Just flew from Sydney to New York. Spending 20 hours at 35,000 feet gave me a chance to reflect on how rapidly the world is changing. It’s nothing short of amazing that I can get on a plane in Sydney and be pretty well guaranteed to arrive halfway around the world at a defined time that lets me keep up with whatever I’m doing next.

Its equally amzing that with a wiki, I can work with my mates in Australia, colleagues in Europe, and collaborators in the US – all without trading tons of emails and spending hours in meetings. Instead, I email only when necessary (say, to let someone know the address of a wiki space or page I’ve set up for a project).

When we do have a meeting, it’s short and focused on discussing something that truly needs to be discussed in person, rather than a long series of updates that people can just as well get by watching the wiki pages where we’re collaborating.

And that makes my work amazing. As amazing as that ability to reliably fly halfway around the world. Whoever thought a technology tool would be that amazing?

I do, and I hope you do too. If you’re already using a wiki, excellent! If not, give it a try, and I think you’ll see how immediately useful it is, and how quickly it transforms how you think about – and do – work.