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Friday, October 21, 2011

Email Driving Your Business Crazy? Embrace Social Software!

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A lot of my colleagues express amusement when I tell them that I've been able to reduce my inbox from 100+ emails/day to ~20 emails/day. The first question they always ask is: "How did you do it?"
It wasn't easy and it has taken time, but I was motivated by Luis Suarez. Luis was was interviewed by Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur in their Net@Night show last year and is living the dream: a world without email. It was one of Luis' webinars that introduced me to the concept of moving away from email and embracing social software.
After seeing a significant reduction in my email, I decided it was time to get others to "see the light". I found, however, that a lot of people love their email and it's not always easy to get them to move away from it.
Today, I ran into a presentation from Louis Richardson that he posted in Slideshare. In the presentation, he encourages business users to get their "heads out of the inbox". I really liked the simplicity of the presentation and its style and wanted to share it with others.
Richardson summarizes why a business should embrace social software and properly use email:
  • Open the conversation, leverage the wisdom of the crowds
  • Use networks and communities to target the conversation
  • Easily capture intellectual capital and avoid re-inventing the wheel
  • And most of all: It's Easy. Low Impact. High Value!
Towards the end of the presentation, Richardson re-emphasizes that it's not easy and the change won't happen overnight. However, the benefits are definitely worth it!
Here's the presentation:

Updated on 24/Oct/2011: Here's the recording:

What do you think? Are you ready to embrace social software in your organization?
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