I’ve been working with a new client.
It was the client who suggest the means of communication between us. Anthony Creswell, owner of Ummera said “Do you use Google Wave? We could use that.”
“Oh dear” I said to myself. ”This a very advanced client. How can I keep up to speed?” Fortunately this was followed by the thought “this a great opportunity: I can learn while I work.”
The great thing was Anthony was willing to invite me to Google Wave. GW as we’ll call it, isn’t freely available yet. It’s in trial phase. Google are letting people help them fine-tune it. Wonderful business practice. After I got my email invite, I simply clicked on the link and I was into the Wave.
Like everything new, it confused me. I needed the client to coach me. I’d say it took me about 15 minutes of concentration to reach GO.
The rest is history and can wait for another time. I really want to highlight the value of letting your client lead you into a new world. We all do this whenever we start a new project. The client knows so much. In this case the client not only knew the world of smoking (salmon, duck, eels – you name it Anthony Creswell will smoke it), he knew the world of communication processes.
Next client:
A few days later I met another new client. I found myself suggesting we use Google Wave to save us time, involve others who’d need to be consulted and let us learn a new tool. So one client led me to add value to another.
The working world we live in eh?
PS: For the record, on this job I worked for two smokeries Ummera & Uig Lodge. I feel I have a vested interest in their success.
3 Comments
Hi Paul,
It was a pleasure working with you on this project; I think that we all gained from the experience of using Google Wave and it certainly worked well.
Looking forward to another project with you before too long!
Anthony
Anthony, What a great comment to get. When I work with others, the number one target I have is to enjoy the collaborative work. Of course, successful completing to the client’s satisfaction matters. But unless I get satisfaction from the challenge, the work will be over difficult.
I see that not everyone has had a good Google Wave experience. We have all said we found it incredibly valuable for our collaboration. So I suppose we are a case study that Google could pick up and feature someday.
As for another project with you again soon, bring it on.