Engaged Learning

Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Eliminating Email? Not Quite, but I am Going to Try

Sep 2, 2008 Enterprise 2.0, Social Learning SIG, blogging

Inspired by Luis Suarez and his “Giving up on email” quest, and the fact that I feel the need to more fully walk the talk, I am doing my part to eliminate the Outlook electrons.

Emails for this practise will only be counted from internal sources - I won’t be counting junk mail, vendor mail or outside non-work email that comes through my normal email (not that I would have any ) But if they come from another employee I will count them. Those that I send will be counted as well.

Here is the break down (I always want to start beat boxing when I say “break down” for some reason).

I have never analyzed my emails before, but am happy to see that I receive less than I create. You will notice that last week is not counted. That is because I was experimenting to see if this would really work. And I think it will! Time will tell, but I am optimistic.

The first thing I did this morning was create a blog post and let everyone know what I am doing, and why. One thing I have added in is that if someone want’s to get my attention with a particular discussion or wiki document, they should add my username to the tags. My RSS feeds now pick up anything tagged with my username.

Below is a snippet of my post:

PROS:

I don’t need to keep getting bombarded with emails every time someone replies. I can, if I want, see the culmination after a few people have chimed in. This cuts down on my viewing time and gives me back time I need.

My days (and the tasks I do during the day) are not driven by my email. Rather, I spend longer times on one task and finish it, rather than being interrupted by many different tasks.

I might be asking the wrong person a question and the right person (or someone who knows the answer) might see the information and give us the correct answer.

I go to one place for all the information on the subject, not 10 different emails.

Discussions / documents focus on one topic. Emails can branch out into other topics not related to the original. With all the emails, one can get lost and not quite find the information they are looking for later on.

I can go back and actually find the conversation I had with someone else and remember why we decided what we did or the details of it rather than losing the email and guessing.

If I ask a question, there is a good chance others have, or will have, the same question but now they will find the answer.

If it is an announcement of some type, this elicits discussion - which is a big pro.

Often what I do concerns projects. It is good to be able to go back and see what happened, when, what issues were worked through, what questions were asked, etc., for the next time.

CONS:

I have never done this before. So it will be a change of how I do work. Assuming all goes well, this will turn into a pro.

Those discussions will be out there. One may argue that it may ‘clog’ up GTSX (the name of our internal environment) with extra information that is not needed. But, again, if I have a question, someone, sometime will have the same question. So, again, it turns into a pro.

Now - why? We can learn and share information more easily this way. Natually, much of my offline communication has already gone this way. In fact, I was commenting to my wife last night that I spend more time on my iPhone than I do our home computer. A refreshing change!

Here is a SlideShare presentation on eliminating email.

E2point04ip

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: enterprise2.0 no-email)

Tags: Email, iPhone, Luis Suarez, Outlook, RSS, SlideShare

A Reflection of Transitions

Aug 21, 2008 Social Learning SIG, collaboration

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday was my first official day (this year) back in the school world. We were asked to introduce ourselves. I mentioned that I was first hired on as a Training Manager.

A lot has happened in this time. My focus has changed dramatically. My day-to-day concerns are now centered around implementing, maintaining and strategizing around social learning / network / media initiatives with a side plate of formal training. I am about to give a training this morning on how to hold difficult conversations, but these type of occurrences (where I do the actual training) don’t happen nearly as often. My team does most of the training. We still have customer-facing training that we create and deliver. There is always the development and delivery of internal training. Yet my strategy is less on the formal and more on the informal.

With all the talk of social learning, web2.0 and informal communication and learning, we cannot neglect the personal touch as well. Social learning does not only mean Web2.0, but it means any learning that has a number of characteristics (which I will be blogging about next).

A couple days ago I spoke to Christine Martell who mentioned an instance (and I don’t exactly remember what it was about) where she was frustrated by a particular interaction she was having because everything was in short bursts and nothing was getting done. What she needed was a sit down conversation to learn and communicate and plan. That may not be totally correct, but my mind took me to this thought: We can’t be so caught up in the new social learning / network / media that we neglect or minimize those in front of us and the personal relationships we need to make and nurture. Too often I see others who’s noses are constantly burried in their iPhones or eyes are fixed on the screen when the most important ‘friends’ and relationships are all around them. We ought not ignore those that are right in front of us.

Instead, there needs to be a balance. When anything new is introduced we tend to do a balance check and teeter totter back and forth until we find our personal equilibrium. Mine is not the same as yours is not the same as Joes is not the same as… But we all know when we are personally out of whack.

But when we check ourselves and we achieve the correct balance with the new (insert whatever it is here), what a wonderful thing that is! Our world is that much more open and full.

Oh, the changes in life, the challenges and opportunities - aren’t they wonderful?!