U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Made Move to Google Workspace in 90 Days

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“We chose G Suite because of its ease of use and extensive collaboration and sharing capabilities.”

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington needed a way to increase collaboration and document sharing. Onix and Google Workspace made this happen. Here’s a look at that transformation from the museum’s CIO, Joe Kraus.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide and promote human dignity. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanent place on the National Mall, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by the generosity of donors nationwide.

To fulfill this mission, the Museum uses technologies that promote online collaboration for its teaching programs and uses crowdsourcing to expand and make more accessible its collections relating to Holocaust survivors and victims. Our migration to Google Workspace has enabled closer collaboration with teachers, universities and institutions engaged in teaching the lessons of the Holocaust, preventing genocide and conducting research on Holocaust history.

Google Workspace Increases Collaboration 

We chose Google Workspace because of its ease of use and extensive collaboration and sharing capabilities. Our educators in Holocaust programs use Google Docs to support online development of lesson plans. Our researchers and scholars use G Suite to develop their material on Holocaust history and the lessons learned. The general public, youth groups and teachers are able to easily register for our many programs using Google Forms. Our staff uses Google Sites to collaborate on the multitude of cross-departmental programs and projects that we run each year to advance Holocaust understanding.

Our transition to Google went very well. We conducted a three-month pilot with staff from across the Museum, followed by a three-month transition period. The transition required a rigorous communications and training program, with about 70 percent of our staff participating in classroom and webinar training led by our project integrator, Onix. Today, 750 museum staff and support personnel are using Google Workspace on a daily basis.

One of the key aspects that enabled our smooth transition was the identification of “Google Guides,” people from across the Museum who volunteered to help their colleagues with the new Google Workspace environment. Now that we are in the cloud we are able to take full advantage of a dynamic ecosystem of new functionality that continues to provide our employees new and innovative ways of doing the important work of the Museum with very little additional support required from my IT team.

Editor’s Note: Google Workspace is FedRAMP compliant. FedRAMP is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.

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