Collaborating on the cloud is becoming more and more the norm. When #cmgrchat held this discussion, it turns out that a lot of CMs already use the same cloud services. In reading the digest, however, you’ll probably learn about something new. Multi-platforms apps, especially those offering local + cloud options, are preferred and leading the trend for upcoming innovations.

Be sure to stay tuned to future #cmgrchats to learn all about tools and other techniques for rocking your job as community manager!

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Q1: With Amazon, Google, Dropbox, and now Apple in the cloud space, what are your thoughts? Do you use any?

mgspeaks I love google’s products with my droid all my docs/spreadsheets/reader are synced daily with free apps

muruganpandian EverNote is a life saver every day for me.

NickRovisa #turntable is incredible. Never wasted so much time on one site before. Never.

nickcicero I use Dropbox for my commercial music production projects, basecamp with many of our website developers.

rhogroupee I use Producteev for my to-do and proj. mgt…it rocks.

KT_Little Freshbooks is totally awesome!

carissao A community manager not using the #cloud is like a carpenter carrying each tool in his hand instead of a toolbox.

RichardDedor Here are ways Google Voice can help (written by yours truly!) http://ht.ly/5diVq

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Q2. What do you see as the biggest drawbacks to moving to the ‘cloud’?

RachelYeomans I think archiving is the big thing – you can move to the cloud but what happens to all of your pre-existing info?

LovelyLu Perception of lack of control and ownership

rhogroupee Remember the great Amazon outage of a few months back? That made everyone think twice…

RichardDedor Changing from one #cloud to the next can cause lost docs, info, history and ultimately hassle

7Huck @KellyLux security. SAS70 certification – does anybody here have that?

sarahkayhoffman Fear of losing information. A cloud is great, until it disappears and the sun comes out.

mgspeaks The biggest drawback for us is the HYPE around collab, it still doesn’t happen unless a team makes it important.

grmeyer Biggest drawback of moving to the cloud is you depend more on network bandwidth/wifi (small prob imho)

_faith Also: what if you live in a black-hole of Internet access (aka my apartment)?

JPedde I actually wrote a whole post on the cloud’s limitations…http://bit.ly/dXfec9

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Q3: What do you think of the Apple’s announcements on Monday? Will things like iCloud & iMessage help your workflow?

RachelYeomans Our office is Apple-based so this will be HUGE for us

brandont218 I’m not a big fan of the idea behind iMessage. What does it bring to the table that Whatsapp hasn’t already?

IslandPrintGrp I’m not sure that it will change much for my workflow. I’ll feel archaic compared to y’all. lol

EliIngraham Could Apple’s competition w/Dropbox, Instapaper, et al, be the thing that pops the VC/IPO bubble?

rachaelgk I am 100% biased, but the more Apple, the better. This is one dynasty I just can’t hate (for now).

aswindler Apple is uniquely positioned to make an ideal Cloud ecosystem across devices, just hope they learned their lessons from MobileMe.

@jjbert Here you go, Apple keynote in 8 min http://gizmo.do/lBiPoK

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Q4. How can you use the cloud in your daily community manager roles? Any suggestions? <did we cover this already?

evanhamilton Always have your docs in the cloud, never know when you might need them.

JPedde Utilize the Google Docs Survey function for RSVPs or Surveys. It’s free to use.

DebNg A community manager is part of many different departments so Dropbox and others allow files to be shared easily with all concerned

annedreshfield Keeping it clean and neat. We have 6 interns and 3 employees all sharing…needs to be organized to keep it sane!

rontoledo For me I use @Evernote to clip articles that are relevant. example facebook posting studies etc, that i can recall later.

KellyLux To me the cloud should simplify your life. We will be tethered to a device, but it should be 1 device that can do it all.

RachelYeomans We also have our blog editorial calendar w/ assigned authors on our Daylite shared calendar

Fisherish I use @instapaper to clip blog post or article which i want to read in my free time

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Make sure to stop by #cmgrchat every Wednesday from 2-3pm EST.  If you have any questions, suggestions, or future chat topic ideas please contact Jenn Pedde or Kelly Lux.    Or, leave comments below!