I have been working with SME’s for some time, and I’m now chuffed to announce the first Social Media Cider Café - which I am hosting with my good friend Michael Waugaman (@waugaman).
Spaces are limited for our inaugural ’surgery’ on 18 March – with preference given to local SME’s and charities who have questions about getting started with social media. Register for the event.
For more information about the Social Media Cider Café, visit www.cidercafe.co.uk
I’ve just viewed this 90-minute video demo of Google Wave, Google’s new collaboration and communication tool. Lars Rasmussen, one of the key developers, does the ‘Google wave dance’ during his presentation, while he hopes the demo won’t crash!
It looks like Google Wave integrates a number of services (email, instant messaging, forms, etc) that we’re already pretty familiar with – bundling them together under a set of ‘google waves’. Built with Google web toolkit, Google Wave shows us that it is possible to collaborate and communicate in real time… without leaving the browser.
Email and IM are two of the tools that have been merged to create a real-time interaction between contacts. In theory, you’ll be able to have conversations, play them back, and leave a ‘history’ which can be accessed at any time. No more waiting when messanging and no more hand editing emails to insert your responses.
The playback functionality sounds impressive and fixes the often time-consuming process of finding the email thread you had a few days ago.
Not only you will be able to see real time data from your contacts but you’ll also be able to edit stuff collaboratively. This turns Google Wave into a production tool where, for example, your PM could write a set of notes that could then be edited by all parties. What’s more is that if any of those parties joined the conversation at a later stage, they can play back the conversation that took place earlier showing the history of the editing and the exact point at which they joined the conversation. This could have a positive effect on productivity.
Another example of real time interaction is the ability to upload photos, with your contacts able to view them instantly – and edit them if they wish.
There are other ‘waves’ that users would be able to add like blogging, video, linking, their social network, etc. It also appears that Twitter can add another layer of communication, and of course, Google Wave wouldn’t be complete without a ‘wave search’.
I thought the ‘bean soup’ demo spell checker was very impressive – spell-checking in real time, based on the context and not just on a word.
‘Languages’ is another added ‘wave’, a robot capable of translating from and into 40 languages, and guess what? In real time.
Google Wave will be ‘open’, allowing any organisation to create and host their own system and be able to interact with other systems around the globe, retaining privacy between systems. Developers will be able to create extensions and gadgets like games via the Google wave API.
Looks like Google Wave is a real contender in the ‘collaboration’ space… and one that businesses should investigate seriously. I can’t wait to try it out when it is released later this year.
Other reading:
Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?
Google Wave: Google Tries to Reinvent Email
Six Ways that Google Wave is Going to Change Your Business, Career and Life
Seth Godin talks a lot of sense about Tribes. People who disagree with the status quo and decide they want to change things. Godin persuades us to tell a story, connect to a tribe, lead a movement and make a change.
Examples of tribes range from Al Gore: an Inconvenient Truth to the iPhone hackers. All with the same purpose of people connecting with each other.
After listening to Seth Godin: Why tribes, not money or factories, will change the world I realised that throughout my life I’ve always challenged things quietly and never done anything about it. I think it’s about time I did something.
We can’t all be leaders, but we can join a tribe to which we feel connected. According to Godin, you don’t need to be born a leader to start a tribe but if you find yourself disagreeing with something, then there is now an opportunity for you to start a movement and it only takes 24hrs!
More examples of tribes: Free tribes e-book
Bristol is gearing up for its contribution to Twestival on Thursday (12 February) in aid of charity:water.
The global Twitter community has mobilised in double-quick time to host 24-hours of FUNdraising in a staggering 175+ cities around the world.
The idea was conceived by Amanda Rose. You can read about her motivation for Twestival in her interview with the Blog Herald.
Twitter is quickly being adopted by individuals, organisations and businesses as a new way to communicate to the world. By attempting to answer the question ‘what are you doing?’ , people come up with all sorts of interesting facts, anecdotes, thoughts, links, questions and answers… and the list goes on.
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows you to write anything – so long as you keep to 140 characters. You decide which people you wish to ‘follow’ and in turn those people might follow you back.
You can use a Twitter profile to deal with customer queries, like Zappos, the successful USA online retailer, distribute the latest news like the Guardian Technology News, raise money for a good cause like Mara Triangle (pictured), share news of your travels, like Stephen Fry… or simply join the conversation.
Mara Triangle Twitter Profile
I learn a lot from the people that I ‘follow’ on Twitter, and in turn I like sharing links and thoughts with those that follow me. This makes Twitter a particularly valuable tool. Try it – ask a question and you will get inundated with answers!
You can also make your Twitter profile ‘private’ – although I really don’t see the benefit of this. Most people go public!
There is a service called Yammer, which is similar to Twitter but for businesses and lives behind a firewall. Only people on the same domain name can access to it.
But hold on, I have email, and an intranet in my organisation. Why would I want to have yet another application? Well, people who like your products or services will tell you so, and those that don’t may also tell you why. This is valuable feedback that you would have not gained otherwise.
Thank you for stopping by. I'm a techie at heart and passionate about the social web. I help people embrace open source technologies and coach them to use online tools effectively.