Gentle Waves

Let me first apologize to the people who don't yet have Wave accounts - it must be very boring and also frustrating listening to people wax on about things you can't yet experience.

On that note, I do have a few invitations left for regular contributors, customers, and so on.. Just drop me an email.

For those who do have accounts, I'm "pcunix@googlewave.com" and you can find my public waves by searching "with:public creator:pcunix".

Now what I really wanted to talk about.

Last night, I presented Google Wave to our little retirement community Computer Club. They are a mixed crowd: we have a guy who programmed systems in the early 50's for the Department of Defense, another man who managed programmers before he retired, other people who used computers extensively at their jobs... and people who are struggling to understand email.

I can't make everybody happy, but I do try to keep things basic enough for the newbies and deep enough not to bore the old hands. Obviously that can never be entirely successful, but I thought the reactions last night were interesting.

Some people "got it" very quickly. They understood it so much that they were arguing with the people who didn't get it, saying things, like "No, really, this would have been a fantastic tool to have for the work I used to do!" Others were obviously confused.

One man in particular almost seemed angry. "It's confusing", he said. "Why do I need all this stuff that it does? I don't - I do fine with email!"

I was momentarily tempted to ask why he comes to Computer Club if he doesn't want to learn anything new, but I realized that wasn't what he meant: he just doesn't want to learn a new way of doing email. Email as it exists now meets his needs, he doesn't need to combine it with IM, doesn't need in-line replies, doesn't need Yes/No gadgets - doesn't need the confusion, thank you very much. If Google or anybody else is going to try to drag him into using Wave, he'll be kicking and screaming all the way.

I offered my argument that as we start to use Wave for some things, we'll realize that we ought to start with a Wave just because we might need it to be a Wave later. Someone else agreed, pointing out that if you have two ways of doing something, you'll naturally settle in to using one, probably the more powerful way, even if you don't use all of its features all the time. Our Mr. Confused was having none of that, though. As I said, he seemed a little angry - perhaps he had the idea that Google was somehow going to force this upon him.

That's not how its going to happen. Nor are people like him ever going to ask for a Wave account just to kick the tires. Too confusing, no perceived value, not going to happen.

I think that what WILL happen is that Mr. Confused and Mrs. I Never Heard of It Anyway are going to get softly dragged in. That is, they'll click on a Web page that invites them to join a discussion group or to get more information about some subject they are interested in. When they access that link, they'll need a Wave account. By that time, that will be an instant or near instant process - much like getting a Gmail account now. To these people, this will just be another web page, something they need this "Wave account" to access, but that's simple.

They may not even realize at first that they have a new tool. It's just a discussion about local tax rates with their neighbors, or a list of resources and information about something else. They may not realize that they now have the ability to create their own waves. They may know nothing about Yes/No gadgets until they see one and use it. But over time, as they have joined more Waves, they'll start to "get it". Maybe a more technical friend will show them a few tricks, maybe they'll read a little how-to at another web page - or at another Wave!

That's probably how it's going to happen for a lot ovesf people. No kicking and screaming, just a gentle slide into something new.