I really find the Facebook inbox messaging system the same premise as email, only thing is that I’m not sure if I can message someone that doesn’t use Facebook, or if they can send me an email or content somehow that will deliver into my Facebook inbox.
You can receive/send a private message from Fuser (a meta-inbox service), Facebook also has an SMS function to private message, and link sharing services like ShareThis can send a post to Facebook, you can get also get this functionality as a footer icon on your blog posts or feedflare.
But the question is, can a person not registered with Facebook send you a private message, and how would they do it: by email, by IM, from another social network, etc…see more on open social networks and architecture. This leads to data ownership and the social web bill of rights…see more.
I’m sure a users Facebook profile has a unique character string that could allow outside people to deposit you an inbox message.
Anyway…
Most businesses use Outlook for email, Outlook is more than email, it has a calendar, journal (kind of a blog), to-do, notes, meetings, IM (officer communicator), tasks, contacts, etc…
From the internal company contacts list you can add people to your personal contacts, or you can manually add internal/external people.
What about organising people into groups for your personal contacts, just like you have enterprise wide email groups.
What if you clicked on a contact and they had their own webpage, obviously there are privacy settings, but you could see their latest journal/blog post (you have to imagine the Outlook journal feature is a blog network system, like Blogtronix), see their latest tasks, links, see their contact groups, etc…
Basically, I’m talking about Outlook becoming a social network like Facebook, everyone uses Outlook or email, so bring web 2.0 to them.
Outlook would become your profile page with all your interests, expertise (KN), resume, links, posts, tasks, email, IM, etc…
Rather than send you an email (a private message), people could also have the option to send you a public message on your comment wall.
Managers could use a feature like the News feed to see when people have completed tasks, etc…business units could create CoP groups, posts in your profile page could get sent to a CoP, these CoPs could also have forums…see Clearspace.
Anyone is one click away from viewing a profile and seeing that users world.
An enterprise would be a network like on Facebook, then if other companies used this Outlook social network, they would be another network, so at a click you can connect with other companies or other internal offices…of course limited profiles and privacy comes into play.
This is the ultimate knowledge worker environment, that fact that every person has a profile and that you can add friends and interact in such an open way is incredible.
From this content (that would of been in email silos) you aggregate a blogosphere, an expertise locator, Q&A, a linkosphere, and create community groups…all browsable and searchable.
In this way the usual email content is dealt with another way depending on its context.
Instead of sending an email…
Emails are great for personal correspondence, but sometimes your message can be sent via another method depending on the context and audience.
- instead of sending an email announcement or an authored piece, blog it…people can subscribe to your blog or you could even push the message to others like Facebook Notes. You can even email a post to your blog.
Blogs aren’t the only way, you also have vodcasts, podcasts.
- instead of sending an email to share a link, bookmark it, and others who follow you will see it, or you can push the bookmark like Posted Items on Facebook ought to do.
- instead of sending an email, find a topic forum that discusses this type of thing, which may already have an answer in the archives…or post to the forum via the email.
- instead of sending an email to ask a question, post it in the Q&A module…or find a topic forum, or browse the expert locator, and search blog posts, forums, and bookmarks to find the right person to ask…even enterprise tweet it.
NOTE: for forums and Q&A, you could search the social enterprise to find the people you want and have an on-the-fly discussion group via Grouptivity or CircleUp.
- instead of sending an email to contribute an idea or suggestion, use the ideas module
- instead of sending an email to request a task, send a task request eg. wrike assign a task by email
- instead of sending an email while you are on the road, SMS a presence post (like Twitter or Facebook Status)
- instead of keeping handy links in email folders, create your own wiki for handy links you use daily
- instead of sending an email to find a person for a new job, look it up in the expert locator (based on interests filled in on a users profile), or search the blog posts and bookmarks, even CoP groups, etc…
- instead of sending an email for conversation or for a one liner, user IM, even group chat…this can be archived, just like email conversations, made at Forums, and on-the-fly such as Grouptivity and CircleUp can be archived.
- instead of sending an email to find out stuff (keeping updated), just keep an eye on your News feed (like Facebook)
Alternately, spread the flow: get updates by email, SMS, IM, RSS Reader, desktop alert
- and don’t forget there are Groups (CoPs) where you can publish your posts and links to, and find answers…these groups can be their own mini network, with forums, Q&A etc…
Benefits
The first thing is that the individual doesn’t get inundated with stuff in their inbox that doesn’t concern them.
Secondly, conversations are not as difficult, they have a flow, people can come in at any time and get the picture.
Thirdly, what was previously in silos (email) is now open, has a place, is archived and is searchable…this is knowledge sharing, discovery, retention at its best.
The content is not different to what we are sending now, people are not asked to deal with a heavier load, all that we are doing is offering a different module depending on the context of the content, and it’s all open for others to see past, present and future…plus each context or type of content has a place, if you are looking at the latest ideas, simply visit the ideas module.
In a nutshell we are just sending, delivering and finding content through additional interfaces (not just email), it’s not that hard at all, and its open so others can benefit from this otherwise siloed closed content.
To make it even easier, you don’t have to visit modules, like the forum to post a topic, you can post to the forum from your email and receive replies…actually everything could be done from your dashboard. Most email clients are already a dashboard of some sort, this is just addig more modules to your view, having a public version, and connecting you with the rest of the enterprise.
Content discovery is just the start from an open knowledge sharing interchange, from there you can connect with the person responsible for the content, form relationships…without these social tools the right people aren’t naturally bought together.
Librarian’s usually know interests of people in the workplace, and can get similar people introduced, these people may be able to help each other out. It’s each person knowing about other human resources, the more social we are, the more we can utilise each other.
Without being brought together there is a wasted opportunity of a human resource…your task could of been better off, completed earlier, been more impressive if you knew that a co-worker was knowledgeable in that area.
Toby Redshaw mentions in his Motorola podcasts, that the social web increases the chances of bumping into a person in the coffee room who turns out has some skill in the task you need help in a 1000 fold.
This indeed is an additional benefit, the fact you can form new relationships or find the person you need, by not even knowing they existed until you came across or were refered to their content or profile, as now we all have our piece of intranet real estate, where we get to share content which is otherwise closed in an email system…enterprise 2.0 is a more thriving workplace.
Related:
Internal communication blogs and km2.0 or the summary version.
[ADDED 11/09/07: Email is critical to Enterprise 2.0 and Office 2.0]
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