Chad Gesser

Since when did vehicles "Improve the Environment"? Do they repair the ozone, clean up the rivers, reduce pollution?

This pic was snapped by a family member in Jeffersonville, IN. Take a look at the wording at the top of the sign on the left. He told me he did a double take when he saw the sign.

--at http://thesociologyblog.blogspot.com

Collaborative Tool? I currently use Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Blackboard, and a blog (and other things, believe it or not), and while Wave at this point is very interesting, I could not in this form use it productively with my Sociology students. At current there is just not added value as a collaborative tool beyond what the aforementioned tools provide for me. It is sooooo freeform, which is good to a point. Beyond that the information seems to get lost, individual Waves themselves fall apart. There are no logical endpoints. Humans just are not ready to alter interaction and communication effectively in this way. I see Wave could be a lot like Twitter: a core product is made best by add ons, extensions, and third party apps. I believe Wave could be used for creative thinking, on the fly input. It is so difficult to massage/guide/facilitate the flow of input, information, and the formation of knowledge utilizing Wave. Perhaps implementing a tag/keyword function withi

Making Information via Waves Useful First off, if you are not using Wave or are not familiar with how it works, this post might be difficult to understand. Something I have been wrestling with for several days is making the use and product of Waves useful (see Google Wave Review 4). The labeling and/or tagging what are called blips is important to prevent duplication; and more importantly, to allow the categorization of information and knowledge. Here is why this is important. There are several Waves centered around the same topic and discussion; sometime with duplicate users. Why...continue...to...duplicate? For the sake of conversation, ok. But there needs to be an manner in which like information can also be shared across Waves. I know tagging within a blip is a lot to consider, so perhaps the ability of the Wave creator to categorize groups of blips, comments, etc...? Then a "bank of tags" or something of the like could be housed. Think del.icio.us Users over time can t

Functionality A popular theme, as expected, on Google Wave that I've noticed amongst a group of educators is the functionality of Wave. Beyond the fact that it has bugs (slow, locking up), much discussion in the educator section (some found here ) is how could Wave be used in the organizational setting. Amongst the ideas: wikis, customer service, advising, and discussion boards. A standard that is bubbling up is the number of people suitable to make a Wave useful. I participated in one Wave that had over 400 people, and it stopped just short of chaos. Early on participation in the Wave was robust, but after a very short time hundreds of messages can appear in the Wave, and it simply becomes impossible to keep up with. Hence, that Wave came to a grinding halt. Talking about functionality at this stage of Wave is perhaps a bit moot as we begin to see bots, gadgets, and extensions being built for Wave. Just as the Twitter core was developed, Twitter did not gain a wider spread use

Why Collaboration is a sticking point It will be very interesting to see what informal and formal situations will guide the use of Google Wave. Given the heightened nature of interaction, how often, and how deep will participants Wave? There's no question that social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter have filled a gap of connection for nearly every cohort, at least in US society. But what about the depth of interaction, the willingness to "work together" on not only relationships, but informal and formal projects? At a basic level, will users get together via Google Wave to plan a night on the town, a short field trip, or share images, video, and other artifacts regarding an event or experience? For organizations that thrive on collaboration of ideas and projects, an adoption of the Google Wave "system" into their existing communication structure would be ideal. This potential that I garnered from watching the initial Google Wave video struck me as pr

Well, I was fortunate enough to get a Google Wave invite last night, and I spent about 4 hours playing around with it. Here are some initial thoughts. After "waving" with three people, what struck me the most was the sense of melding of communication. When in a "wave", you can see what the other person(s) is typing in real time, you can be typing at the same time, and you can enter into another one's comments as they are typing to address something that perhaps you find in the middle of their sentence. That is an extremely interesting notion, one that will take a while for folks to become comfortable with. After waving for a bit, and because of this, I at least got a sense of fulfillment. I waved with three people that I had never met before, and the openness and willingness to share was something very "cool", maybe extraordinary. I use the word extraordinary intentionally, because I believe a significant issue with using Google Wave will be the wi

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