Thing 8: Google Calendar vs Outlook

Having failed to catch up with the Things since I got back from holiday I thought it might be better to skip Things 6 & 7 for now and go straight on to Thing 8 Google Calendar as there is something nice about the feeling that I am exploring these tools at the same time as everyone else.  I've spent more time this week reading other peoples blog entries thanks to the RSS feed bundle that I have subscribed to, and it seems fellow cpd23ers are split when it comes Google calendar: they either love it or hate it.  There are several re-occurring factors that influence this including:

• whether your place of work already uses an online shared calendar
• if you have a smart phone  
• if you prefer to use a paper diary/calendar

Where I work we use shared Outlook calendars, we have a shared 'site' calendar and I don't know what we would do without it!  It's primarily used for timetabling desk slots so it is therefore a way of recording everything everyone is doing: meetings, annual leave, staff training sessions or drop-in sessions for students.  Each person puts their initials and the activity on the calendar so that the person doing the timetable knows when each person is free to do a helpdesk slot.  I find it particularly useful when answering the telephone and the caller wants to speak to a particular member of staff - I can quickly bring up the calendar and see whether they are in a meeting or away on leave.  In addition to the site calendar we also share them on a team basis; I have access to my line manager's and he has access mine and the calendars belonging to the other members of our team.  See below for an example of a week view of the site calendar.

I don't use Outlook for personal appointments and instead tend to use a free paper academic diary we get given every year.  However I recently bought a smart phone and I think I may try using the 'private' option in Outlook to record personal appointments.


So where does this leave Google calendar?  I spent some time playing around with it and I like some of the extra features and gadgets it has.  However I'm not sure I want another thing to have to log into on top of using Outlook.  Nevertheless it is definitely something I will come back to if in the future I am in a job that doesn't make use of Outlook.




Home work this weekend:
1) Catch up with things 6 & 7
2) Create an account with LinkedIn and add basic information with a view to building up my profile slowly over the summer.