I’m sitting here at Zemoga‘s offices in Colombia. I realized that I wanted to be able to find a “Team Zemoga” list, click on it, and then dump the entire team into a list on my Seesmic Desktop. I realize that I can follow other people’s public lists, but the functionality is just a bit too clunky still.

I want the ability to take a Twitter list and share it as a new “team” list, with the ability to quickly manage the “follow/followback” as well as the ability to DM them almost like they’re IM users.

Make sense? Is this just me?

I’m not using many of the frilly plugins. I’m just using it for conversations.

One trick we do a lot: put the “good” or “clean” stuff at the top of the wave, and then use the bottom part for the conversation. Then, we can run up to the top, edit the “good” part, and keep that as the master copy.

Things I wish it had: groups for contacts, so that I could ping the HBW group in one shot; Export to DOC/PDF so I could send the “good” Wave to people not in the wave; sidebar chat, so that we could see our chatter in the upper right but dump it below, while looking at the “good” part of the wave.

But I’m not pushing it. In fact, I’m keeping these notes more for people thinking on innovating on Wave, so that they can see how users are doing things with it, and so they can adapt and advance their product ideas accordingly.

What I’m NOT doing is just waving to wave, or chit-chatting. I appreciate that people are interesting in just kicking the tires, but I’m not really available for that. I’m using it for projects and plans right now, but much less interested in general chat.

That said, I have an idea for a paid “Wave-only” event some time in the near future. Stay tuned. : )

For me, Wave has become my go to place to think, to share, to coalesce, to make projects happen. In fact, when I look at my online ecosystem, here’s what I do where:

• Facebook: connect with friends and family.
• LinkedIn: share professional networks.
• Twitter: communicate in real time, and find the new good stuff.
• Google Wave: work on the future.
• Blog: think and muse and share and publish.

It’s tucked in there nicely.

What about you? Are you there yet? Are you finding much value yet? What are you collaborating on? What matters next?

And then I saw the light.

I went from a guy who hated Google Wave to telling Kodak’s CMO on stage yesterday that Google Wave would be the one app I’d ask to salvage if I could only save one app running today. So how? Why? What’s that about?

There are two things I’ll do with this post: explain what “the light” is to me on Google Wave, and then talk about this thing we do with new technologies.

The Light

Google Wave has been described as different things from different people. It’s been called a replacement for email (I don’t feel that way, but it’s a replacement for one way that we use email). It’s been called Google Talk on steroids (even less so). It’s been called Google Docs for groups (closer).

Google Wave allows for multi-person collaboration. It’s an easy way to work out plans and ideas and concepts with a group of people. Once you start ( here are my first feelings about Wave), you go from total uncertainty to sharing some tips to wishing it did some things better, to using Google Wave for task management.

I’m using it to propose a new book with Julien, to propose a different book with (can I tell them? You tell me later), to hammer out the details of my new soon-to-be-revealed company, to start a side project with a good friend, and several other collaborative efforts.

The “light” is that this tool is better than email about going back and forth, and also, if you use it well (I’m learning to keep the “blips” at the top as the “gold” stuff, and use the blips below a certain point as the “chatter”), then you’ll see obvious and instant reasons for using it. But if you have no obvious collaboration project to try it on, it doesn’t immediately make sense.

In a way, it’s like being given a new device that not many people have. It’s just not useful. (See the network effect.) So, once you get some collaborators and once you get a project rolling, you’ll immediately see the value.

How We Process New Technologies

We process new technologies the way we consume most everything in our lives: “what’s in it for me?” And from that, we also ask, “Why should I change the way I am?” The “escape velocity” of the status quo is often too high to care about and as such, we don’t really feel the urge to switch.

Why should I check out Twitter? It just looks like people talking about their cats. I’ve got serious work to do.

I joke that there’s this cycle where we write a dismissive post about a tech, and then we write about why we ended up falling in love with it about 30 days. This post is that in a way. I used to really crap on Google Wave, and now here I am praising it.

Should we dismiss tech right off the bat? Probably. Should we revisit again? Yes. I think as business people, it’s just not in our best interest to follow every shiny objects. But should we stay open to reconsidering a technology after a fashion? Absolutely. Without this last part, we close ourselves to potential new improvements to our process flow. Imagine never adopting email. Imagine never getting a cell phone. Communications technologies like this are important, and do change how we do business.

Make sense?

Here’s my reasoning:

We can only visit so many applications regularly as part of a flow. Right now, my current “go to” applications are: email, Google Reader, calendar, Facebook, Twitter, email marketing (Publicaster), Evernote, slowly Google Wave, and that’s about it.

In a business flow, they work something like this:

• Mail and Twitter – communication / media making
• Reader – monitoring and story gathering
• Calendar – scheduling / appointments
• Evernote – “storage” information (like my frequent flier card #’s)
• Google Wave – project collaboration, like figuring out how things will work for events, etc.

Inside Wave, I started a wave to myself called “Threads.” In there, I have the status of Open, Waiting For, and Scratch Pad. I edit them as I have things come in. So, if someone needs something, I throw it in the “open” section until I get it done.

What’s missing are things like “deadlines,” but you know what? I don’t use deadlines, and if I have a deadline, I use the calendar. What’s also missing are some automated functions, like being able to “checkbox” closed a task. But I don’t care. I just delete.

The point, I guess, is that I’m using Google Wave as a task manager because it’s starting to fit into my flow. All my tools have to fit some kind of flow or I won’t use them.

Have you ever mapped your own flows?

And what do you think of the idea?

So, the guys at Motherapp built my blog into an app, which actually also has Twitter and stuff blended in, and it turned out pretty cool. Oh, and it’s free.

Want it?

[chrisbrogan.com] iPhone App (will open iTunes)

Photo credit oskay

Julien and I are working on our new book. We decided to dare to try Wave to write the starting parts, like the outline and the big premises. So far, it’s even easier to use as a collaboration tool than Google Docs. But I’m still not there yet.

I found this video on Gizmodo. It’s a Wave preview with Pulp Fiction as the overdub. The language is not safe for work. It’s funny as hell, though. And actually, it taught me something.

Your thoughts on Wave?

• Apple MacBook Pro
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3k digital camera and video camera
• Edirol R-09HR mp3 recorder
• Amazon Kindle
• iPhone 3G (thanks Alex for pointing out this missing piece).
• Verizon air card for mobile Internet
• and a few other things.

That’s one way to think about the new utility belt, as if it were the gear that connects you to the web.

Another way to think about it is like this: what software and methods for using it would best keep you equipped while navigating the web in doing what you’re doing. For instance, if you’re a salesperson, maybe your utility belt looks like this:

• LinkedIn – for networking, and for answering questions.
• Batchbook – for simple CRM.
• Radian6 – for competitive data (Radian6 is sometimes a sponsor of NML events)
• Google Maps – for finding places on visits.
• Google Docs – for keeping spreadsheets, sales docs, forms, etc.
• Twitter – for informational pulse.
• Socialcast – for internal company chatter.
• YouTube plus a blog – for lead generation materials.
• Flickr – for a visual database of your prospects, for sales materials, etc.

We could do this many other ways, and for several different organizations. We could think about how these tools allow us to navigate and parse and funnel and select. There are lots of ways you could see rolling different types of utility belts. For instance, what would a journalist’s utility belt look like, both physically and otherwise?

These are just thoughts along the way towards ways to make tools more useful to the human business. What do you think?

photo credit chanchan222

Relationships Matter

Human business resets the core building block from “customer” to “relationship.” We accept that “relationship” includes non-customers, prospects, customers, customers who are leaving, former customers, potential reclaimed customers (to name a few).

Business Structures Matter

Human business recognizes that businesses and their practices are porous and more like fabric than like a machine. We accept that good ideas come from outside the company, too. We accept that our employees and other relationships have lives outside the company, and that our business is actually a bunch of clusters that form, dissolve, and form again, instead of some kind of rigid tree structure.

Small Powerful Networks Matter

The social web gives us a new dialtone, a new TV station, a new newspaper, a new magazine, and we all have one. We are all voices waiting to be heard, and all businesses must now think about a customer base that broadcasts, that networks, that voices its opinions loudly, in the open, and with rapid-paced interactions between loosely-joined clusters of like-minded types.

Gatejumping Matters

Human business doesn’t have to follow the traditions that came before it. The social web amplifies different aspects of these businesses. There are different centers of power. In a world where we know Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines, Frank Eliason from Comcast, Jenny Cisney from Kodak, but not the senior team, we have a new kind of power, we have a new hierarchy, a new kind of relationship-centric communications method.

Alternative Economies Matter

These tools help us with awareness, reputation, and trust: currencies that were in such low demand before, but that now seem to be more important than ever. We can buy spots on TV, but no one notices. We can pay for shiny clothes, but we can’t buy a reputation. Trust isn’t something that one picks up at the store. And yet, we can transact a lot of exchanges that use those three things as part of the payment mechanism.

Further Definition

This is not utter chaos. This is a redefinition to better align with organic and social sculptures that make sense to all of us, whether or not we were willing to acknowledge this before. Example: when our old encyclopedias stopped mattering, we wrote our own. Example: when we ask the social web for a hotel, the social web answered back.

This is not a new marketing channel. This is not a new technology. This is not a movement.

It’s more. And yet, it’s so easily misappropriated and malformed and co-opted that it could just as easily be brushed aside. This isn’t the battle of who “gets it” and who doesn’t. It’s the battle to shape these new pathways with the help of these new tools and methods, before some other rigid structure pushes itself in place.

Or, it’s just a bunch of feel-good nobodies tweeting and facebooking.

You say?

Photo credit kalandrakas

I’m often asked which software and which websites I use to do my job and live my digital life. A list like this is maybe just a way for you to check yourself, but also you occasionally will find something that catches your eye. I’m sure I’ll miss a few things.

Software I Like

• WordPress – my blogging software.
• Seesmic Desktop – my Twitter client desktop-wide.
• Tweetie – my Twitter client for iPhone.
• YouTube – for videos under 10 minutes.
• Blip.TV – my preferred “full service” video provider.
• Gmail – my email service.
• Adium – my IM client (I rarely use IM).
• BatchBook – my contact database.
• FreshBooks – my personal invoicing software.
• Pipeline Deals – my sales CRM.
• Picnik – my photo editing software. LOVE it.
• Flickr – my photo hosting solution.
• Delicious – my social bookmarking tool.
• Google Reader – my RSS reader (for reading blogs).
• Google Calendar – for calendering.
• Socialcast – (client) for Workstreaming (like Twitter inside work).
• Radian6 – listening software (a client).
• Evernote – my multi-tool of note taking/keeping.
• Blue Sky Factory – my email marketing software.

That’s what I’ve got for now. If you think of something I missed, or have a question on one, feel free. Let’s use this as a discussion starter. Fair?

I’ve been trying out Posterous after reading about it on Steve Rubel’s blog. I’m using it to capture my vacation.

Today, I tried switching to HTML on the website to embed a YouTube video. (Okay, I just lost a few of you, but basically, I was adding a video the “by hand” way). No go. It wouldn’t be recognized.

Solutions: 1.) use the bookmarklet and push the button while on the YouTube site, or 2.) email the URL to Posterous and let THEM do it.

Okay, fine with a YouTube video. The web has TONS of widgets and applets and things that are just simple copy/paste efforts. Posterous is great and handling the simple stuff and I enjoy it as a very simple, lightweight blogging platform, but I’m a little ticked that I can’t muscle down just a hair and add an embed code.

Just thoughts on a service. Am I wrong?