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

A World Without Email — Year 2, Week 52 (Email Is Dead… Long Live Email!)

After two years, I think that’s probably the first, and last time!, you will see me writing that particular sentence as part of the title of a blog post: "Email Is Dead [...]" or its overall content, for that matter. I know there are some people out there who have been following for a while this initiative of living "A World Without Email" and all along it has looked like as if they would want me to see email go and die a painful death. Well, quite the opposite, I must admit. I have never said that email will die or cease to exist. On the contrary, I think it will be there for many many more moons to come. What I have been postulating all along though is a re-birth of email as a messaging / notification system vs. a content repository of various sorts. And here is the final report for Year 2 of having given up on corporate email.

As you may be able to see from the attached weekly progress report, it seems that things have been looking good as well for week #52 with just 19 emails received for that week, thus still right on target for that follow up challenge of 20 emails, or less, received per week that I set at the beginning of the second year:

But I guess it’s now a good time to share a couple of thoughts in the shape of a final report on what that second year has been like up to this point and share across as well some statistics that I am sure most of you would find interesting and relevant.

The first year of "Thinking Outside the Inbox" I received a total number of 1,647 emails, which is an average of 32 emails per week, with a high peak of 60 emails received in a single week and with the lowest peak being at 3 emails for one week as well. That’s not too bad, considering I started this initiative with an average of 30 to 40 emails a day! Yes, a day!

Now, for this second year, the one on living "A World Without Email" things have gotten even better; I have received a total number of 1167 emails for the entire year, which means an average of 22 emails a week and a reduction of 480 emails overall (Nearly a 30% decrease year to year!). The maximum peak of emails per week was actually 47 and the minimum just one single email in a week!

I know I have mentioned before how I have set up for myself a follow up challenge for this second year to be on 20, or less, emails a week, but I guess 22 isn’t that bad. In fact, not bad at all! When was the last time you ever received 22 emails per week? Before starting this initiative I cannot even think how far back I was getting that kind of email traffic. Probably not even in the late 90s!

So I guess this proves, for the second year running, that there *is* life out there beyond the addiction to corporate email. That you can work at a large email driven corporation (Like pretty much most of them are out there!), as the one I work for, and still remain as productive as ever (If not more!) using social software tools to collaborate and share your knowledge across vs. other traditional ones like email.

I can imagine that plenty of people out there wouldn’t feel comfortable with what I have been doing all of these months in this space, since they aren’t probably too sure whether they would make it work for them or not, but then why not? Why don’t people try it out? Why don’t they dive in, shake that email addiction off and move into much more open, public and transparent interactions? Just for the sake of giving it a try. A single week. Just one week! Not more. Just ONE! What would you lose? Probably not much, right? But think what you would gain altogether…

I do realise that some of the sentences I just shared above may sound a bit too provocative, but then again if I see how most of the folks I collaborate and share knowledge across with have been immersing themselves in using social software tools behind the firewall (Lotus Connections Profiles micro-blogging/-sharing component, Activities, Communities and Files have been a bit hit over the last few weeks!) I would say there is no way back. Once you decide to step in, take the social tools for a spin, you won’t be back; or, at least, with the same kind of email volume as before and that can only be a good thing, don’t you think?

Anyway, why did I title this blog post with the final progress report as "Email Is Dead … Long Live Email!", specially after all I have written all along, and after all of the details I have shared over here over the course of the last few months? Well, like I have been saying all along, I don’t think that email will die a painful death; quite the opposite, it will probably re-purpose itself into becoming what it was originally designed for many decades ago: a messaging / notification system. Right now I still make use of it to process two different types of interactions:

• Calendaring and Scheduling events: so that I can process my meetings, conference calls and whatever else from the agenda (Usually I spent about 15 to 20 minutes per week to go through them). You see? For this only purpose, unless someone shows me something different, I will *always* be using email for this context, but then again, is it really email itself or just calendaring and scheduling notifications? What do you think?
• 1:1 Interactions of a Confidential or Sensitive Nature: Of course, I bet you wouldn’t want to discuss out in public things related to your salary payslip from last month, right? Or perhaps whatever other HR related sensitive issue(s); or if you are talking about confidential information that you wouldn’t want others to know. At least, not initially. You see? This is another scenario that still forces me to use email, although I must confess that in most cases I sort out such kind of interactions through a private Instant Messaging conversation or a phone call. Much faster.

Thus, as you can see, I still see good uses for corporate email. Pretty much like the folks over at Wrike who have put together this rather interesting, and thought-provoking, Slideshare presentation under the heading "Email Is Dead … Long Live Email". I would strongly advise you all to spend a few minutes going through the charts, so that you have an opportunity to find out plenty more why there’s still a good, and solid!, business case for some interactions happening through email.

For me though, it’d be the calendaring & scheduling of events, as well as those 1:1 sensitive / confidential interactions. I bet for you there may be some others. Wrike’s deck puts together things in context on what may potentially be a successful adoption of social software tools starting with … yes!, email! Pretty much along the lines of the latest Google initiative that just launched today: Google Buzz and which relies quite heavily on … yes!, GMail!

You see? Email is not dead! By far! It’s here to stay with us for a long long while! However, after two years, and going into my third consecutive year, I still prefer, and very much so!, to live "A World Without Email". And you? Can you let it go? Will you let it go?

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, Final Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email, Lotus Connections, Connections, Profiles, Activities, Communities, Files, Email Is Dead, Calendaring and Scheduling, Confidential, Wrike, Email Integration, Google Buzz

Are Blog Comments Worth It? Treasure the Conversations

WebWorkerDaily has got a very interesting and thought-provoking blog post where they are actually questioning the worthiness of having comments turned on in a blog, whether for personal or business use, given the recent happenings of very popular blogs finally deciding to turn comments off for now. That WebWorkerDaily article surely is a good read providing lots of insightful thoughts on what are some of the pros and cons of such a bold move. Well, here’s my take: keep them! Turn comments on. They are worth it. And here is why.

As most of you folks know already, I have been blogging for nearly five years externally, and for seven years internally, and even today I still think comments on blog posts are essential to the overall experience of blogging. I have always been thinking that a blog without comments is just another Web site. There is no interaction. No dialogue. No conversation. No reaction. No nothing. You just basically consume the content… and move on. Just like you would do with a regular (1.0) Web site.

However, think for a minute, the kind of impact you would be provoking if you open up for comments in your blog. You are opening your front door for other knowledge workers interested about what you may have got to say to share their ¢2 with you. To help improve the original ideas through conversation, through open dialogue, through constructive feedback; with as little barriers of engagement as possible. Yet, the outcome being tremendously much more powerful, since a good bunch of those comments are bound to improve the original blog entry. Beyond measure!

Who wouldn’t want to have that? Who wouldn’t want to open up the door towards a more open, and rampant!, innovation by brainstorming online in some really good ideas that may have been coming afloat during that fruitful exchange? Here is an example: check out this really inspiring blog post put together by my good friend, the always insightful and KM extraordinaire , Jack Vinson, under the title "Helping the Experts and Stopping the Email Chatter". Over there you can see how over the last couple of days we have been having a rather interesting discussion on sharing your knowledge, collaborating and re-finding the content shared. Specially when talking about experts engaging in Q&A sessions.

And best part of it, which is why I am still so fond of blogs, is the opportunity to keep the conversation going forever or to come back and re-pick it up again where it was left off and continue further as if nothing happened. Yes, you may not have comments to your blog posts just yet, or you may have a few them but because of whatever the circumstance you may not have had a chance to respond back, but that’s the beauty of it all: the door is still open for you to leave comments, whenever you would want to, or whenever you feel ready for it.

That’s why I am enjoying quite a bit that soft transformation of the new @elsua into a new blogging style, because while I was readying to embark into it I have also decided to do something I have been neglecting for a while now: taking an extra minute and enjoying, once again, the little pleasures of leaving comments behind the already existing ones that folks may have left behind the original blog entry I shared.

Indeed, for far too long I have been neglecting coming back to those blog posts and share a comment or two on the already existing discussions, but since I have decided a long time ago that my blog will always have commenting enable, I guess it’s time for me to return home, enter through the door and keep the conversations going. So, over the last few days I have been commenting back on previous blog posts and I am hoping to do that with each and everyone of them. Hang in there, if I haven’t gotten through all of them just yet. I guess we have got all of the time of the world to keep the dialogue going, right? I mean, it’s just like a good friend having embarked on a long long trip for a few months, then returns home, you get together to share a drink or two and carry on with the conversations you had before they left, as if nothing happened in between. Only to find out that the conversations are now richer and much more fulfilling…

That’s what commenting on blogs would do for me; that’s the kind of value they bring into my thinking and know-how; that’s why I treasure them much more than the original ideas shared across. More than anything, because they will always improve the overall quality of the original thought behind that post. Oh, and that’s why I am not so keen either on having a very popular blog. I want to enjoy that drink as it fully deserves. Time and time again!

Tags: WebWorkerDaily, Blogging, Metablogging, Blogs, Comments, Commenting, Ideas, Brainstorm, Quality, Jack Vinson, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation

I have mentioned already a couple of times how my first contact with social software tools inside IBM, my current employer, was around the year 2000, when one of the communities I still belong to (And still one of my favourite ones, too!) decided to put together a wiki where we could all contribute and share our knowledge across. From there onwards, the continuous learning experience of transitioning from traditional collaboration and knowledge sharing tools to these social tools has been quite exciting, to say the least. But I am sure you may be wondering when did IBM *really* got started with all things 2.0 on a wider scale, right? Well, this is a blog post where I will share some of those insights myself.

However, I am not going to start telling you all sorts of various different details on how IBM has been adopting social software tools over the last few years, starting probably on that landmark date of late 2003, when a blogging platform called BlogCentral  first became available through the Technology Adoption Program (a.k.a. TAP). No, I am not going to do that. Mainly, because I am not very fond of re-inventing the wheel myself, and, secondly, because there is a stunning online resource out there that has done a wonderful job in describing very thoroughly how everything got started and where we are now.

Check out the article put together by Casey Hibbard, over at Social Media Examiner, under the title: "How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation". Casey has been working with my fellow IBM colleague, and good friend, Adam Christensen, putting together, perhaps, one of the most tremendously comprehensive and thorough articles / reports, available out there that clearly describes in very simple, effective and helpful terms what IBM’s Social Media strategy is at the moment, and how it all got started a few years back.

In a way, the article itself is a lovely trip down the memory lane on how things got started, not only from the perspective of what social tools there are out there available to us, from back then till today, but also how something so important as IBM’s own Social Computing Guidelines came about and how IBM made a conscious decision to not just have a single corporate social media voice, but instead have thousands of voices! making them all become *the* brand. I know that this may surprise a few folks, but if there would be a single word that I could use to describe it I would probably stick around with effective.

Another interesting part from the article itself that both Casey and Adam talked about is the section on "No Policing", which I am sure it is going to come about as a shocker, specially for those businesses out there that still live in a command-and-control world. Well, here is an interesting, and very relevant, quote from Adam on what IBM means with that "No Policing":

"We don’t police. The community’s largely self-regulating, and so there hasn’t really been a need to have someone go about and circuit these boards and blogs" Christensen said. "Employees sort of do that themselves… And that’s worked wonderfully well"

Indeed, again thanks, for the most part, to those Social Computing Guidelines I mentioned above. Thus, as you will see, it’s not unrealistic to have such policy. Yes, I am sure you would be thinking by now there is a lot to risk involved, but then again, there is plenty more to gain. And having had those guidelines for nearly five years now, and living by them quite dearly, I can assure you that the advantages have been much more numerous than the disadvantages. But you can read more about it on the article itself…

Finally, you will be able to see a couple of other very interesting, and revealing, sections around the subject of the key role from Jams in helping mature those efforts of social software adoption as well as how social media plays that paramount role within the Smarter Planet initiative. Rather fascinating read!

Before I let you go though, as I am wrapping up this blog post, I will tell you what’s my favourite part of the entire article; one that has always been in people’s minds with regards to their own social software adoption efforts (And initiatives): proving the business value of social software. Yes, the good old dilemma of figuring out the ROI of social networking. Now, if you have been reading this blog for a while already, you know what my ¢2 of the conversation are. So I’m going to finish this article with Adam’s take on it (Which, by the way, I wholeheartedly agree with 100%!!):

""I think if you d ask any senior executive at IBM, How important is it for our employees to be smarter? , inherently they understand that these tools can play in helping with that, Christensen said. "I don’t see myself rarely or ever having that hard conversation on the value of engaging employees in these spaces.""

Spot on, don’t you think? All the way coming down from the top! It’s all about how smart and productive you would want to be with these social tools as a knowledge worker. And next time that someone asks me what IBM is doing in this space of Social Computing or what my thoughts are on proving the business value of social software, I guess you folks know where I will be pointing people to, right? …

Exactly!

Tags: Social Media Strategy, BlogCentral, Technology Adoption Program, TAP, Casey Hibbard, Social Media Examiner, Adam Christensen, Social Computing Guidelines, Guidelines, Policy, Brands, Branding, Voices, Jams, Smarter Planet, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Leadership, Smart Work, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Social Networks