I am a big fan of Google Plus and have been a member almost since the beginning. Anyone with a personal Google account could join Google Plus since the middle of September. However if you had a Google App account Google Plus was unavailable. I know of several people who refused to participate in Google Plus because of this. For example Cliff Ravenscraft of the Generally Speaking Production Network, who I follow on Twitter refused to sign up for Google Plus thru his personal account because of branding issues. He was waiting for Google Plus to become available for Google Apps accounts. Well the wait is now over for him and others like him, both organizations and individuals. Google Plus is now open for Google App users.

You can either turn on Google Plus manually through your Google App account now or if you have “automatically enabled new service” checked off it will happen automatically within the next couple of days. There are a couple of caveats, you must have Google Talk and Picasa enabled for this to happen automatically. If you do not have these two applications enabled, then you will need to turn on Google Plus manually. Once you have Google Plus turned on under your app account all members of your organization that have access to that account and who have a Google Profile will become a part of Google Plus. They can share both within the organization by the use of Circles or publicly. You can even share with people within your organization who are not in your Circles. You can have Video Hangouts with members of your organization and work on ideas and projects together using Google Docs, even if you are on the other side of the globe. If you are a business or organization, there are some things you need to think about before you start using Google Plus, I recommend taking a look at the support article by Google. If you do choose to join Google Plus, and participate in the community I am sure you will find it useful for your organization. Just make sure that you emphasize to members of your organization that it is important to share information to the correct Circles.