Here I sit, once again in self imposed flu quarantine trying to restructure email threads from various participants from a week’s worth of an important document creation. In spite of my team’s efforts, the final posted and published version was missing two important details.
As is usually the case, the error was not caught in time to correct before meeting with the customer representative. Yes, we were able to talk through it, but obviously the quality of our work was not enhanced by this error.
Perhaps even worse, I may now have infected others while on my forced commute to ensure the success of the meeting.
That’s why I’m so excited about the promise of Google Wave. In a nutshell, it’s a hosted collaboration tool that promises to finally replace our ancient email communication tool. Think of a structured email combined with instant messages in one single tool.
Have you ever tried to respond to an email thread, only to learn that you’re two responses behind and off-topic? This happened while you were composing this most compelling response but others, with less compelling but quicker responses, had already stolen your thunder. Google Wave allows you to see responses in real time as they are being typed.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to control this immediate response feature to some extent. I typically refine emails and even instant messages before publishing.
In any event, I can’t wait for Google Wave to allow me to really work from home in a collaborate environment free from flu germs of the human or swine types.
