When I first received my invitation to Google Wave, I was less than impressed.
It was Chris Brogan who did a lot in his recent posts to help me see some of the value Wave provides to teams that need to collaborate on projects. Over the past few weeks, our team at Social Business Strategies has been working inside Wave on a few client projects, using it for business planning and even a few experiments related to Human Business Teams.
From the time spent in Wave, I can already see other applications of the platform. Below is an idea I’ve not yet tried, mostly because I don’t have any conferences scheduled for this month (when I do, I’ll be sure to pass along my humble opinions and analysis). Try it out on our own and if you’re interested, contact me* afterward.
*If you test out this Google Wave idea and record some of results, I’ll be happy to have you guest post here. Okay?
Conferences Move Fast
When was the last conference you attended? Mine was the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston last year. It was two days of fast-paced, cutting edge content from some of the best minds floating around the Interwebz today. With so many speakers back-to-back, not to mention constant streams of tweets, blog posts and video content to consume, it became difficult to keep my notes straight. When you find yourself at a “drink from the fire hose” style of an event, it can be hard to retain everything, and even harder to share what you learn with the folks back home.
I see now that Wave, as a collaborative platform, delivers a perfect environment for organizing and capturing events as they happen. It also allows for you to share that information with anyone you wish in real time. With a little preparation before you get to the conference, you can maximize your time and travel investment at any event or conference.
How To Use Google Wave to Get More from Events & Conferences
First, look at your conference schedule for the sessions you want to attend. This is always a good idea regardless of whether you are using Wave or not. Once you have a plan of attack, start a new Wave for each session you’ve chosen. Remember that the Wave will title itself by the text typed into the first comment box. After you’ve set up your sessions, create a folder in your sidebar and title it as the event. You can color code it however you like and by adding each session Wave to the folder, you can keep your notes organized. Remember that the folders you see in your sidebar are only for you, and won’t show up on your collaborators’ dashboards.
Next, create a simple form that will let you capture standard information on each speaker. You can set up easy-to-fill-in fields that help you remember things like their Twitter handle, blog url, website or even personal information you learn in conversation before or after their talk. This is important because you will want to ensure that you can stay connected to these folks after the event.
Once your forms are set up and even pre-populated with contact points, Wave makes it very easy to take good notes. Personally, I’m a bullet point kind of guy, and Wave makes it easy for me to type bullet after bullet. One of the most appealing aspects of a Wave regard its capabilities as a word processor. You can do everything from color coding and using numbered lists to dropping images and video right into the Wave. If you are at an event where they let you record via your Flip Video or mobile device, you can upload the entire presentation along with your notes.
Here’s a major advantage of using Wave at a conference: you can add your folks back home before the session starts. That means that they will have the ability to follow and comment on your notes in real time. They can also type in questions for you to ask the speaker when he or she opens up the floor for Q&A.
One Last Thought on Using Wave
This one is for you students and teachers. My friend, Erika Pryor, has been doing some great work in using a Facebook Page to connect with her communications students at Denison University. What about using Wave in the classroom? How cool would it be to start a Wave with your entire class and capture community notes on lectures and class discussions? Could this technology have a positive effect on the speed and efficiency with which people learn and comprehend new information? Perry Maughmer calls this idea Tribal Learning.
What do you think? How can you apply Google Wave?
Join The Discussion!