The Bad In Email (or Why We Need Collaboration Software)
The guys over at Central Desktop Blog have an interesting article on the shortcomings of e-mail as a colloborative tool. From the article:"The single worst trait of email is that it’s silo’ed. [Email] traps information into personalized, unsharable, unsearchable vacuums where no one else can access it - the Email Inbox. Think of your Email Inbox as a heavily fortified walled garden. Not mentioning the difficulties many have accessing their Email Inbox outside the corporate firewall, the Email Inbox contains a hodgepodge of business, personal and private information that most people do not want to share with others."Sounds like these guys have been peeking into my inbox(es)! Seriously, though... I think a lot of us agree with many if not all of these points. In fact, I would like to add a couple more points to his list... Email is not a file system, nor is it a file sharing system. I think it is time for someone to develop a desktop (or suite of desktop) tools that really reflects the average user's usage habits. To mangle a very old metaphor: "Email has become the duct tape of the groupware/office application suite." Read on... This was respectfully seized 4 u at Central Desktop Blog |
Comments on "The Bad In Email (or Why We Need Collaboration Software)"
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Adam said ... (5/03/2006 08:55:25 PM) :
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steve said ... (5/03/2006 10:41:00 PM) :
post a commentI can't say I disagree with you here. I work as a sysadmin and my Inbox is what I'd like to call "organized chaos". I definitely struggle to keep things under control. Email would definitely benefit from the Web2.0-like tagging that has become quite popular nowadays. As it stands now, IT at my place of employment uses a wiki to archive, organize, and reference information that would otherwise be lost in each of our mailboxes. Clearly, this is not a universal solution to the problem. There is a lot of overhead in maintaining, but we've been able to reduce that by using wiki directly, where it makes sense.
I'm jealous... by inbox(es) seem to have the 'chaos' down pat.. the 'organized' part, however, is nowhere to be seen.
How well was the wiki solution received by staff and management? I'm trying to convince everyone of the need implement a similar solution. Any suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!