(Gary asked for a practical real life example of Google Wave in business)

Today’s Scenario:
Lets say you have a procedure for selling car insurance via the phone. Usually prospects would call, the sales person would take them through a script that requires a lot of questions in order to determine exactly what they need and likewise what your business needs in order give a accurate quote. (alternatively they can complete a basic application on-line, however these static pages are exactly that, static. They cannot incorporate intelligent software code that ensures your conversion rate’s sky-rocket)

Possible Google Wave Scenario:
Instead of calling up your department. The prospect can simply go through a wave procedure that can determine exactly what type of insurance the client needs and also capture their information directly into existing your back-end system that would have been entered by the sales agent. If at any time the prospect has difficulty answering a question or basically get’s stuck because they have difficulty explaining themselves via the Wave procedure, they can at that time directly wave the insurance sales person with their concerns, once sorted carry on with completing their insurance application/procedure.

So what’s the result?
Well instead of having one salesman handle one prospect at any given time, he/she can now handle 10+ prospects at any one time. If perfected, you’d probably not even need a salesman any more.

Reality?
Personally I would just follow wave and keep my ears to the ground for now. Wait for the developers to get the systems in place that’s needed in order for you business to easily and cost effectively make the move without hassles (especially for smaller businesses, remember Google Wave is still in Beta). Developers are working on SSL (secure socket layer) for wave, so it will be on the same security as you have with online banking… Remember, Google Wave is OPEN SOURCE. This means that the world will keep on adding and making it better, eventually commercial companies will be outpaced with open source. (I’m talking in years here).

Dian Joubert

This list works on the same model as digg, it works by Voting but can manually be sorted by date or current number of users.

By adding wavedirectory@appspot.com to your wave you will be listed and the voting button included in your wave.

To see the list, got to the Wave’s List page

Happy Waving
Dian Joubert