gStepOne now a Top 10 Great Google Apps add-on for business

gStepOne is now a Top 10 Great Google Apps Add-ons for business and the enterprise, as chosen by NetworkWorld’s Google Subnet Blog. Says author of the report, Julie Bort:

gStepOne by WordWare is a wizard generator that helps you create a business process workflow that is tightly integrated with your Google Apps. Better still, it can also integrate with many other Google Services like YouTube, Picassa, Calendar, Gmail, Maps and Search. GStepOne helps you plan each step and track the progress of the task.

Once created, the Wizard lets others easily perform the workflow operating. It has applications with training, collaboration ... anytime multiple steps are needed to perform a task by multiple people. Some examples include writing contracts or proposals, creating budgets, managing travel.

Commercial workflow and business process engineering applications used to cost corporations as much a million dollars back in the day. Apps like gStepOne show how much cloud computing, and in particular, Google's cloud services, have made expensive workflow and business process reengineering projects a thing of the past.

From all of us here at gStepOne.com, many thanks to Julie and to the Google Subnet Blog for the review and the recognition. And congratulations too to the other nine developers - there are some great apps there! (check out the slide show.)

What are wizards and why are they useful?

Every now and then someone new to gStepOne asks “What is a wizard and why are they useful?" and "Why would gStepOne be valuable to my organisation?".

What is a Wizard?
A wizard is a procedure or process that has been recorded and converted into an interactive helper using computer software. It is designed to guide users down preset paths, providing the knowledge and the tools needed for them to produce a specific outcome. It does not do the task for the user; it enables the user to complete a task the way the task expert usually does it.

Why are Wizards valuable?
To understand the value of a wizard we must first understand the two types of knowledge always present in organisations: Tacit Knowledge (the kind we carry in our heads) and Explicit Knowledge (knowledge that has been written down or codified in some way so that it can be shared with others). For an organisation to survive and prosper, it must be constantly converting its tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

This is because in most organisations, creative people are constantly developing new techniques and processes in response to changes in their environment. When first developed, these new and valuable assets are available only as tacit knowledge. For the organisation to get value from this new knowledge, it must make it transferrable to all staff as soon as possible: it must make it explicit.

A wizard is the perfect example of explicit knowledge – knowledge that has not only been codified but transformed into an interactive guide so that untrained staff can do the task like the expert.

That’s why wizards are so valuable to an organisation.

Before wizards.

After wizards.

Why would gStepOne be valuable to my organisation?

In the past, wizards have been hard-coded by programmers in consultation with the expert, using either specialist programming languages, or macros in products like MS Excel. Development was slow and expensive, and even the smallest change required another session (or sessions) with another programmer. gStepOne has changed all this. Experts can do it themselves. They need no programming skills to create or modify a wizard. Wizards can be created within a few hours, tested and released within days.

So, why is gStepOne so valuable? gStepOne is key infrastructure; it supports the continuous conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge within an organisation.

.

gStepOne becomes part of University KM Curriculum

We have just released a series of free Knowledge and Process Management tutorials designed to dovetail into Higher Education and University IT degree and diploma courses. The tutorials step students through a real-world scenario to convert unstructured knowledge and process data into interactive Google wizards.


The tutorials were jointly developed by Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology and Wordware (gStepOne’s developer). Monash is one of Australia's premier universities, and Wordware has been a sponsor of the university’s Virtual KM Lab for over seven years.

Under this arrangement, Wordware’s WorkScript Knowledge and Process Management Platform has become an integral part of the Faculty’s undergraduate and postgraduate Information Management and Knowledge Management programs.

Last year, Monash University was the first to incorporate gStepOne and the tutorials into these programs.

The Faculty’s Associate Dean Research Training, Dr Frada Burstein said “We were very pleased to introduce gStepOne in teaching Information and Knowledge Management last year. Teaching students how to map processes and create wizards using gStepOne provides them with a real-world understanding of the nuts and bolts of Knowledge Management technology and its value to an organization.

Students analyze knowledge and process data during the tutorials and use gStepOne to draw maps of the tasks they identify by dragging and dropping step shapes onto a page. gStepOne Googles the web for supporting “How to” information, training, pictures, videos, maps, blogs, etc. for each step and generates the wizard.

The wizard is then available to guide and support others when they need to do the task.


“gStepOne and these tutorials underpin the practical cutting edge nature of our programs,” Dr Burstein said.

The tutorials are available to download for free at: www.gstepone.com/support. Students can register free for gstepOne at www.gstepone.com/register.

gStepOne now has Live Help!

gStepOne now has Instant Messaging from IntelliLiveHelp for live help or support.

You simply click the LIVE CHAT button whenever ‘ONLINE' i s displayed and you can be in touch with a gStepOne developer or wizard designer instantly.

To start your LIVE CHAT, go to http://www.gstepone.com/support.aspx, or click Support on the mapping gStepOne page. We look forward to hearing from you!

If we are ‘OFFLINE’, don’t worry! Click the LIVE CHAT button to send us an email and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

The gStepOne Team

--00--

GStepOne gets a new logo!

Over the last week we have held a logo design competition for gStepOne at 99design.com, and we have a winner:

We are delighted with the result, created for us by Jamie Peters of JP Design in New York. The elegant Arista font, the vibrant colors and new fresh logo that is both a process and a person reflect our unique approach to activating processes for people.

Our new logo will be rolled out to the website and the production system over the next few days.

Version 2.3 of gStepOne is simpler, easier and faster!

We’ve made some serious under-the-hood changes that have:

1. Improved the overall speed of and performance of the system, by hosting gStepOne on a faster server
   
2. Made big changes to the canvas (working area used to define wizards):
   
   Increased size. Some of our users felt that the canvas was too small, so we have expanded it. You can now use your screen width and height up to 5000px x 5000px – plenty of room to play with!
   
   Improved scrolling. The canvas now has scrollbars to move about. This is much faster than the previous method of using the navigation buttons.
   
   User-definable sizing. You can now define canvas size using the Canvas Size button
   
3. Made it faster to Add Google Apps Resources. You can now retrieve Google Docs by folder, sub folder or all documents.
   
4. Enhanced the Link It function. You now have an additional Link It tab that filters results from http://www.docstoc.com/.

For a full list of Version 2.3 enhancements, please go the gStepOne Forum (you can read all messages, but you have to register before you can post).

We have also updated documentation at the gStepOne website.

If you haven’t played with gStepOne for a *while, now is a good time to check it out!

*Note: If you haven’t used gStepOne for more than three months, your account will have been placed on hold. Send us a quick email to have it reactivated.

--OO--

Innovative new gStepOne website

We have just released our new gSO website with a great new look and even better content.




















Check it out and let us know what you think!