The approach I hav taken in the past is to let bthe groups form, but continue to work on the ‘whole group’ experience for everyone.

Interesting discussion. I completely agree that virtual workspaces are critical to a high level of team communication.

One small note – we found that for the subtle human factors like trust and bonding, it was better to use “lowest common denominator” communications. In other words, if a a couple of team members could actually get together, but the rest couldn’t, it was actually better for team chemistry to NOT have them get together. Strange, but true.

It will bring the collaboration tools at a much higher level. The basic features that took big companies years to build are now for free to download. So we will see some great innovations.

So, yes it will have a big impact, but in ways we would not have dreamed about.

Have you seen the video on Google Wave? What are your thoughts on how that might factor into making virtual meetings more effective?

Thanks for your input. Can you explain a little more about “the toolkit”. I mean, 250 bucks for some templates can seem rather expensive. Not about the documents itself, but I would love some pointers on the tips.