Google Wave is Google’s answer to the question, “If e-Mail was invented today what would it look like?” Wave is an interesting approach and is still under development, so if you want to use Google Wave, remember that there are no guarantees of performance or stability–though it has been working very well so far.

What is Google Wave? The best visual I can think of is this…

Imagine that you begin writing a note to a friend or friends. You open a blank note/document and start to write. When you are done writing, you send it to your friend(s). Meanwhile you decide to go back and edit the note–your friends have already begun to read the note, and they can see in near real-time that you are adding to the note while they are reading it. This is close to a live chat session–but with one major difference. Playback!

Playback allows someone that comes late to the note to rewind note to the very beginning and then play it forward to see what was added when and by whom.

Couple this with the ability to branch a Wave into a new Wave, and the ability to embed rich media directly into the note and you begin to see the power this platform brings.

If you are interested in gaining access to Google Wave, let me know. I only have a few invitations, so please be sincere in your desire to be part of the extended working group.

Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?

The following 2-minute video shows what the team did to create “fun” stairs.

Did it work? If you watched the time-lapsed video you saw the change. By making the stairs fun, 66% more people used the stairs instead of the escalator. What I found the most interesting is what was missing. Did you catch it? There were no signs, no banners, no messages of any kind. The only clues were the visual of the stairs looking like a piano and the sound.

Simply by creating a little fun with stairs they changed behavior. No meetings, no informational campaign–no advance messaging of any kind.

My challenge to you is this…put a little fun in your learning. See if you can make change fun instead of frightening. The results may surprise you.

A community of learning can be either a Communities of Practice or Communities of Competency. Participating organizations can be any type of organization: business, health care, education, for profit, non-profit, etc.

The impact on the business will be the time it takes each employee to complete the questionnaire (about 10 minutes), and interviews for a select few when warranted.

If your organization or an organization that you know would be interested, please fill out the form below.