Thanks for popping over my blog Adam
Interestingly I have just started the reverse conversation in Oracle – ” What would happen to our business if ALL social products were turned off? “The purpose of this question is to see if we have gone too far down the social road to turn back to be reliant solely on email. I’m also wondering what would happen to our “behaviours” if we did. Being Social promotes knowledge sharing and collaboration, would these behaviours reduce or even stop because it is too difficult to do via email?I’ll pop back with the results of the crowd-source at a later date.

I am currently embroiled with David in discussion about this elsewhere.  In my view, our company could barely function without e-mail and certainly wouldn’t function smoothly. Too many processes (formal ones – like getting expenses paid – not just people talking to each other) are dependent upon it.  

Interesting idea. Makes me think of something Jon Mell said at SWCONF, I can’t remember who: “When email goes down, we are relieved. When a social platform goes down, we are outraged.”

I believe that social media will over take e-mail. However, e-mail (like text messaging) has the property of being able to have a conversation without really talking to someone. Sometimes you just want to send something impersonal that does not require an immediate response. Avoiding the effort of having to ‘chat’ or form a ‘huddle’

Until social media is fully adopted within organisations e-mail is critical for communication. It is just a shame that some educational institutions are still playing catch up with industry. I recently requested a form from the estates dept., which they e-mailed me. So I effeciently filled in electronically and added my signature before mailing back within 30mins. Estates then contacted me and stated that I needed to send I hard copy as they could not ‘process’ the electronic copy, it needed a ‘proper’ signature.

So I printed a copy out and sent it through internal mail!!

Interesting topic and comments ….I dont think mail will dissapear but have a more a defined place and pupose as other mediums grow and people experiment how to get the best use out of them. A couple of examples - I didn’t know until this week that out internal phone system can do instant messaging I might be soooooo yesterday not knowing this but hey Im not too proud the fess up …. and … it has it’s uses and replaces a few mails for me now…. Secondly and whilst I squealed a bit when I found out about the message thingy on the phone… I am even more a excited about converting 121 Q&A mails into broader learning - I do think there is so much power in new approaches to share learning through other channels a question answered shared with many instead of 1 and then improved and developed and challenged etc creates a social learning community. Such a community operating within a frame work, so it isn’t unwieldy, can be hugely powerful and engaing – much better than a 2 way mail exchange – exciting times ahead.

email will evolve and become more collaborative. It won’t and can’t die as it’s the lowest common denominator messaging platform where any email exchange can communicate directly with another. Social business technologies don’t and won’t do that for some time IMHO. 

At one point though, will it no longer be the lowest common denominator? Once digital natives make up the majority of most offices, will we see a shift in the way 1-1 communication takes place at work?

I can’t see a time when we ever shift away from 1 to 1 communicate as it will always be necessary to communicate privately.

I dispise email but understand the need for it in the workplace (even that’s debatable). However, it’s one way communication so I challenge others (yes, you) before sending an email determine if it is strictly messaging to inform or if you want a dialogue. If it’s personal, then yes perhaps email is the way to go but if it’s not then discuss on an internal social platform. Easier said than done, yes but it certainly can be done. Cheers to email reduction and no more “Your inbox is over the size limit” messages.