Plannin’ On It

Collaboration is not Communication

Martin Pittenauer, talking about Google Wave, writes:

If I’m writing someone with the intent to communicate an idea, it’s of little use to have him look at me constructing my message. It makes people self-conscious and leads to the textual equivalent of stuttering at worst. At best it amounts to other people cutting me off because they already know what I want, which is efficient but unpleasant.

Nobody wants to write a love-letter ex tempore while the recipient watches you making typos.

Collaboration on the other hand is a process of working on something together, so it’s actually useful to have people chime in, correcting typos, changing sentences or pointing out directions to go. In real-time.

(Be sure to go back & read the whole thing. Really insightful.)

It occurred to me today while I was using Wave that the real-time editing should be contextual. By that I mean, if I’m writing a blip by myself, people shouldn’t see what I’m typing. But if multiple people are editing the same blip, then everyone should see that in real-time. In Google Wave, you’re both communicating and collaborating, but those different modes should be treated differently.

Also keep in mind the disabled “draft” checkbox that appears when you’re typing. Google has said from the beginning that there would be an option to not show your typing to other participants, but the feature isn’t ready yet. I’m hoping that besides having the option on each edit you’ll also be able to default to that setting for all edits.

(Found via Daring Fireball.)