How to Really Use GoogleWave

I read a blog post a while back, which referred to news of the anticipated demise of Google Wave.
The comments about wave were less than favorable.
To sum up , it was basically “See you buddy, won’t be missing
you”.
This probably captures the sentiments of all those people who tried and
eschewed the wave, as just another tedious thing to learn. After all
email is still the communication medium of choice of office workers
everywhere. Anything you find, send it off in an email to everybody
else.

I guess it would take something fabulous and out of the ordinary (and
VERY easy to use), to displace email. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE
email and am on it all day, checking every new item that reaches my
inbox. I could not imagine life without email after all.
(On another note, the generation born after the Millennials think that
email is way too slow. But that is another blog...).
However, who has time to read all the dozens of references sent so kindly to
us by co-workers in the spirit of sharing all the good stuff they
find online, when time is at a premium and deadlines are to be met.
It’s interesting to read “Look what I found about the feedback on
the Galaxy Tab, or sales of the Ipad, or about “The Apprentice”,
or even a very relevant link to a topic that’s related to a work
project on your schedule. But you don’t need all those article
links in your inbox. It just creates a mountain of data to wade
through.
Worse yet, when you’re ready to settle down to work on that project, you
may not remember that little link that you or some kind co-worker
found, way back in April. You could do an email search, but it brings
up a host of irrelevant ones.
Now this is where I have been using the Wave to great advantage, and I’ve
been asked before, why Wave, when there’s Google Docs.
My answer to that is that Wave is so much more.
I think Google Docs is a great tool for working on a document in
collaboration with other people. Several persons can work on the same
doc at the same time, editing and adding, thereby shortening time
spent back and forth between contributors. You can add links and
pictures as well.
However I see Google wave as being open to several other uses (and being more
user friendly for those uses).

To create new ideas and designs
It is a wonderful tool for a project/team/business manager, or anyone
who holds a lead role. I see it as a repository for all kinds of
wonderful stuff that could seed the next great idea or service or
product for a business.
Let’s say we are thinking of what’s on the agenda for next year’s
customer or client offerings and need to brainstorm the ‘what can
we create’ process.
Well the wave is a super e-bank for storing all bits and pieces of
information that we find interesting and possibly predictive of
future trends. Any item, in any electronic medium could be a diamond
in the rough that if you look closely and think about long enough,
may spark a new idea. You can open a new wave for every new topic or
subject matter you want to develop. It then becomes a convenient
drop-box where anyone you’ve added to the wave, can leave
anything they find related to that topic. So let’s say our company
is in the business of designing baby products. You can open a wave
for the next new baby design. Now anyone in your company who is not
even on the design team, can contribute their ideas. Every person who
is a parent, or takes care of babies, may have some views they want
to express. E.g., They want a particular kind of bag with so many
pockets, compartments etc , to hold certain baby items when taking
baby out. Some people might have come across pictures of
bags/receptacles that are native to some far flung community for
instance, which might be worth looking at as a model. These pics may
be thrown in as well. Someone could have come across an article
dealing with issues moms face that could shed some light on their
needs from a design or health standpoint. A link to the latest
amendments to regulatory standards. An interview that discusses
fashion trends for next year. A video from any source that shows
parents toting babies around in the mall, the streets, the park, the
beach etc. A news documentary, a book, a magazine. In short a
cornucopia of raw data from different electronic media, plus staff
just posting up their thoughts in a conversational format. Perhaps
links to blogs, tweets, facebook pages etc etc.
The thing to note here is that each piece of information or link in the
wave may not be of much use by itself. However, when you look at all
this stuff from a larger, global type perspective, an idea could
begin to emerge. Something begins to take shape and assume a form,
and this could be the genesis for the next new product you design.
The stuff in the wave are simply the touch stones which may set off
the lightbulb in your head. I see it as a great medium for
collaboration to take place in, among people from different kinds of
disciplines, who come at the same issue from different
perspectives.For example people with scientific, artistic, business
economic or marketing backgrounds, giving their take on the same
issue, but informed by their particular type of training and
experience.

So these are detailed examples of kinds of data that can be thrown into
the wave.
Here are some other ways that the wave can be used:

For project leaders to see what data team members have come up with so
far on a creative project.
Project design and management software the wave is not. But instead of
sending emails to update or share information with the team, the wave
is one central location where the leader or members can see all the
information that’s available on the project so far. Links can be
pasted to documents, charts, memos, and other works related to a
project.This use may be of interest to the smaller businesses who
don’t have funds to purchase expensive software.

To collect relevant information and data, to write that next article,
assignment, or book
I am constantly collecting information from all kinds of web sources to
inspire me to write something new, whether it’s for my blog, or a
work related article.
Some of the material I collect is my research for writing, or simply to
educate myself about a subject I am interested in.
There are many very good add-ons and extensions which work with my browser
(Firefox), which have become indispensable to help organise my work.
I mentioned several of them in my last posting about the old ways and
good days (zotero, pearltrees, read later, delicious etc).
These add-ons are excellent for helping me capture links or screen shots of
webpages which contain information I want to store for later.
Sometimes I don’t have time to read it, so one click on my ‘Read
Later’ button ensures I can find all of them together when I want
to sit down for a good read.
However when I am ready to put together a piece for a presentation, blog,
article, paper etc, it helps to pull only the relevant web pages
together in a wave, for there’s a mass of interesting info that
I’ve collected in these other bookmarking tools.
Usually though, when I am not generally browsing, but searching for specific
topic-relevant info, I put them straight into the wave. This way I
only have highly relevant data that I know I want to use to construct
the piece.

I was very disappointed to hear the news of the Wave’s
possible/probable/certain? demise.
Now what will I use that is free, to do all the stuff I described
above?

I am open to any and all suggestions.