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Microblogging vs Corporate E-Mail: The Smackdown That Wasn't

March 14, 2009 10:58 by author

I have a pet peeve. I hate people who make graphs with no numbers behind them. Graphs such as this...

So I walked into Hutch Carpenter's article entitled "Microblogging will Marginalize Corporate Email"' with a bias. Even so, I think his point is...well...silly. Here's why...

Software in all it's forms represents a solution to a problem. Even games are a solution to lack of entertainment. All software solves a problem.

So when you talk about one type of software replacing another type of software you have to ask yourself "What problem did the software being replaced solve?" To answer that I made up a quick list of the "types of e-mail" I've gotten/sent in the past week. They are...

Stupid/Funny Jokes/Pics: These simply don't fit in 140 characters. (see 140 character disclaimer below)

Move Around Files: This might work with Microblogging but usually these files are accompanied by a "this is what I changed" message that wouldn't fit in 140 characters. The obvious addendum here is that there are better technologies to do this with.

CYA: I hate to admit it but these are the types of e-mails I send the most. Basically this is the e-mail where you very specifically spell out something so if the person receiving the e-mail later claims they weren't told about it you can point back to that e-mail and say "yes you were!". Because of the needed specificity of these of e-mails they have to be longer than 140 characters.

Announcements: These are the only one's that would probably be better served by microblogging but that's in my opinion. Most people like to dress their announcements up. Back grounds, clip art, etc... Every one of the announcements I got in the last week had some form of "style" applied to it.

Interpersonal Communication: This could be solved by private messages in a microblogging form. But the question is "Why?" Everyone already has e-mail and it can take as many characters as you want.

*** 140 Character Disclaimer: Some microblogging providers offer solutions with unlimited characters but if you use that you aren't MICROblogging anymore ***

So as you can see Microblogging provides a solution that wouldn't handle any of the e-mail I've received in the last week. Which begs the question: What are the advantages of Microblogging then?

Mr. Hutch's article lists these advantages for Yammer (one microblogging provider)...

Behind the firewall installation
Public notes
@replies
DMs
Groups
Private groups
File attachments
Favorites (a form of bookmarking)
Tagging
Conversation threading
Unlimited character length (i.e. not limited to 140 characters)
Search

Now in the above list, what is there that E-Mail can't do? Because people will still need e-mail to communicate with other companies. So in suggesting corporate microblogging you are (a) asking IT departments to implement and run a whole new server while (b) asking users to monitor yet another inbox (of sorts). If you're asking all that you better have a significant advantage to offer.

Call me crazy but I just don't see that in the above list.

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March 14. 2009 08:07

Tom - thanks for considering my blog post. I guess you don't like the Pac Man graphic, eh? It's an infographic that shows the amount of communication grows larger with microblogging, with most of it occurring via microblogging. I really can't give hard numbers (e.g. "employee digital communications will increase 300%, with microblogging taking 80% share of that"). It's more directional.

As you note in your post, a provider like Yammer lets you go well beyond 140 characters. So many of the microblogging limitations you foresee don't apply there.

But a good question to ask is...why microblogging? Why not just stick with email?

As twitter has shown, there's value in the posting of notes about what you're observing, reading, thinking. I like to think of it as messaging without guilt. Email, IM have a certain social expectation, microblogging doesn't. I like the way Alan Lepofsky put it: "Email is 'reply hoped for'. Instant messaging is 'reply expected'. Social messaging/microblogging is 'reply optional' (http://bit.ly/dm03).

The principle here is that people are so much more than the jokes they email, the requests they send to one another. There's a whole lot of smarts people have that do not have a channel. And organizations are the poorer for not providing a way for employees to contribute these things they know and dream up.

Once this notion of commenting without guilt takes hold, a lot of what employees express becomes conversational material. And where will that happen? Likely within the microblogging app, not email.

Of course, the year when this really takes hold is TBD. Maybe 2013?

Hutch Carpenter

March 14. 2009 17:18

Hi Hutch, thanks for dropping by.

As a response I'm going to quote a post I made a while back (see here: www.tomstechblog.com/.../...s-Profit-Options.aspx)

***Begin Quote***
This has been the holy grail of Twitter lovers for a while now. The idea that Twitter will set the Enterprise world on fire and rake in the profits. An “Enterprise Based Twitter Clone” even won the Techcrunch50 conference this year.

But the truth is…it isn’t going to happen.

There was a time when corporations were looking for new communication technology but that time passed when Intranets became common place. Now IT managers are looking for ways to cut down on the noise because there’s so much information out there to consume (which is starting to seriously eat into productivity time). For all Twitter’s good traits even their most strident supporters admit it generates a lot of noise.

Also remember that most people aren’t as open about what they’re doing when it comes to their job. In other words, John in Accounting wouldn’t want to Tweet “Starting Monthly Numbers Now” because he might decide to spend 40 minutes in the copy room chatting with Sally. So he wouldn’t want to give a documented time as to when he began his actual work for fear of questions as to why he isn’t done yet. No one wants to be micromanaged and that’s exactly what an Enterprise Twitter would lead to.

***End Quote***

To elaborate a little, I'm not saying there aren't things that can be learned from microblogging. In my "day job" we're exploring ways of syndicating events into short messages (e.g. someone files their expense report and if you are subscribed to the expense report feed you are notified with a short message).

But for the rest of what Microblogging does I have to go back to my post's premise. No one wants another server, another inbox, etc... To get corporations to buy into that you'd have to be able to present some real world evidence that supports increased productivity and I don't see that.

In fact, I think if the average CEO looked at Twitter as an example I think he'd be terrified at letting such a time waster behind his firewall.

Tom

March 17. 2009 23:54

I appreciated the pacman graphic, Hutch :p

Although I think it's a bit of a stretch to claim that microblogging will replace e-mail outright (as you put it, microblogging is merely opt-in email) I can see it augmenting email as a form of communication. It's more like stream of consciousness than correspondence so there is a bit of a difference in messages carried by the two mediums and I think the privacy / length / interruption capacity of each medium prevents them from being able to conduct both types of communication successfully.

Aaronontheweb

March 19. 2009 16:19

I think the issue for me still comes down to the type of communication. Stream of consciousness is fine when you are talking to your friends but when you're dealing with your co-workers it can get dicey. Add that to the cost of maintaining yet another communication system and I just don't see it happening.

I guess we'll see in the years to come but I just don't see the cost
benefit.

btw @aaron - I liked your most recent post. I realize you go more for the "marketing education" type posts lately but it's nice to see you put out a personal one every once in a while

Tom

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About Me

Hi, I’m Tom and I run the IT department for a non-profit agency which provides treatment to special-needs children. Though I will (like any blogger) comment on technology in general my main goal is to detail how I’m trying to use technology to help treat the children we serve and its my hope that blogging will allow me to connect with people who can help in that goal.

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