8 Ways I Use Google Wave At Work
8 ways that I use Google Wave
Google wave is becoming more and more useful everyday in our work and personal lives. I find myself opening up Google Wave as part of my initial set of tools I use to start the day. Even in it’s pre-beta state, Google Wave has become an integral part of the day to day operations at Twine Interactive. While I am sure this list will grow, here are 8 ways that I currently use Google Wave.
1. Customer Deliverables.
At Twine Interactive, we have found there can be a breakdown between sales and well the rest of the company (yes, I am the one who does most of the sales so it’s my fault). We decided to implement a structure where the deliverables from a proposal and a contract are moved over into a customer wave. The wave is named with the customer name so that it is clear what each wave is about as well as searchable. The details of the deliverables are at the top so it is plain and clear for all who are on the project as well as the project manager. Once the details of the execution are established, all to do’s are then put into basecamp for trackable milestones and time frames.
2. Various topics that my business partner and I need to discuss on a weekly basis
Brian and I have weekly meetings to discuss projects, issues, accounts, etc. If you are part of a partnership, or running a business, lessons learned documentation is crucial to demonstrate . Based on your exit strategies, if you decide at some point to merge or get acquired, documentation on an ongoing basis showing progress in communication, execution and company growth is essential for anyone to see, especially those parties interested in your business. This can include timeline of events, common customer problems and how they were resolved, decisions that were made at specific dates and measuring ROI on some of those decisions. This are just some of the content inside this wave.
3 Staff meeting notes
Everytime we have a staff meeting (and if you have been following Wayne on Twitter) you know we have a lot of strategy meetings on Twine Interactive branding. When we are all in a meeting together, strategizing or simply brainstorming, all ideas are posted in waves. This also allows us to go back and check on things that were once discussed.
4. Business Coach Timelines
Our business coach keeps up accountable for the things we do. His to do’s and deadlines are supposed to be put in Google Wave (we are almost there, but the concept is still solid) and documenting each meeting and what our homework is coming out of each meeting. Also, as he has ideas or thoughts that he wants to talk about in upcoming meetings, they are all documented there. (Again, this is still in concept as we are moving towards doing this. Everything is setup, now execution is forthcoming)
5. Employee reviews
Ok, so right now I am little scared of this, but because all of our employees are stellar employees, there is nothing but 5 star ratings whenever they go above and beyond the call of duty. I wonder if anything will ever go in there thats not 100 percent positive. Do you think employers will ever use Google Wave in this way?
6. Blog Content ( I wrote this blog in wave 
)
Yes, blogs. I am currently writing this blog in Google Wave. Every blip is a new blog and when I have ideas for new blogs, I create new blips, post my bullet points about the main topics I want to get across and go. Also works great when I want Jennifer to come in and edit them.
7. Scope Documentation at a Customer Site.
While taking notes at a customer location, if multiple people are taking notes into different waves, they may be processing the information differently in their respective brains. It’s interesting to see how information is translated and re-documented after a customer staff meeting. This is a great tool to allow multiple people to take notes on the same meeting and then re-group to strategize about execution plans.
8. Content strategies
Recently we have had several meetings on content strategy as you steadily see our content increasing weekly on our site. We review our content strategies every Monday morning and make sure they are documented. We come up with interesting titles about things we want to write about, assign/choose who is going to be writing them, and put a date on when they are going to be posted. We go back and look at them each week and make sure we are on target with forward thinking, as well as differentiating content.
Overall, Google Wave is becoming a widely used tool in our everyday arsenal at Twine Interactive. As it’s still in developer preview mode, and has not reached the beta mode yet, we will continue to see enhancements to its functionality. As you can see from the above information, it’s really all about structuring documentation and content in a very easy reviewable but searchable format. If you are a business and trying to figure out how to use Google Wave, hurry and get on board. Also, I have plenty of invitations, so let me know if you want one. Anyone else have any more use cases to add? I would love to hear them.
