We conduct email usage surveys for companies and find that the majority of managers say that they receive a majority of email that doesn't apply to them and wish they could filter it out before it hits the inbox. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what internal mail is important and what isn't until you open it. Despite its shortcomings, though, it remains a critical tool.

I think you'll find Yammer worth your time. It's a fairly easy concept to grasp and allows for quick snippets of info to be exchanged fairly rapidly (like Twitter). Another you might look into for far-flung team members is instant messaging. Having your whole team available practically instantly on your desktop is a great help when coordinating communication activities. Our firm relies on instant messaging more than we do email and it's a critical business tool for us. Yahoo, Google and AOL offer some good solutions that are easy to implement, usually without involving your IT department.

Thanks for your thoughts, Barb. Your experience is very helpful!

We're part of a much larger organization, and a couple of us who are on Twitter have talked about using that, or maybe Yammer, to connect everyone who's so spread out.

No matter what tool or platform we choose, there will be a learning hurdle that some of them have to get over if they're not already in that space.

To state the obvious: I'll continue to use email in addition to whatever I land on. Email is a common tool that I mention because it is a means of carrying on a conversation. I think we're so excited about the new shiny objects we often leave it off the list, and doing a better job of using email for internal communications would be a vast improvement in many workplaces and committees.

@SuzeMuse wrote a blog post on managing email recently that may be of interest: http://suzemuse.netfirms.com/2009/01/13/what-away...

@BarbChamberlain

TLR

For some reason, Britain has fallen behind in the business innovation model – strange, given her history in leading the way for new discoveries and inventions. Yet when a survey says that more than 70% of UK PR companies don't have any kind of online strategy, and Government 2.0 seems a pipe dream, should we really be surprised?

Maybe UK businesses and corporations should look at how the individual is embracing the new models – they could learn a lot.

I guess when more companies believe there is value in the conversation, not just in the tool, you'll see more internal adoption. Sadly, most companies don't care what their employees have to say or what they think as long as the widgets are produced on time. That's ignoring the strongest growth engine the firm has, its employees. And it's doing so at great peril, especially in highly competitive, global markets where most firms operate these days.

Whilst your post specifically addresses internal communications, it is also directly applicable to communications which the organisation has with external stakeholders. Essentially, I think that the problem falls upon organisational mentality. At the moment, I don't think that genuine customer satisfaction is at the foremost of organisational thinking; or at least not to the extent that it should be. If it were, then greater attention would be placed upon addressing the customer's needs in whichever forum which these customers deem necessary.

At present, even those firms which do employ some social media strategies tend to follow a platform checklist (blog, Twitter, etc). Indeed, they seem to lack the foresight to adopt emerging platforms before they become mainstream.

TLR

Once the Legal and HR departments get more comfortable with lots more conversation going on than they can control or would want to, you'll see the wheel turn a bit more quickly.

But you're right: you can almost hear it turning now it's so slow. It's sorta like watching paint dry sometimes.