The first 2 months I was playing around with Google Wave and trying all kinds of Apps and Robots. This I'm still doing for it is not only great fun, some people really make nice useful things. In this sense Google Wave is still evolving quite nicely. In December 2009 and Januari 2010 I started using Google Wave also for my work.
For those who don't know a thing about Google Wave Wikipedia has an article on it.
While writing the draft for this Blog it dawned to me what makes Google Wave so special for me. A Wave allows me to work in a state of Flow. Even, or better put especially when collaborating with others, Google Wave still allows me personnaly to work in my own Flow. A Blog or email requires a lot of thought and anticipation. A meeting, usually hard to schedule, is very good, but has a small probability that everybody is in his/her Flow. A Wave sits exactly in between the two forms of collaboration / communication.
A Wave doesn't make 'paper' exchange of thoughts obsolete, nor does it make meetings obsolete. What I learned is that 'paper' exchange of thoughts become much better because of the preceding Wave. A meeting becomes more productive because of the prepartion prior with Wave and abiltiy to easily set new tasks that can be picked up with a Wave more efficient and with higher quality.
We've been working as a team on preparing a meeting. One person, unlike me, is capable of really thinking even a single line of text through several times before sharing it with others. Me on the other hand, I quickly put something together, share, learn from the reaction and adapt when necessary ...and I do this several times. Both approaches have both advantages and disadvantages. However, Wave allows both approaches at the same time. This in contrast with a 'traditional' meeting or email exchange. Fantastic isn't?
There are a couple of disadvanteges for the time being. Although not directly visible, we were confronted with it not so nicely:
- So far you can't print a complete wave
- Copying the content to Wordprocesser doesn't work (for instance for creating a final document)
Even copy-paste doesn't work for any Apps (e.g. a Mind-map or Whiteboard), with quite a bit of manual copy-paste and screen cuttings it is possible, however, it takes quite a bit of time
Nonetheless, compared to having 3-4 updated mails within 5 minutes from people like me. Or, waiting 5-6 days to have an update from people who like to think things really through before they press 'send'. Google Wave is a huge improvement. Different approaches are always in sync.
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