Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Info Management for a building Coho

[S N Martin (snmartin]

Hi Stu and all,

We are using Google Drive, along with Google Groups for communication and
permissions. Yes, not everybody had a Google account, but we worked with
those who didn't to at least associate their non-Gmail addresses with a
Google account so they could access the files. We leverage Google docs,
sheets, slides, forms, etc. quite a bit, which are ideal for
easy collaboration and crowdsourcing of notes.  Some still have things in
MS Office files that get uploaded to Drive. Of course we also have PDFs of
plans, legal documents, etc. and other non-native file formats that get
stored in Drive.

There are a few of us who are proficient with Google Workspace, so maintain
the folder structure, etc. and help others as needed. You are right about
needing a couple of folks who are not necessarily super tech savvy, but
willing to help keep the information organized.

It's not the perfect solution, but suits our needs adequately. We have a
retired IBMer and former Microsoft exec in our group and while the latter
still stores a lot of his files in OneDrive, he's okay with using Google
Drive. :-)

Granted, we're a relatively small group, currently with nine households and
plans to add 3-4 more households given the land recently purchased.

Good luck!

Stan
Wake (NC) Cohousing, likely transitioning to Acorn Creek Cohousing



On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 7:19 AM Stuart Pettygrove via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> I am looking for cohousing communities that have recent experience in
> creating a system for file management and online file archiving. If that's
> you, here are my questions:
>
>    - How do you archive your records and other files?
>    - Are the files under the care of one individual?
>    - How do you educate old and new members on how to store and retrieve
>    items?
>    - Do you have an Information Management team -- which in my mind would
>    not exactly be an IT team, but more like a document management team or
>    library team perhaps with 2 members.
>
> Background:  Our community, Washington Commons in West Sacramento CA,
> expects to break ground in spring 2022. We currently have 22 households
> with 33 individuals who are scattered about the US. We will be adding more
> over the next year. We now have 4 standing teams -- Development, finance &
> legal, Process, Membership & Marketing, and Steering.  We are archiving all
> the community and team files in Dropbox. We also use Google sheets for our
> meeting agendas and some meeting notes.
>
> Our system has developed organically, not with any forethought or expert
> advice.  Some members don't/can't use Dropbox. Not everyone has a google
> account. Our members possess a wide range of tech/internet and document
> management skills from almost none to medium--high.  We probably should
> create an FAQ doc on this topic for our incoming members.
>
> Stu Pettygrove
> gspettygrove [at] ucdavis.edu
> Washington Commons
> washington-commons.org
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>
>