The New Economy is all about sharing. You share a ride with a cab driver, you share your home with vacationers on Airbnb.
If you work in an office, these days, you collaborate. You do at school, too. Instead of working on a project on your own, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation or a written report, you're getting feedback from other people.
One way to do that is with Google Docs. You share it online with your coworkers, or other students at school. They give you feedback, suggestions, notes, and they may even make edits.
Which is great. The idea is that the final project is a lot better than any one person could've done on their own. There's a problem, though.
Your shared projects could live on indefinitely. People change jobs and graduate. Suddenly, all your hard work is in someone else's hands, including a competitor.
Google has a novel way to reduce this risk, while continuing to encourage you to share. Google is letting you set an expiration date for sharing, if you're using Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, or Google Slides, and you have a Google Apps account. You simply set a date for when a person will no longer be able to see your document.
To use Google Docs' expiration date, look for the blue Share button in the upper right-hand corner >> Advanced >> select the person's name, then click on the clock to the left of "can view" >> Access Expires, then choose 7 days, 30 days, or a Custom Date.
Note: You cannot set an expiration date on someone who you've given editing privileges to.
