Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Ride a Google Wave to Success

New technologies are constantly coming out.  Our challenge is figuring out out to leverage them for our success. 
Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup by Josh Shackelford

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Google is will be launching a new platform called Wave.  The Google Wave is suppose to leverage social networks to enhance communication.

Check out what one of its founders had to say. 

google-wave-logo "Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps. As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point; I was immediately sold," explains Lars Rasmussen.

 

What does this mean?
google-wave-rich-content We all have many projects that we are concurrently working on, with many different teams.  Well maybe not so many different teams as much so as multiple projects with the same team.  Imagine being able to brainstorm, day or night, with your team, and to have a track record of the conversations and the evolution of the project.  Your coders can add functional input, your designers can add graphics, your business execs can mold the conversation towards business objectives, and your sales reps or field agents can provide feedback as to what is needed in the field.  Real-time, complete, and full collaboration from anywhere in the world.

Just about every demographic should be getting excited about this new platform.  Business owners and execs can leverage it for business, while kids can chat about their days or work on hobbies, and gamers can play games with their friends. In order to be successful in anything that we do, we need to invest in the people around us.  Google Wave is another way for people investing.

How will Google Wave work?
google-wave-event-planning Google defines a Wave as a new communication project.  You would create a wave and add people to it. Everyone you invite on to your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can all edit directly within the wave, adding replies, comments, images, video, etc…  It's real-time editing, where you will be able to see instantly, what your fellow team members (or wave members) are typing in your wave. Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for long term content -- it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave to see how it evolved.

 

How can Google Wave make me more Successful?
Often on Successful Thinkers, people are talking about successful people being continues learners.  Successful people are looking for better ways to accomplish their goals, and need to be able to lean on their community to do that.  A Google Wave will allow you to communicate more effectively with your community and team.   You could even open your wave up to strangers to get some additional expert opinions on your projects.

google-wave-game-chess Some people might even consider creating a wave to discuss marketing strategies.  Imagine starting a wave about a billboard, and with the help of your community, you could end up with a video production on TV for a fraction of the cost of the billboard.  How this would be accomplished, I’m not sure.  But the power of a community and the influence that they have, could bring a great reward your direction.

Once Google Wave becomes live, you can bet we will find a way to integrate it into successful thinkers, so that we can all ride that Wave to Success.

 Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup by Josh Shackelford

 

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Top 100 Cities to Start a Business

Is your city listed? 100 cities from all over the US have been selected as the best places to launch a new business.top-100-cities-google-map

I was depressed to see that my city (Stockton) was not on the top 100 list, but that was to be expected. After all… it has made the top 10 list for most miserable cities. So I looked a little deeper to see how close some of the top cities were, after all, a successful thinker is going to look for opportunities everywhere.

6 of the top 100 cities are within 2 hours of me.

11American Canyon, CA12,484
16Novato, CA48,410
66San Jose, CA895,535
68Ventura, CA108,143
69Danville, CA45,093
76Folsom, CA68,912

That is not too bad. I guess the next step would be to get a successful thinkers chapter started in each of these cities. Any takers? Are there any hosts or ambassadors that would like to start a mixer in these cities? Feel free to comment below.

I would actually be interested in helping anyone start a chapter in any of the cities. I notices that a couple of the cities on the list (in other states) already have chapters going.

Originally Posted At Successful Thinkers Meetup

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