Rice + Leadership
January 19, 2012
Introduction: Veronica Rae Saron is a Google Student Ambassador at Rice University. This is the last post in her four-part blog series, Rice+, in which she's shared the various creative ways that the Rice community is using Google+ to enhance their world.
On campus, Google+ serves as a fantastic tool for clubs, especially club leadership.
At Rice, we don’t have sororities or fraternities, but we do have residential colleges, a social unit that just begs to organize itself into Circles. I have a “Will Rice” circle, since that’s my residential college, and I also have a “Sid Rich” circle, which is the residential college where I advised during orientation week. A cool feature that integrates Gmail with Google+ also turns my Circles into labels for my emails - so for example, if someone in my “Will Rice” circle sends me an email, it’s automatically labeled that way without needing to set a filter!
Read more about how to organize people into Circles here.
Not only do Google+ Circles help out immensely with organizing club members, but Hangouts of course provide a means to conduct meetings more easily. Usually, club executives meet in person, but if ever a meeting needs to happen on short notice, Hangouts are the best option. Even more commonly, though, group members might not even be on campus at the same time, which can be a problem if you’re on a team that needs to meet frequently, like a group working on a web startup...
The Rice University founding members of SimpApply.com – one of a large handful of tech startups coming out of our university – have discovered Google+ Hangouts and use them extensively. Since some of their team members graduated last year, before Hangouts it was difficult for them to keep in sync. Says co-founder Abhishek Nag:
“The main video display makes it clear who is talking, and it’s especially useful when we have energetic discussions (AKA shouting matches). The 'Extras' features work great for us, and if there's ever a tense moment in the course of our meetings, we can always bring in the mustache.”
I know that I’ll be using Google+ Hangouts plenty over this winter break in order to coordinate next semester’s plans for our campus’s celebrateART festival as well as to solidify the events for the club of which I’m the president, the Rice Academy Society. Seeing as both projects involve leadership from a lot of my peers, Hangouts will definitely be a critical tool for planning next semester.
Have you used Google+ Hangouts and Google+ to facilitate projects and leadership opportunities?
Posted by Veronica Rae Saron, Google Student Ambassador
On campus, Google+ serves as a fantastic tool for clubs, especially club leadership.
At Rice, we don’t have sororities or fraternities, but we do have residential colleges, a social unit that just begs to organize itself into Circles. I have a “Will Rice” circle, since that’s my residential college, and I also have a “Sid Rich” circle, which is the residential college where I advised during orientation week. A cool feature that integrates Gmail with Google+ also turns my Circles into labels for my emails - so for example, if someone in my “Will Rice” circle sends me an email, it’s automatically labeled that way without needing to set a filter!
Read more about how to organize people into Circles here.
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| These circles help me to organize my social life and my academic world! |
Not only do Google+ Circles help out immensely with organizing club members, but Hangouts of course provide a means to conduct meetings more easily. Usually, club executives meet in person, but if ever a meeting needs to happen on short notice, Hangouts are the best option. Even more commonly, though, group members might not even be on campus at the same time, which can be a problem if you’re on a team that needs to meet frequently, like a group working on a web startup...
The Rice University founding members of SimpApply.com – one of a large handful of tech startups coming out of our university – have discovered Google+ Hangouts and use them extensively. Since some of their team members graduated last year, before Hangouts it was difficult for them to keep in sync. Says co-founder Abhishek Nag:
“The main video display makes it clear who is talking, and it’s especially useful when we have energetic discussions (AKA shouting matches). The 'Extras' features work great for us, and if there's ever a tense moment in the course of our meetings, we can always bring in the mustache.”
 |
| The team members of SimpApply are distributed across 5 cities and 2 timezones, and Google+ Hangouts allows them to work effectively on their startup despite the distance. |
I know that I’ll be using Google+ Hangouts plenty over this winter break in order to coordinate next semester’s plans for our campus’s celebrateART festival as well as to solidify the events for the club of which I’m the president, the Rice Academy Society. Seeing as both projects involve leadership from a lot of my peers, Hangouts will definitely be a critical tool for planning next semester.
Have you used Google+ Hangouts and Google+ to facilitate projects and leadership opportunities?
Posted by Veronica Rae Saron, Google Student Ambassador
