Collaboration Challenge

I believe that Google Wave is a viable solution for your collaboration challenge, especially as you are already familiar with many of the elements that are integrated into Google Wave (email, IM, wiki, online documents, and conversation threads).

In the context of your workflow and collaboration activities, Google Wave can be viewed as an online document that captures conversations, along with media and attachments. Each wave not only serves as an archive of your conversation (and its respective threads), but it also serves as a central repository for files, images/graphics, and bookmarks/links.

Using the example you provided about finding tweets with interesting links and then sharing them with your colleagues, I think the case can be made for creating a new wave for each link/topic/theme that you want to discuss with your colleagues. Using Google Wave, you won't have to worry about lost email threads or the temporary nature of instant messages. All of the communication back and forth will be available as a document that encapsulates replies. The conversation itself can be treated as a wiki, so that you can revisit a 'blip' (message) from a while back and either edit it with updated information or add a reply with additional commentary.

One of the things that I have found quite valuable about using Google Wave's threaded conversation model instead of email is that media and attachments are added inline with each blip (in email, they are simply appended to the entire message/thread). That means that the attachment has a greater sense of context, as it is displayed where it was added as the conversation evolved. In fact, a blip that contains an image could be replied to with "child" blips that refer to that specific image.

Lastly, although we are at the early stages of Google Wave, it's likely that it increasingly will be integrated with other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, making it seamless (or almost seamless) to exchange information between each platform. We are already starting to see extensions for Google Wave that do just that.

I recommend that you conduct a test run with Google Wave, thinking of the wave more as more than just an email thread or IM console. You can send me a message if you don't have a Google Wave account, and I'll be happy to pass on a few invites.

Happy waving!

I agree. Google Wave is the way to go. I know of others, but Google has all the tools you'll need.