Google Ambassadors

End of the road for the Google Ambassadors

noreply@blogger.com (Problemsmith) — Mon, 10 May 2010 21:21:00 +0000

After nearly six months we became a dynamic force of some of the most enthusiastic group of expert users of the Google products, but due to jealousy and envy about our formation and who we would accept or would not accept due to their professional standards, on-line presentation, their writing skills, or temperament issues were raised and complaints were made by several people who we part of the Google Ambassadors program, because they were part of the group they were able to manage to get it deleted. No one ever said we live in a perfect world, and at least they can't delete Google which we all use all day.

I had always hoped we could all develop a single open global network and apparently it is being done on Facebook and here at Google, not long now and we will be able to see, hear and practically feel the pulse of the planet. Like one cosmic wave of consciousness.

While as the initial developer of our blog and the Google Ambassador Expert Users Group I am a bit disappointed that the group was removed by our jealous lovers, but all in good fun. I started the Google Ambassadors in part to complement the Facebook Ambassador and Public Diplomacy I had started, the only difference was the Google Ambassadors were technically focused and the Facebook Ambassadors program requires time in the study of etiquette, public relations, and diplomatic protocol.

In any case the Facebook Ambassadors has become a success, now being adopted officially as a Facebook Community and has had a page created. The original program started over a year ago in recruiting diplomacy school graduates, professors, and ambassadors from the United Nations and the US Department of State employees who lend advice. Now here we are nearly a year later and it has established an exclusive understood relationship with Facebook and their founder by mutual agreement with Mark Zuckerberg based on Facebook Policy.

I accomplished this by examining Facebook Policy, writing to Mark Zuckerberg, and releasing the terms and information we developed to Facebook and the public domain. You can read more about it at the page on Facebook or by searching Facebook diplomacy to understand how it all came about. The original term was actually established on Twitter during the Obama campaign, pretty interesting really.

Unless someone wants to go to the trouble now of reactivate the Google Ambassadors I guess it looks like an an unspoken conflict of ideas exists somewhere or perhaps lots of technical people are simply too emotional to be called Ambassadors and get along. All is well just the same as long as we have our health and knowledge.

If you have experience with public relations, foreign relations, international affairs, or just want to read and follow our program feel free to participate on Facebook. I will continue to work in the Facebook Diplomacy Corps & Ambassador Training Group while the Facebook Community people have initiated a page called Facebook Ambassadors, but remember it is not tech based, but Facebook is helping with all bells and whistles using applications. See you all at Facebook. -David J. Wright

Expert Users of 57 Google Products and Services

noreply@blogger.com (Problemsmith) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:33:00 +0000

Ask the Google Ambassadors what the Buzz is all about.

The Google Ambassadors were developed and established based on Google's introduction of new products and the need for a group of experts that could share their knowledge with others at a professional level.

In November 2009 several social network professionals made a call out to the world from a well-developed Facebook network of ethical users engaged in public diplomacy to engage and promote the concept of an expert users group of Googlers, from this the Google Ambassadors and Expert Users were created.

The group that was developed, created and promoted using the very same Google products and services like 'Google Groups,' 'Google Wave,' 'Blogger' and several others and we are just getting started, we are using other products like Google Docs in the background to manage the entire affair. There are still a number of products our group is using that have not been fully incorporated yet, because we do not want a mess or to overwhelm anyone.

Great care was taken in the development of this initiative; bringing together the expert users of Google's products involved individual evaluations of each member, their profiles, their work, and in some cases their temperament because of people's natural tendency to be egoistical and/or subjective with their personal agendas. Last month we had one ambassador trying to create a perfect storm in the Google Wave with contention for our general program so he could personally benefit through being an axis point for communication. The idea is to create an access point for those interested in Google products to get good sound advice and consultation as needed, not monopolize or capitalize off of the goodwill of Google or its integral development in all of our lives as a socially responsible company, it is coming along very well.

We are sure we made the right decisions in taking this a step at a time, the success of the Google Ambassadors work together as a group and the network we have developed in general will be based on the appropriate presentation of individuals with hard tested knowledge of these individual products and the professional presentation of the Google products as expert users. Some of the experts we selected are very knowledgeable, versatile individuals and have great understanding of the Google Enterprise as a whole, but we limited experts to selecting three products in which they can specialize officially, but this does not limit them privately from promoting other Google products in their professional careers.

There are over 100 Google Ambassadors at this very moment representing 57 different Google products that are web accessible and collaborative in some way. The ambassador program is currently establishing a point of contact for these ambassadors to find opportunities to train others at a professional level. Some ambassadors have already established training programs and are circulating these opportunities in their own local communities with small and medium businesses, some are developing on-line training programs, one even mentioned establishing a professional Google Help Desk (hotline), and yet others are simply helping other individual users in a technical capacity at no cost to the person seeking assistance because they want to do it.

Everyone is very excited about the recent and new progress of Google in the social network realm and the upcoming integration of many new products which will come into play as Google is ready to implement them. There were many concerns last week over privacy issues with Google Buzz, but Google being as responsible as they are these issues were quickly resolved and are continuing to be resolved.

Join our group as a follower of our blog, member of the ambassadors group, or follow our news on Facebook as we move to the next level and introduce our experts, developers, and even a few members of the Google staff who have been so essential in the development of this great initiative. A revolution is on the horizon for how we use our computers, how we communicate, socialize and collaborate our work together as a team.

When thinking Google Ambassadors don't forget the Google Student Ambassadors

noreply@blogger.com (Problemsmith) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:26:00 +0000

Students spread the Google Gospel

Web giant recruits college students to show their peers how to use Google applications for homework and exams. By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor, eSchool News Online

Boise State University senior and self-described Google fanatic Taylor Bell landed his dream job this semester when the internet mega-site hired him as an ambassador, charged with evangelizing Google's array of applications to tech-hungry college students.

Google has 121 ambassadors on 69 campuses nationwide after sifting through thousands of applications and awarding the company's first ambassadorships to students last year. The Google student representatives are not paid, but they are rewarded with free water bottles and T-shirts, said Miriam Schneider, a product marketing manager for Google.

Google delivers online tutorials to its ambassadors, showing what features they should pitch to students in on-campus meetings.

Bell said a recent lesson he gave to a group of Boise State football players showed how they can collaborate in groups of up to 10 people using Google Docs, an application that lets students create a study sheet in real time in remote locations, for example.

"It kind of blows their minds a little bit," said Bell, 25, a communications major. "A lot of people didn't have any idea you could do some of these things. … I don't think they realize how powerful some of these tools really are."

Schneider said spreading the word during major product rollouts like Google Wave--an application that allows for real-time communication using videos, maps, photos, and text--helps the company create tools that better cater to students, a demographic that often uses Google products before the general public.

"We want [ambassadors] to really be foot soldiers on campus … who are the early adopters," Schneider said. "It's important for us to know exactly how students are using our products … and to build a bridge between Google and the people who are actually using the products. For us, it really shapes the way the products are developed."

Google's student outreach isn't limited to the college campuses staffed with ambassadors. The company has launched a Twitter page, a blog, a Facebook page, and a YouTube channel all dedicated to communicating with students.

The company uses the blog to push applications that can be useful in the lecture hall and during late-night library study sessions.

On Nov. 17, a Google blog post trumpeted the launch of Google Sites templates, described as "pre-packaged sites that anyone can use to make creating your own web site even easier."

"This is especially valuable for students so that when you're making your site you can now skip a few steps, and instead of making a site from scratch, start with a template," the blog says. "You can use site templates to organize, publish, and share information about your school, class, projects, fraternity or sorority, school club, intramural teams, or any other organization or event."

Google invited a handful of students, including Bell and Daniel Miller, a Google ambassador at the University of Washington, to the annual EDUCAUSE conference in Denver Nov. 3-6. Students manned the mammoth Google both on the conference's exhibit floor and helped answer questions from passersby. Miller said he has helped Washington students create an exam study guide in Google Docs, a program they were only somewhat familiar with.

"I sort of walked them through it at first," Miller said, "and they took to it and really figured it out."

To qualify for a Google ambassadorship--which lasts one academic year--applicants must be enrolled in a North American college or university, demonstrate passion for technology, and commit to about five hours a month for planning Google events on campus. Each ambassador is expected to host three to four events during the school year.

Bell said his ambassadorship proves that Google doesn't judge applications solely by grade point average. With a GPA under 3.0, Bell thought his chances were slim, but he wrote about his decade-long study of Google's rise to prominence in his online application--a strategy he believes clinched his ambassadorship. "I wasn't trying to just write anything they wanted to hear," Bell said.

Bell's loyalty to the search giant was evident in 2004, when Google unveiled its eMail program, called Gmail. Gmail subscriptions were only available through online invites on a limited basis, so Bell paid someone $5 through PayPal to eMail him an invitation.

"I knew that Gmail was going to be huge, and I'm the type of person who has to get in on the ground floor," he said. "It's fast and it's simple, and I haven't looked back since."

Being Boise State's Google go-to, Bell said, hopefully will evolve into a full-time, post-college job with the company.

"My passion for technology mixed with my love of continued education really connects with [Google's] message," he said. "I can't help but have a huge grin on my face whenever I talk about it."

Source: eSchool News Online

Links:

Google's student blog

Google's student YouTube page

Google's student Twitter account

Google student internships

Google Campus Ambassador Program

Introducing the Google Ambassadors

noreply@blogger.com (Problemsmith) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:07:00 +0000

The Google Ambassadors are the same great people that use Google everyday all over the world. They are the users of Google products, the same are also developers, beta testers, and the guinea pigs of the Google laboratory. The ambassadors are involved in the introduction of new ideas, exchange of information, generating feedback, and they are an integral spontaneous development of Google themselves.

The 'Google Ambassadors' are a group of self-styled volunteer social networkers and developers that are well-experienced in the creation and management of Google sites, groups, blogs, documents, and much more; besides promoting Google in general through using Google products, they also represent others that are less knowledgeable or too occupied to do their own project or personal profile development on-line. The ambassadors use good old-fashioned ethical values and traditional diplomatic protocol in their personal presentations and in creating presentations representative of others. Besides representing individuals who need special representative services they also collaborate with Google engineers and in-house developers by sharing ideas, training others, and providing solutions as members of forums and groups on Google.

The Google ambassadors represent the appropriate use of social network tools and the Internet in general in both theory and practice, their identities are individually verified and qualified based on demonstrated experience and knowledge by the program organizers. To be considered an ambassador in our special group potential members should be affiliated with any number of relative professional groups and/or organizations and must have their professional profile publicly displayed and available for viewing and reference on a number of business and casual social network sites referenced from their own Google Account Profile.

The Google ambassador's group and ideal for the program is being organized by Col. David J. Wright, and professionals from Globcal International who created a similar program and format on Facebook which uses a slightly different concept to interact with others securely and appropriately to promote social causes and goodwill. There he and his organization took the idea of Facebook diplomacy (citizen-based public diplomacy) and formalized it to develop and create democratic world-view based on basic and common values of all people and cultures connected there. The idea involves the concept of a 'no borders world' as we all currently share on-line and the generation of conversations that can be shared globally among all who are involved in the social network platform; in the practice of this activity they emulate best practices of the representative network and discuss development of standards for social network interaction and use.

The activities are overseen by Globcal International a non-profit cooperative founded by Wright which manages the groups and programs for the public benefit and the development of individual ambassadors' social capital and professional realization as experts in the field of social media relations. Ambassadors do not have to be members of or associated with the cooperative, however it does not hurt since there is no cost,all members are act as independent agents.

Ambassador group participants are unpaid for their stint as ambassadors because they are not actual Google employees; but as Google lab participants, developers, coders, beta-testers, writers, and expert users they are considered the best use practitioners and keep up-to-date with changes and new technology allowing them to freelance their Google expertise by taking on individual projects working with others.

Being an ambassador for Google can be as simple as using Google Labs products or using 'adsense' and 'adwords' or it can be as complex as training others as an independent agent; such as small businesses, governments, and corporations in your part of the world as to how to use and implement Google for maximum efficiency and benefit.

The Google Ambassador group officially begins on December 01, 2009 and anyone can become a Google Ambassador upon completion of a questionnaire and demonstrating adequate knowledge about Google's more popular products like GoogleMail, GoogleWave, Google Chrome, Blogger, GoogleSites, and others, the best part is that if you are not approved as an ambassador immediately you can learn more about Google and become an ambassador afterwards. All ambassadors are also asked to comply with a special code of ethics and conduct developed by the group users.

The advantages of becoming an ambassador include invitations to use third party software, other Google developers applications early, and opportunities to make independent presentations about Google in the off-line world through your own company or self as a contractor or guest speaker.

Anyone can join the Google Ambassadors Group and share in the knowledge to become a great Internet user or a social and business network expert. No technical talk, it is all about using Google for the best network connectivity ever, if you need help ambassadors will always be glad to make professional references for you.

See the complete list of Google products or see our Blogroll on the right side of this page.

Start now to incorporate good use in your daily routine as a Google practitioner by becoming a follower and friend of this blog using Google's tools and extensions, add a new Google product to your arsenal of browsing and interaction tools and publish a post on Facebook or Twitter or on other social networks by inviting some friends to read this blog.

Google logos are representative to Google Ambassadors use of the Google products and do not imply ownership. All logos are copyrights and trademarks of Google, Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

How do Googlers get by?

noreply@blogger.com (Problemsmith) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:37:00 +0000

On Google everything is free and we/they give you money if you are well read and you have ad-sense installed. Free money from ads, a free website, top of the line security, anonymous account, guaranteed provision, moreover you get secure email, the ability to become a developer, and top of the line desktop applications and on-line software.

Who are we? We are the Google Ambassadors, we promote all good things Google.

Best of all for individual users Google is free. All you need is a computer, an operating system, a Google account, and a broadband connection. Google is a complete communications and collaboration solution; no more faxes, no email, no telephone, nothing... just connect and associate with competent people in social networks and others that have the Internet. There is no one you cannot contact in the world; that is, if they have a computer and they use Google, you just need to know how.

This blogspot is a production of the Google Wave self-styled volunteer ambassadors and fans from all over the world and a handful of Google Wave developers.