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I am a big Google fan. I love the way they turn markets upside down. Search has been revolutionised, they have ventured into the operating system market, and they are doing amazing things with library books to the Internet. That’s all great. I think though, the inner geek is shining through with their maps.

Yesterday someone from our Sydney office needed directions to get to a partner’s office on Miller Street, Chesterfield from North Sydney, Australia. Chesterfield happens to be a suburb not to far away from North Sydney but also a location in South Carolina, USA. I would think, if I were Google,  and two results came up for the same name I would either go with the closer destination or maybe offer an alternative.

Google Maps however thought it would be hilarious to have us kayak across the Pacific ocean to Japan. Ha ha. It’s all well and good to offer a great service but sometimes you just have to be a little bit more realistic.  We had a good laugh but decided we were not inclined to go paddling.

Side-splittingly hilarious, but not very helpful.

I’ve been doing a lot of contracts and agreements lately, and one thing I’ve noticed is that I’m using whole lot of paper. And I mean whole lot! Just yesterday I had to print four copies of a 20 page agreement.  Two for me and two for a supplier.

It strikes me as a waste, not only of paper, ink but also of valuable time. Even Web-based businesses often still require printed and signed contracts to be sent to their offices or legal departments before contracts take affect. This is crazy! I give much kudos to those companies with foresight and vision who are prepared to invest the time and money it takes to have online agreements in place.

I envisage a Web application that allows two or more parties to engage on a Web-based document with digital signatures, collaboration and security to enable agreements to be signed and authorised without printing a single page.   I imagine  the agreement could be e-mailed as a PDF attachment to all of the stakeholders. To be honest, I don’t think this would be too difficult. Of course, the legal enforce ability of such a contract would have to be confirmed before the parties engaged in its use.

Maybe such a Web application already exists? I don’t know of any that can be used on a per use, or subscription basis, but I’m pretty sure there will be a market for it in the future.