Google Wave, Keeping Small Businesses Organized
June 4, 2010 | Business, Management by Paul Baumgarthuber |
When Google announced that they were coming out with a new collaborative platform that would change the way people viewed email and instant messenger services, I was a bit skeptical. Then there was a promotional Google Wave video released showing how it worked I had some difficulty understanding the applications and how it could be better than email or IM for collaborating. So, like a lot of people I wrote it off and didn’t give it another thought. As a small business with partners in different locations (2 in the US and 1 in Japan) we are always trying to find ways to become more organized and reduce miss-communication. We experimented with a lot of different platforms, then one day one of our entrepreneur friends sent us an invite for Google Wave. After talking to him about how he was utilizing it we thought we would give it a try. It took awhile to get a hang of it, but once we did it became a valuable tool for us. We use it as a tool to monitor our contractors and keep them on track as well as a way to keep an open dialogue going about their work. It is also a great tool for internal projects and project management. It gives everyone on the project a way to see where everyone is on their tasks and to get input on their work. Some other uses we have found for it are:
- Brainstorming sessions
- Task tracking
- Store and update log in information
- Discussion tool
- Project management
- Meeting organization
Google Wave Screenshots
Brain Storming
Task Management
Meeting Organization
Although there are still limitations to the application, such as not having Google docs integrated yet, it is still a very powerful tool to help small businesses get organized. We have been using it for several months now and are very happy with the organizational and collaborative elements it has brought to our company. Once more gadgets are created and Google integrates their other applications, I believe that Google Wave will be the ideal platform for small to mid sized companies.
