Collaborative coding through the internet/Rendezvous via Hydra is a great concept, and their syntax highlighting is near-perfect, the Hydra UI only slightly less so, but I tested the thing with Steve_At, and it simply refused to work at all. I don't know what I was doing wrong. Plus, the OS X Finder open/save dialog still bothers me to no end.

I agree that collaboration has a necessary place in any project. However, I have a hard time getting my head around collaborative note-taking. Notes are personal and deeply ingrained with an individuals interests and personal means of information gathering and retention. What you take out of a speech or presentation, and what you need to note to retain, may be vastly different than someone else's.

Personally I find lots of value in comparing notes with coworkers following a presentation, and compiling all our personal experiences and thoughts into a master document. But I can't imagine that multiple individuals simultaneously to a master document in real time during a presentation anything but distracting. I have not tried it yet, but I imagine it akin to passing notes during class while the teacher is speaking.

I'd love to hear more, Jason, about how this process worked and how you divided your attention yet maintained your focus during this process. Maybe the updating in Hydra was less distracting than I make it out to be, and you ended up with one shared document at the end that didn't require the cutting and pasting that several independent note-takers would require in a follow up meeting.

Very cool software though.

I'll be posting a bit more on Hydra in the next couple of days, after I've had a chance to digest things a bit more.

May I hasten to add that I've now tried Hydra in a Rendezvous environment, and it was flawless and fun. Confusing at first, but fun. ;)