Reducing Email by Opening Conversations
Steve Rubel chats with Luis Suarez from IBM
on his bit about reducing private email by moving conversations into
the open using various social software applications. Why not
communicate to the entire community rather than one to
one locked behind a firewall, right? I agree. Many to many communications can be much
more efficient in a lot of cases.
Also, Steve asks if anyone else is doing this. Yes, absolutely. I am. I communicate in a lot of open communities now, either using one social software app or another or just an open mailing list or forum or instant message client. And on OpenSolaris, I've always been pushing people to get their conversations outside on to open lists on opensolaris.org. Sun-only lists inside the company containing non-proprietary information the entire community needs to be involved with drives me nuts. It causes confusion, it hurts the project, and it slows things down dramatically because you have to maintain multiple conversations inside and outside. I know people are sick of me saying this, but it's true. Unlike Luis, though, I do find myself responding to internal email that really should be outside, but I never miss the opportunity to push the person to move it to an outside list. And many people do just that. I've been at this for years now. Another side effect of this opening of conversations experience is that the email that is left in your inbox becomes much, much more valuable. In effect, the email left in your inbox can get back to doing what it does best: transmitting private conversations. Whatever is left can just be deleted.
Oh, one more point. If you read the Suarez NY Times article linked in Steve's post you'll see Louis getting back to using an old technology: the phone. Me too. I've substantially increased the use of the phone this year to connect with people one on one or in groups on conference calls. I find one on one calls substantially more efficient, though, and I get royally pissed when conference calls are wasted with meaningless chit-chat sessions -- especially if it's at midnight or five in the morning or something. Anyway, next year, I'll continue to increase the use of the phone. It offers so much more resolution over online tools. So, finally, my email was totally out of control few yeas ago. It's fine now.
Also, Steve asks if anyone else is doing this. Yes, absolutely. I am. I communicate in a lot of open communities now, either using one social software app or another or just an open mailing list or forum or instant message client. And on OpenSolaris, I've always been pushing people to get their conversations outside on to open lists on opensolaris.org. Sun-only lists inside the company containing non-proprietary information the entire community needs to be involved with drives me nuts. It causes confusion, it hurts the project, and it slows things down dramatically because you have to maintain multiple conversations inside and outside. I know people are sick of me saying this, but it's true. Unlike Luis, though, I do find myself responding to internal email that really should be outside, but I never miss the opportunity to push the person to move it to an outside list. And many people do just that. I've been at this for years now. Another side effect of this opening of conversations experience is that the email that is left in your inbox becomes much, much more valuable. In effect, the email left in your inbox can get back to doing what it does best: transmitting private conversations. Whatever is left can just be deleted.
Oh, one more point. If you read the Suarez NY Times article linked in Steve's post you'll see Louis getting back to using an old technology: the phone. Me too. I've substantially increased the use of the phone this year to connect with people one on one or in groups on conference calls. I find one on one calls substantially more efficient, though, and I get royally pissed when conference calls are wasted with meaningless chit-chat sessions -- especially if it's at midnight or five in the morning or something. Anyway, next year, I'll continue to increase the use of the phone. It offers so much more resolution over online tools. So, finally, my email was totally out of control few yeas ago. It's fine now.
Hi Jim! What a wonderful blog post! Thoroughly enjoyed and thanks much for the link love! While reading through it a couple of thoughts I appreciate you shared across and which I think are very important:
1. The fact you stop & educate folks on how to channel through their energy / content into open social spaces, vs. giving up and saying the typical ("Oh, nevermind, I will send it to you through e-mail!"). That perseverance is what I have been doing as well myself and although it may take some time initially, it will eventually pay off as those folks will continue to use those social tools, as opposed to email. A winner!
2. Yes, the phone! I know plenty of people hate the phone, but to be honest, for a 1:1 conversation, 1 to many, or many to many, it is as good as it gets: no matter what people say about it you are able to speak faster and share your thoughts through a phone call than through written text. And it is even much more accurate. So I suspect I would continue to make much heavier use of the phone as well. Thank you very much! ;-)
Again, appreciated the lovely blog post and Happy New Year!
Posted by Luis Suarez on January 06, 2009 at 02:49 AM JST #