I use google wave every single day. I start off the day by checking gmail. Then I look at a few news sites to see if anything of interest happened. Then I open google wave: because that’s where my business lives. That’s how I run a complicated network of collaborators, make hundreds of decisions every day and organise the various sites that made me $14.000 in december.
It was not always like this. There was a time just a few months ago when I did not have google wave. I think of that time with horror – because that epoch was marked with conflicts, total chaos, money was being lost every day, fights were happening between me and my collaborators. Google wave came in, and within a couple of weeks, a heavenly peace had descended on my business.
But let me start from the beginning. I am involved in about five different web based businesses. Niche sites, iPhone apps (simple ones), developer tools, downloadable desktop software and a subscription based web service. They all have varying degrees of success, but all bring in some income every month (well, apart from the web service one). Each business has a different set of collaborators (people who work with me on them, partners, employees, freelancers). Each business requires quite a lot of management, because they all are made up of a lot of individual software that have an update cycle, reaction to new releases, customer email answering and so on.
Before google wave, I was in a period I like to refer to as the age of chaos and anger. This was when I collaborated by email. When something needed to be done, I would send out an email. When I discovered something new I would send out an email. After two months, one of my freelancers replied my email with a screenshot. It showed his inbox, and there were about 50 unread emails from me, 10 of which where various threats about why he was not replying my emails. We would use skype messaging to communicate and skype conferences every two days, in addition to the emails.
At the time, we would also send designs and screenshots by email – needless to say, things would get lost – hardly anything would get done on time, and the most common reply I would get back is that they missed the particular instruction in the mass of emails I would send.
To compound my trouble, we were collaborating across multiple time zones – UK, US Pacific Time, Indian time and Singapore time. Emails would arrive in the night and it is depressing to wake up to 35 new emails from different people.
Then I got my google wave invite. First of all, I didn’t really get it. I was not really sure how this would help me. However, after I had a skype conference and one of my partners complained for 15 minutes about how I would write unimportant emails like
“I need a status update next week”
I decided to try something new. All emails that were NOT time critical would be done with google wave, and all important emails could be written normally. We started off doing that.
Things changed.
Suddenly, communication habits of everyone changed. People started grouping their communication into topics and resurrecting old ‘waves’ when it was about the same topic. For example, if we were talking about bonuses, and then spoke about something else for two weeks, then came back to bonuses, we would simply resurrect the old wave. Business became structured.
Then something unexpected and suprising emerged. Google Wave took over from skype chat. Previously, we had been using instant messenger to communicate things quickly, but the problem was that because of our time zone differences, we would have 3 out of 4 people usually on. So one person would totally miss the entire conversation. But with google wave, we could hold long discussions as a chat, then when the other people woke up, they could contribute.
Another suprising effect was that chats became slower and more thoughtful. Because google wave functions both as email and as chat, it is not unusual to wait 5 minutes to get an answer to something you wrote. On skype, this would not happen. This slowness is very beneficial, because it makes the answers more permanent (like an email) and not so hurried (like an IM).
And Google Wave is even great for massive fights. The indentations and the ability to review what you said in the past means that you can go back and answer to an accusation. It’s like a WWF cage rumble for fights, multiple people can rage on about different topics at the same time. But the thing with it is that because the fights can last for days, they slow down, and then people are no longer angry and solutions start to appear. Contrast this with IM fights, where one person shuts his messenger and that may be the end of your partnership.
What has Google Wave done for me?
- My stress level is way lower
- Conversations are now organised in topics, and no longer flat
- Fights have become more constructive
- Working across multiple time zones is no longer a problem
- I can share screenshots, design documents with multiple and different people with ease
- I have a single control panel to manage all my conversation with everyone I am working with
- Before Google Wave, I felt like I was working very much and getting very little done. After google wave, I feel I am doing little work, but I am making more and more money every month
- I feel in control of my business – with my iPhone I can access the heart of my business anytime and anywhere
What’s missing from Google Wave?
- You cannot manage your contacts or create contact groups. It’s easy to add people to waves that you don’t want in there.
But in general, if you are collaborating with people and you have not tried Google Wave, then you are perhaps missing the greatest thing to happen to small web based businesses since Dropbox.
“wave up to” should be “wake up to”.
Thanks Walter, fixed it
Nice overview, thanks
This is the first clear ‘story’ I have read about google wave being genuinely helpful to someone. Thanks!
Interesting read. I might put that invite to good use. Have you found out how to invite others?
You can have groups in Wave, sort of: http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2009/12/waving-with-groups.htmlHaven‘t tried them yet, though.
How did it perform in practice for you? Was it ever unavailable or slow?
Dusting: Wave has never been unavailble, and it’s very fast. However, occassionally, you get this “wave corrupted” error, but you only lose a couple of words at the most.Antti: I’ll try that, that seems like a solutionAlter Ego: I know how to invite, but don’t have any open
I’ve got a bunch of Wave invites. Get me on twitter @paulitex if anyone wants one. First come first serve.This was the first positive story I’ve read, which is nice. Personally I found it got incredibly messy incredibly fast.
thanks for getting and sharing the joy of Wave! WWF cage rumble for fights? I like it!
You made $14.000 in December. Terrific. That’s like…three lattes!
Just started using Wave on a project. Great for organizing group thoughts. When new idea comes in I add to Wave.
thanks for the overview. it helped much for me as it was just standing there in my favorites bar w/o any action. btw, if anyone needs wave invitation, I also can send. contact me @olcaycat
great, I have a wave set up, but had never used this way, I still use Gmail for collaborating and heavily use tags for organisation, I think it’s time to look deeper into wave, the only problem, peoples I work with have to look deeper into it as well.
with that lander, erm post
i think you are an affiliate marketer 
Is that you on the wave?
Thanks for breaking this down. Very interesting account of Google Wave and the first useful application I’ve heard. It sounds a little chaotic for me based on other accounts but it gives me a sense of how this might be useful for something other than having a new way to waste time online!
It’s fun to see others make good use of Wave as it is in its current state. At our office we all managed to get into the Sandbox preview and have been implementing it in our day to day work, and so far it’s been great.We’re using it from everything from following up on sales leads, to planning and structuring development projects. We are now even trying to get one of our clients to use it so we can have our meetings in a Wave instead of travelling 25 kilometers to their offices.Thanks for sharing your experience so far in a concise way, and lets hope more people find useful ways to implement Wave in their business.
Actually, there is a robot for group managemenet callled Invity.It creates groups of users and allows to invite them all at once to a new wave. Just add “pw-invity@appspot.com” to a wave and you’ll enjoy Googe Wave even more.
Good to hear that it has changed your life. In fact, its clear from your point of view that your well organized.
It sounds like you weren’t using issue tracking software prior to Wave? It’s pretty common in software and web shops…
What Liam said about issue tracking software seems appropriate. I use Wave, or, rather, experiment with Wave, but have so far had no Aha experience. It can do email, issue tracking, forums, wiki, etc., but it doesn’t really shine compared to its counterparts.Other Google services — especially Documents and Calendar — work wonderfully. I’m hoping that Wave can follow suit.
sounds great..i am eager to try that
You should take a look at yammer: http://www.yammer.com/
I make more money than you, haw haw haw
Great study case, this only confirms my opinion that google wave does different things for you depending on what you want it to do
I really like how you incorporated a real story in how you are able to use Google Wave everyday for your business. Everything else I’ve read is in theory.Do we know when the beta testing will be over and the real thing will commence for usage by the masses?All the best, Julia
FINALLY, now I get Google Wave.It’s Basecamp without the project management.
Wow. amazing.. I happen to use Google Wave. But never thought of writing a review like this…Good piece.
Awesome TIMES infinity. I have struggled explaining this to clients, and you’ve summarized the use so well, this will be the article I refer them to when I get them up and running on Google Wave. Thanks for taking the time.
Very interesting- I got rid of Skype due to some constant humdingers of fights- they blew up, but went nowhere. It was too immediate for those collaborators. I may use my last Google wave invites to see if the medium changes the dynamic, or if we’re all just hotheads.:) Thank you!
Great Post. .
Just when I thought no-one was really using Google Wave I read this. Nice to hear somebody is getting use out of it.The major failing point for me is that it has no notification system so I have no idea if someone comes online or sends me a wave.If I had three screens on my desk I could dedicate one to Wave but I don’t, so I can’t.It’s great that you can get all of the people you work with to use it but I’ve got no chance of that in my company. Even my geeky friends are bored with it.
Think Google need you working in their marketing team!
Got me really excited about Google Wave again. The more I use it, the more I like it.
Compilation of materials(Video,articles,news and etc) about Google Wave. It can be found at http://www.tinkrbox.com/tb/box.jsp?b=EGO3woGaIA6Y
I’m still not sure I see what Wave brings to the table that an e-mail distribution list doesn’t also bring to the table.No need for real-time interaction? Check.Can archive for posterity? Check (in fact, with e-mail, you can archive it locally and control your proprietary data better)Can resurrect old waves/threads as topics re-emerge? Check.This still just doesn’t seem like a “game changer” in any way to me.
Time to try out that google wave account – admit mine’s been inactive since i received the invite weeks ago…Work at an architecture firm and starting to gather information on “new tools” and processes that our office can benefit from. Those looking for invites can contact me @moodyarch via Twitter.Thanks for the post
Nice success story. It’s exactly, what I need to convince my collegues in order to get them using Wave for everyday work.Will send your URL to them now…
Very interesting article. I think people just need time to get used to the idea and concept of Google Wave. I think I figured it out but most of my friends and co-workers still don’t know how to use it..
This is great to hear. I’m a big fan of Wave, and write about it for Examiner, but I have to say I’m surprised to hear that it’s stable enough for you. I still find it very buggy.
Just to let you know, Wave is now integrated with project management software: http://bit.ly/cgvFqG
dont have the power of google but definitely have the power to collaborate and have what googlewave is missing
try ping82.com
your life sounds like a fucking nightmare
Thanks for such a great article. I am very much interested in wave.
Man… You totally sold me Gwave! Thanks for this great info…
Remove participant is here! Now you won’t have trouble accidentally adding anyone, as you can remove them (before they look at the wave) and they won’t know it even existed. If you remove them after they have seen the wave, they get a copy up to the point where you removed them. Easy!
Dude.. I’m not much into reading, but somehow I got to read many articles in your webpage. Its fantastic how interesting it is for me to visit you very often.