Google Wave: The Next [Electronic] Generation?

You have to wonder if we will ever stop outdoing ourselves.

In Google's case, I can safely say, not any time soon. It's latest? Google Wave--promoted as the new online tool for real time communication and collaboration (I'm still trying to figure out what that means)--is the recent buzz among digital aficionado. Google describes it as "a wave [that] can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Normally, I wouldn't mind having an electronic best friend that has an automated, boisterous spell-check/grammar (God knows I need it), a best friend that acts as a translator in 40 languages (since I only speak three) or one that can also inform me about what is current in the world. It's like having your own electronic super hero that saves the world one communication barrier at a time, right? It does sound very appealing. However, I can't help but wonder: What problems does Google Wave pose?

In their defense, the creators, themselves, raise a fair question: Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents? In an effort to improve communication, Google Wave introduces what may be a revolutionary idea for businesses, companies, organizations, etc. Hm... this sounds oddly familiar to what the Nextel phone did for businesses.  Perhaps Google Wave should come with a disclaimer: If not used in moderation, this product may become a nuisance. 

On the other hand, it promises to ease communication for contacts across the world. However, if none of these (work or distance) apply to you, it may prove to be either (1) too complex or (2) more of a hassle than your regular email and IM. Trust me. I want to like the gadget, but am simultaneously skeptical. 

That said, if this sounds like your kind of toy, sign up to be one of the 100,000 that gets invited by Google to play with Google Wave before it's released to the public.

Take it Slow

"It's sad, really," I was telling Chris, a best friend who lives in Dubai, "I'm studying English at school, and essentially, I'm studying it to be a writer. But everything is online now. I have a feeling my résumé will include works published online, rather than offline (books, magazines, journals, etc.). And it makes my soon-to-be profession feel ... cheap, disregarded even."

Last week, John Freeman of The Wall Street Journal shared my exact sentiments in his recent article, A Manifesto for Slow Communication. Freeman explains that words like "speed" and "urgency" are not synonyms for "effectiveness" and "accuracy."

"Making decisions in this communication brownout, though without complete infor­mation, we go to war hastily, go to meetings unprepared, and build relationships on the slippery gravel of false impressions."

As a writer, I feel this speaks to me on a deeper level: my career. There is something great about admiring, holding, smelling, and caressing a book or magazine or newspaper with one's own text printed on it. Personally, the romanticism behind it is greater in comparison to seeing text on a monitor. But more importantly, literacy standards continue to fall. Everything else seems to be improving but ... our literacy skills? Freeman illustrates the following:

"It [the Industrial Age] has made it more difficult to read slowly and enjoy it, hastening the already declining rates of literacy. It has made it harder to listen and mean it, to be idle and not fidget."

This manifesto runs parallel to the ongoing multi-tasking and the frying attention span debates. In the blink of an eye we can read headlines without being fully informed. In the next blink we can be briefed about the latest celebrity gossip. Next we are glancing through our email, then we are skimming through a Google Book just to make it quickly to the next eye's blink. Are any of these things ever done carefully? Or effectively? Or with our full attention? Is it fair to the authors who have worked on what you're reading? Another question: Did I lose you?

My stance is not to be confused with a stance against fast communication, rather to know when to opt for slow communication. Like Freeman states in his manifesto,

"We need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from effi­ciency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships."

Well said! Now, if I could only get this in print...