was on campus and work PCs on breaks/in quiet moments! Google Docs made it incredibly easy to just open the document and carry on from where I left off, without having to remember to bring a USB stick with me or make sure I was working on the latest version of the document. I use it fairly regularly now for Voices things, for example if we’re working on a statement or blog post and someone sends it round for tweaking – I’ll save it as a Google Document, add annotations or make amendments and then Share it. Saves a lot of time saving it to my computer and uploading it as an email attachment! One of the best/funniest/most horrendous things I’ve used it for recently is a collaborative BBC Question Time Watch-along Tweet-along Drinking Game Rules document, which at one point had about thirty people editing it at the same time (oh by the way, you should totally come if you’re in London on 8th September). Blame unfortunatalie. There’ll be #savelibraries ribbons for sale and a bunch of brilliant speakers I’m not allowed to talk about yet. But they are terribly exciting.
Dropbox
My sole use of Dropbox is no way illegal file-sharing. Nuh-uh. Oh, I’ve got my CV in there in case I need to get hold of it, but I’ve also emailed it to myself and dumped it in Evernote, so I’m going to have to decide which is my Definitive Storage Place, or it’ll get messy soon. Too much choice!
Wikis
I’ve found Wikis can be very useful if everyone who’s using them knows what the aim is. At one of the places I used to work, there was a staff wiki that people used as a reference point for useful information – FAQs on the desk, storing door security codes, meeting minutes, that kind of thing. It worked really well and there was a clear structure for who was responsible for what. Voices have a PBWorks wiki that was incredibly useful when we were in the very early days of planning – it meant that within a couple of weeks we’d all brain-dumped and come up with aims, a structure, a website, content, and a plan about how we were going to get support and publicise ourselves. All for free! Oh collaborative software, you beautiful thing. We still use it now but far less; it seems to be a place for storing important documents and things like press release templates, passwords etc. and for planning events. All useful stuff and it means there aren’t quite so many emails flying around.
