Inside ASI-AP

I haven't touched on trying to reduce our email and IM clutter recently but just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I am going to be putting more effort into this year than ever before!

Why?

We have so much knowledge in our email – questions, answers, tips, tricks, who’s doing what, etc etc – but it is all private! For example - I can send an email to Colin on clarifying some pricing policies that may be of use to everyone in the sales and consulting teams, yet no-one but Colin gets to see it. That is a big problem because it is a missed opportunity to not just share useful information, but also to get feedback or clarification.

The beauty of blogs (and wikis for that matter) is that you can choose how to read them. Want to get an email still – no problem, subscribe to the blog. Use a reader – no problem either, point your reader at the blog. Your choice. But now the blog is available to everyone, anytime – and it is searchable. No-one had to remember to include you on the email. And you know what else – a partner or customer may read the blog post and either it could help them, or they could help us.

Is it just me saying this? Here is something from Boeing on their internal use of blogs:

Email is over-used and devalued as a means of passing on information internally. "The behaviour of cc in emails is almost pathological. It says that 'this is important enough for me to interrupt you but not to actually write to you about'. Everything that I'm ever cc'd on I'd rather have in a blog, because that way the value of the information increases over time.”

Jay is with me on this and we have been bouncing around some ideas on how to make blogging to an internal knowledgebase as easy as sending an email.

Stay tuned!!