Following the article in No. 62 about the ATOS CEO's intent to move internal communication away from e-mail, St�phane Dumothier sent some pertinent comments, which we discuss here.
SD: "Wouldn't it be great to regroup directories, profiles, instant messaging, employee communications, etc., functions onto a single Corporate Social Platform?" c�b�: Search for "Cisco Quad." They don't seem to be getting much traction, but that's definitely their concept. The product may be ahead of the corporate awareness of exactly the need you express. SD: E-mail usage has changed over time. It was/is a fantastic communication vector, but has now became merely a digital tracking record tool. E-mail is mostly used these days to cover one's track. c�b�: E-mail is significantly (but in a very perverted way) used as a workflow management system. People route documents for approval that way. Instead, an organization should have a real WfM system, which would provide better traceability, accountability, notification of status change, reminders, storage of process documents, etc. SD: It would be interesting to measure the ratio between e-mail, posts , IM and tweets posted in a day and look at metrics. c�b�: It would also be useful to study some people's e-mail flow, and count how many messages fall in different categories: meeting coordination, newsletters, acknowledgments of a previous message, spam, genuine knowledge exchange (questions and answers), CC to bosses to protect yourself, etc. Then a company could decide what changes in communication practices and tools make sense. |
