The scariest button on your computer is "reply all."
We've all got the scar tissue to prove it. Tell me you don't hesitate before you click that button. The repercussions for you on either end of "reply all" are not pretty.
Problem is, we've outgrown email and now use it for way more the simple 1x1 messaging system it was meant for. We desperately need space to collaborate, not just message each other. Because there's no space, we end up ccing a bajillion people and then having endless threaded conversations. Most of these conversations consist of responses like, "no problem" or "thanks."
Email is convenient for recaps, updates or communicating with people outside of work, but it's horrible for quick and effective collaborating. There are a lot of reasons email isn't good for collaborating but let's pick one (you can add the others).
The one that I always think about is a story my college psychology teacher told. She said that when someone is laying on the ground in a small town and someone walks by they immediately stop to help them. In New York, however, everyone walks right over someone on the ground because they think that someone else will help.
The same thing happens with email. Someone else who received the email will help, won't they? Anyway, the last thing you want to do is to reply all.
In an open space, like Clearspace, no one is addressed as the recipient of a question or document. So, while even more people can access the information than anyone you would have added to an email, people don't feel as scared and are more likely to participate. They could be the only person walking by, right?
Comments
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Dave Slimmon
Jun 13, 2007 at 4:37:37 AM
The story about New Yorkers stepping over somebody lying on the street is a good analogy, Sam. Where corporate (internal-only) blogging can run into trouble, however, is in the realm of task assignment and task management. While blogs are terrific for sharing thoughts, formulating opinions and building consensus, they do not necessarily address the problem that some people use email to assign or divide work. After all, task assignments are not often democratic or collaborative! So for me, the killer app for corporate blogging might become a method that allows the author to compose his blog entry, highlight a chunk of text related to a task assignment or unit of work, select a user (from Clearspace, natch), and publish the blog. To all the readers of the blog entry, the blog will appear as it would normally. But for the user with the task assignment, they'll have a new private message in Clearspace and an email notification. Lucky them!
David Noble
Jun 13, 2007 at 5:31:34 AM
Hi Sam,
Ok, I'll say it... I don't hesitate before I click the "Reply All" button. The problem of addressing someone in particular when sending to a list is easily resolved with "Hi Addressee," in the first line. Or "Bob, can you tell me..." in the message body.
Take a look at how the open source development community (Apache, Linux, etc) has used mailing lists successfully. Group chat is a great way to communicate when everyone is online and available simultaneously, and document-based collaboration (wiki, forums) is great for creating artifacts. But nothing beats email for asynchronous conversations.
If you're looking for pet peeves on email, here's one... People who always append the entire contents of the thread to their response. What ever happened to embedding selective quotes into the message body?
- Dave