On E-Mail ...

I quite agree with Luis when he says that email is probably not the best way to communicate. In fact, looking at the way email has come into the business ecosystem, it basically replaces the inter-office memos that used to circulate in offices. Email brought those online, and made them instant, so an electronic "inter-office memo" could be sent instantly to someone, without having it being sent by hand, and reaching the other person after hours, if not days, depending on whether he was based in the other building across town, or across the globe.

Thing is, with the advent of email, and its widespread adoption, the mindset of people has not changed much. While e-commerce technologies were changing the way things were being done, the fact is, people still have the mindset of inter-office memos. So, what is wrong with it, is the question that comes up. Something is ... The way the world is changing, and the way the world of business, and the nature of work is evolving, this inter-office mindset may not be the best possible tool for building a business for tomorrow, when the participants in the business are going to be far more distributed (if not fragmented), with work going more and more to places and people who can do it much better than where it is being done now.

However, i was reading a post by Dave Pollard ... interesting reading! He makes a compelling case for more open-ness in business interactions. The new paradigm of openness in the organization could change the way things are being done ... though, i would guess this is going to take a long time. No matter, as long as the world of business is on the path, we will get there sometime. Having said that, i am not sure whether there would be any such thing as "nothing in the inbox", because it would, in all probability, be "lots in your feed reader"!

A lot has been written about this, too ... about the feed reader replacing the inbox ... but, thats not so much the issue, considering that this would be symptomatic of increasing open-ness in interactions, and generation of content far more dynamic, and up-to-date. After all, people are usually more up-to-date than platforms.