"E-mail is inefficient"
What?
Are you kidding me? I can get approval for ad copy from my client who has a Blackberry in about 45 seconds.
Inefficient? This is efficiency at it's optimum.
But then I thought about what this gentleman had just said to me. "E-mail is the most inefficient tool for communicating in business and teams."
Oh. In a blink of an eye, I knew he was right.
Cary Landis owns Virtual Global a collaborative software design company here in West Virginia. That's right, right here in West Virginia - if you let your guard down a little, you too could see the leading ideas coming out of here ( more on that another day).
If he plays his cards right, he is going to get caught in the boom that we will look back on as the Collaborative Revolution. In the business world, when you need four people to comment on the same document, artwork or idea - the direct one-on-one communication reality of e-mail fails the team.
Changes, ideas and suggestions bypass each other in cyberspace and basically create an unnecessary chaos in the collaborative process.
Well, I look forward to seeing if Cary is right and wonder how I'll be working with my team twelve months from now.
posted by Andy Malinoski at 9:27 PM
3 Comments:
Its amazing how sometimes the technology can actually reverse our effeciency effects in the business world. For those of us that have tried to use email in a group setting, it is not only slow, but extremely frustrating. I agree.
12:49 AM
We are experiencing issues with email/electronic correspondence as well in the nonprofit sector. Many of our contacts do not have email or if they do, still use dial-up, especially some very small grass-roots groups and small churches.
As to the mention of collaboration, it is definitely "coming alive" in the nonprofit sector. If it is spreading throughout the for-profit sector, that would also be outstanding.
5:28 PM
The problem is not that email is inefficient, it is that people use it inefficiently. In addition, more problems arise when people use the "tool" incorrectly or imcompletely. I introduced someone the other day to the power of Microsoft Outlook's infamous "Meeting Request" functionality. He was blown away! How much time does one save through the power of meeting requests (which travel via the same conduit) as compared to arranging meeting details over the phone? He simply did not know that feature existed. Case in point. If all you think you have is a hammer, then everything starts looking like a nail until, of course, you realize that you have other tools in your toolbelt.
You summed up the efficieny gains of email in the beginning of your post. Without offense to Cary, I'm sure his stance is necessary for his company's software to have value.
1:07 PM
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