I read many blog posts and twitter tweets that talk about how difficult it is control a Wave…and they are right, it takes work to ensure you have an effective Wave. Nothing changes, when you invite a bunch of people to come to the same place and collaborate together on something…you need rules.
That led me to this Wave: Rules for Effective Waves, which was started by Jose I. Icaza, and is a “public Wave that attempts to put together lessons learned regarding rules for effective Waves and have them adapted to be features of Wave. At the same time, the Wave itself is an example of the application of those lessons.”
Here is their list of rules thus far:
- Use separate Blips for document creation and for general discussion about the whole wave. For this wave that you are reading, you are requested to put all *discussion* and controversy about this whole wave’s contents at the General discussion blip. You are welcome, however, to edit blips in order to improve them. It is recommended that before you start editing a blip of the initial blip author, read all the sections referred in the table of contents included in the initial blip.
- Pre-structure Waves: use separate blips for different parts of a document being created, and set up a blip table of contents. So you see that this wave is split up in separate sections, each of them in a different blip. This helps people add their content at the most adequate place. Combined with lesson 1, we need another lesson:
- Preferably discuss a blip’s contents at the end of the blip, not in the middle of it. Wave does allow to reply in the middle of a blip, but this tends to create chaos. Replying in the middle of a blip may be adequate for email-like conversations in Wave or for Discussion or Chat Blips see later. It may not be necessary for pre-structured Waves since each main blip might be small enough.
- Follow the rule: Wikipedia’s be bold in editing: do not be afraid to improve other people’s text. Be grateful of other people taking the time to improve “your” text.
- Be sure to include your contribution at the most appropriate blip (section); at the most appropriate place within that blip; and do modify text surrounding your contribution so that the text flows easily and the whole blip becomes a better blip.
- If you are sure of an improvement, go ahead, edit the blip and improve it. Don’t ask the blip initial creator to improve it, and do not set up a discussion. Go ahead and do it.
- Ensure that the whole resulting wave has been improved as a result of your contributions. If all of us improve the whole wave continuously, the result necessarily will be a great wave, better than any of us could have conceived individually.
- Pre-structure a discussion into separate blips. Each such blip must pose a discussion question that cannot be answered just with “yes” or “no” or any small set of categories, but that does require an explanation. Always include a blip at the end of these pre-structured blips indicating that people are free to add additional pre-structured blips. Example: see the General Discussion blip at the end of this Wave. Besides this general pre-sructuring, there are specific pre-structures that are commonly used in face-to-face discussions that may apply; for instance, a formal Debate pre-structure where each of two blips set up opposing points of view; an issue-position-argument pre-structure; and so on.
- Ensure that your contribution does contribute to the general health of the discussion by first becoming familiar with whatever has been discussed so far, and then add a contribution that either establishes additional points of view for consideration, counter-argues another point of view, summarizes previous points of view or establishes a further question for consideration. Ideally, your single contribution might include all of these.
- Ensure that your contribution is inserted at the most appropriate point of the discussion. If you are replying to a specific contribution from someone else, reply using Wave’s reply function just below that contribution; if your contribution is of a general nature about the blip’s theme, insert your contribution at the end of the blip; if your contribution is about the whole discussion wave, insert it at the end of the wave.
- The discussion owner must ensure that someone becomes responsible for summarizing the whole discussion; and that “action items” are developed as the discussion progresses and are summarized at the end.
- Establish and publicize a chat agenda before the chat date. This can be done in one starting blip for the chat wave.
- Set-up a separate blip for each point in the agenda, and a final blip for “other topics” not covered in the agenda. This may get people focussed on the chat Wave’s theme
- Rules 9, 10 and 11 may also be applied to the chat situation.
- Don’t rely in Google Wave as your one-and-only communication and collaboration tool for projects with low tolerance for delays. As Google Wave requires a Google account you could consider other more mature and stable Google products or even use other platforms as alternative communication and collaboration tools in case that Google Wave is unusable.
- Don’t rely in Playback to recover content in large waves or with too many edits. Sometimes even with only goodwill contributions some important content could be lost. You bear in mind that there is not an undo function, playback could demand too much time and computer resources to load than you have available, and that waves could came broken. You have to determine if your wave needs a disaster recovery plan or not.
That is how far they have gotten thus far with this Wave. There is an extremely interesting discussion surrounding all of those rules listed above. Not all agree with all the rules. If you want to join the discussion go to the Rules for Effective Waves and add your opinion. I look forward to reading what you post. Also, share below your thoughts with our readers.
Related posts:
- Google Wave Etiquette – Moderating Your Wave Many folks have a real problem with the idea of...
- Google Wave: Top 10 Improvements for 2010 In May 2009 at I/O 09, was launched to much...
- Women on Google Wave One of the most heard complaints about ™ is that people...
- The Google Wave Templates Not sure how many folks have actually already seen and...
- Google Wave User Black List Well it was only a matter of time before the...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Why I am using the Thesis Wordpress Theme
Thesis makes my site look very professional, clean and has an easy-to-read layout. Thesis delivers unmatched SEO, cross-browser compatibility, and top-notch HTML + CSS architecture. Visit this site to find out more and get the Thesis Theme for WordPress Get your Thesis Theme today!
Why I host my blog with DreamHost
DreamHost gives me unlimited Disk Storage, unlimited monthly bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting, MySQL 5, PHP5, Subversion Repository, SSL Security server, 24/7 Technical support, One-click installs (Wordpress, Gallery, ZenCart, PHPGedView, Pigg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpBB, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, Advanced Poll and Trac) and much, much more. Visit DreamHost today!.
