E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

A World Without Email – Year 2, Weeks 29 (CBC’s Spark – A World Without Email)

Another week back at work, another week wondering where did August go this time around! I can’t believe we are just about to enter September! Goodness, I guess time flies when you are having fun, eh? hehe

Either way, it’s that time of the week, where, once again, I thought I would drop a couple of lines on last week’s weekly progress report from my project of living "A World Without Email", specially since this time around something really exciting has happened at the same time that this week I will be participating in an interesting and worth while sharing event, I would hope most of you folks would enjoy, even more so if you have been following this blog for a while now…

But, let’s get started first with that progress report from last week and share part of that excitement I just mentioned above:

Yay! As you will be able to see, for the first time this year, and on week 29! I have been able to get a whopping number of 10 emails in a single week! Yes, 10 emails from last week, you are reading it right! Last year, the first time where I hit 10 or less emails in a single week was on week 46, with just 3 of them (During a vacation period, to be noted as well). And this year, as you may be able to see, I hit that mark of 10 or less on week 29! 17 weeks sooner! Whoahhh!

It’s amazing to be able to see, for the second year running, how, as time goes by, and I spend more and more time immersed in social software tools and educating my fellow knowledge workers on Thinking Outside the Inbox how I see a constant decrease in my incoming email count. I mean, if on week 29 I am already hitting 10 emails per week, I wonder what it would be like on week 50, for instance. And funny thing, today is Monday and things are keeping steady with what happened last week. So we shall see whether it will keep up this way for the remaining days … I hope so…

Oh, talking about "Thinking Outside the Inbox" and living "A World Without Email", here is the other interesting tidbit I wanted to share with you folks that you may be interested in. Through a good friend of mine, Tony Burns, (Former IBMer and an amazing forward thinker around the world of collaboration and knowledge sharing at a time where most of us weren’t even thinking about such topics! -Indeed, way way back in time to even think about Web 2.0!), I got contacted by Dan Misener (Through Twitter, of course!) who tweeted the following:

"Tony Burns turned me onto your World Without Email project yesterday. Interested in doing a radio interview for CBC Radio?"

Of course, I couldn’t reject such a kind offer to participate in a CBC Spark radio show and get interviewed by the always insightful Nora Young to talk about the project. And that’s why this coming Wednesday I will be carrying out such interview.  To say that I am really excited about such an opportunity is an understatement, because so much has happened since last time I talked publicly (Except for this blog) on this topic that I can’t wait to share some further insights on what’s happened since then.

As a teaser, Dan put together, earlier on today, a very thought-provoking blog post under the title "A World Without Email", in which he asks whether you could simply stop getting email in your workplace or not. I know that for plenty of folks out there the answer to that question is going to be a big and loud NO! And that’s what my challenge is going to be this coming Wednesday, where I will try my best in convincing people out there who may be listening to the interview on whether they can give up on corporate email, or not, just as much as I have been doing over the last 18 months going from 30 to 40 emails a day to 10 a week!

Intriguing, eh? Well, we shall see how that goes. For now, if you would want to ask a question for the episode itself, head over to that post that Dan put together and ask away. I shared over there earlier on another teaser that describes pretty much what I would want to cover with Nora. But, of course, more than happy to take your questions, specially if you think you will never be able to overcome such challenge of giving up on corporate email. Let’s see whether I can help. Perhaps I may be able to show you a way out, just as much as I have been helping others reduce somewhat of that email clutter by just doing a couple of simple things (Diversifying & Fragmenting)

Are you ready?

Tags: Tony Burns, Alumni, Dan Misener, CBC Spark, Spark, CBC Radio, Radio, Nora Young, Interviews, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email, Diversifying, Fragmentation, Email Clutter, Reducing Email Clutter

Using IBM Lotus Connections 2.5

While everyone is anxiously awaiting for Snow Leopard to hit the shelves (Apples’ latest upgrade to OS X 10) later on today, if not already, my attention is actually elsewhere. For the time being, I am not planning on upgrading till a number of critical applications I use on a daily basis on my MacBook Pro are fully compatible with it. But, like I said, my attention today is going to be elsewhere.

A few details are coming along already on another major announcement that I have been waiting for months to take place! And it’s finally here! IBM’s Lotus Connections v2.5 is at last available for download! Yay!! My fellow colleague, and good friend, Luis Benitez, has already been sharing some details over at Lotus Connections 2.5 Is Now Available for Download. I am sure there will be plenty of other folks jumping in as well very shortly with more information related to today’s announcements. And relevant information resources are starting to become available for everyone as well, like the Lotus Connections v2.5 Information Center repository.

I am certain, at this point in time, that you may be wondering why I am so excited about the announcement of this release from Lotus Connections, right? Well, there are plenty of them! But the main one is that, finally, I will have a great opportunity to share with everyone out there, interested in the topic, how Lotus Connections v2.5 is *the* main Enterprise Social Software tool that I use rather heavily on a daily basis to help me escape corporate email and live "A World Without Email".

Yes, that’s right! Most of you folks know by now that I have been making use of a social software tools suite all along to help me diversify and fragment successfully my email Inbox to the point that over 90% of my daily interactions happen elsewhere than through email. And of the 90% of interactions a good chunk, around 70%, perhaps, happen through Lotus Connections v2.5 and its various different components.

I have been using all of the new features and enhancements that v2.5 has been putting together and making available for download today for a few months now in our internal deployment and from the very beginning I have been commenting several times how without this fundamental release taking place this year I probably wouldn’t have been as successful in giving up on corporate email as I have shown over the last few months (See yesterday’s post as an example, for instance).

Thus the exciting thing for me for today is not just the availability of Connections v2.5 for everyone to download or upgrade to, but more the fact that from today onwards I will have an opportunity to share with you all, and show you!, how I am living "A World Without Email" by making use of my primary Enterprise Social Software tool: Lotus Connections.

And that’s the main reason why I am titling this entry as "Using IBM Lotus Connections 2.5", because that’s what I will be doing over the next few weeks, every so often, and, perhaps, as part of the weekly progress reports themselves, more than anything else to show and share with everyone a good number of use cases that you can apply to your day to day tasks and activities, so that you can see how embedding social software into your daily workflow is not as tough and difficult to achieve as most people would think.

Should be quite an interesting and fun journey sharing with everyone out there how I eventually work on a daily basis, pretty much like the fascinating blog post that Stowe Boyd put together a few days back on "being an onfovore" and which I can surely relate to quite a bit (A must read, by the way, if you are into social networking and social software in general).

For now though I am going to leave you with a couple of teasers of what you may be expecting over the next few weeks. And that’s basically by sharing with you a couple of very interesting resources I am sure you are going to enjoy. The first one is a screencast, divided in multiple chunks of a just a few seconds each and making a total amount of nearly 42 minutes, and titled "Using IBM Lotus Connections 2.5" and which you can find over here. It’s one of those very helpful resources that will provide you with a good solid overview of what to expect from Connections and a good rundown of the various new features.

And while talking about general overviews, you may also want to have a look into this other resource, which I think you are going to find very relevant as well. It’s a YouTube video that features the one and only, the demo master, Ron Sebastian, who over the course of nearly 7 minutes he gets to explain some of the new features folks would be able to find in Lotus Connections v2.5, including a live demo with some snapshots. You would be able to get the direct link from here or, alternatively, check out the embedded version below:

And that would be it for now folks. Enough teasing. Can’t wait to share with everyone out there how if I have been able to reduce my incoming count of emails by over 90% perhaps you could, too! Why not? The choice is ours, don’t you think?

Tags: Snow Leopard, OS X, Apple, Mac, MacBook Pro, Lotus Connections, Connections, Lotus Connections 2.5, Connections 2.5, Information Center, Stowe Boyd, Onfovore, Screencasts, Tutorials, Education, Resources, Training, YouTube, Ron Sebastian, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email, Use Cases, Business Value, Value Add

A World Without Email – Year 2, Weeks 28 (Going on an e-mail Diet)

Now that we know how we may have been busy "Working The Web" quite nicely over the last few years, I thought it would be a good time again to check back into the weekly progress report from what some folks out there have been saying lately (And which I like quite a bit!): my project of living "A World Without Email". Specially, after I bumped into quite an intriguing reading that I think you are going to find rather interesting, too, to say the least.

But first, and like usual, let’s talk about that weekly progress report and detail what happened last week, as I think that’s probably what most of you folks out there are waiting for. So without much further ado, here it is:

As you would be able to see, and for the second week on a row, right on target for those 20 emails, or less, received per week, making a total amount of 19 emails for week 28. Whoahhh, fantastic news! Indeed!

It looks like after that massive peak a couple of weeks back things have gotten into a steady pace of less and less emails and, if things continue the same way, I would be expecting pretty much the same for this week, but with a twist (More on that one later on … )

So things are looking very good so far! At this pace, and seeing the reports from last year at this time of the year, I am averaging nearly half of the emails I used to get by then! And if the ratio continues to go steady over the remaining weeks I am sure by the end of the year I will be way below the follow up target I set at the beginning of the year. So far, getting there quite nicely, don’t you think?

Anyway, we shall see as time goes by. For now, let’s move into that intriguing article I bumped into last week and which came to me through one of my fellow IBM colleagues, Stefan Pfeiffer, through Twitter, and which I think you are going to find rather interesting as well, like I mentioned above.

Have a look into "Going on an e-mail diet", put together by Mary Pratt over at Computerworld, which talks about how Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ CIO Tony Murabito is on a mission to cut email at his company by as much as 25% in order to help knowledge workers re-gain some of the productivity that they seem to be losing through email. Pretty impressive, if you ask me, considering how this initiative seems to be coming from high above in the management ladder by folks who they themselves acknowledge there is a problem with email. WOW! Yes, I know, exactly the same thing I thought of when I first read it.

However, it may seem a bit misleading altogether though, specially if you read through the entire article. Why? Well, initially because of some of the quotes mentioned throughout. Like this one:

""It showed they were using e-mails for more than point-to-point communication. Some were using it for document management," by Tony Muribato"

This is not something new. I am sure you would agree with that. Plenty of knowledge workers use their Inboxes as their to-do lists, content and file sharing repositories, work tracking and auditorial mechanisms, their delegation machines, as well as that Pandora’s box where everything goes. And the list could go on and on and on…

So why do I find the article intriguing? Well, not sure whether you have seen it or not, but inside the article there is a small section under the heading "E-Mail Regimen" which, pretty much, describes how they are planning on cutting down that email. In short, by using email and re-defining some of its various uses! Have a look yourself into the snapshot I took from that short section, so you can check it out for yourself.

My first reaction to reading through the entire article, including that part on E-Mail Regimen was actually what a missed opportunity! A missed opportunity to help introduce various social software tools that would help knowledge workers, first, diversify their email and then fragment it into other pieces much easier to consume, process, and share across with their peers. By making use of social software tools.

Yes, a missed opportunity! With the introduction of those new ways and methods of handling email I am sure they would probably make that target of 25%; they sound rather on target to meet their new needs; but I am wondering … why stop there? Why not take things further into the next step? In the article itself there is no mention on whether Cubist Pharmaceuticals is starting to explore social software or not. I hope they are. I surely hope they are, because right then they will realise how short that 25% target is and how much potential to increase that % there is by making use of social software. Why? … Because of quotes like this one:

"Booher’s surveys of clients have shown that 58% of workers spend up to three hours a day on e-mail"

Not sure whether Cubist Pharmaceuticals would be one of those companies where employees spend up to three hours a day handling email or not. I just know over 18 months ago I used to be one of those knowledge workers spending that amount of time going through email. Plus then my daily job. 18 months later, I am happy to report, and share across, how I now spend around 10 minutes a day (Yes, 10 minutes!) to process the very little email I get (1:1 confidential conversations and calendaring & scheduling events) and the rest of the day I just keep doing my job, using some of those various social tools I have talked about in the past already.

Not sure what you folks would think about this one, but going from 21 hours per week to 50 minutes per week, by making use of social software and giving up on corporate email, is on its own quite a solid business case on how not only could you go on an email diet, but perhaps more along the line of wiping email out altogether for your knowledge workers! Or, at least, a large chunk of it. I will let you do the math now …

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Work The Web, A World Without Email, Stefan Pfeiffer, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, CIO, Tony Murabito, Computerworld, Mary Pratt, E-mail Regimen, Knowledge Workers, Workforce, Social Software Adoption, Business Value, Business Case