This post centers on a conversation happening in TheTransitioner around the question on how to change email (ab) use into a healthy relationship while enhancing right relationships and collaboration. Our intention is to synthesize what others are doing, adapt it to our own context, take actions and document our process. This piece may become an essential one for those in interested in skills and capacities for Global Collective Intelligence and Global wisdom-driven organizations.

This notes are a synthesis and mix of the work of Luis Suarez, Chris Brogan, Dave Pollard and my own contributions to contextualize beyond the corporate world. http://www.elsua.net/

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What should email be for?
A communication tool for one on one conversations of a sensitive, private or confidential nature.

Email: Communication or collaboration tool
There are distinctions among communication and collaboration. As a communication tool e-mail can be a good thing; however, as a collaboration tool it lacks some of the most significant elements from any kind of collaboration: openness, transparency, taking responsibility & ownership, co-authorship, co-llaborate.

General Process:

• Analyze the segments and kind of interactions you have. Which are communication, which are collaboration? Are they fellow workers, customers, partners, friends? What levelkind of communicationnew relationships do you want with new relationships? Whatexpect?What kindlevel of new relationshipscommunication do you expect?want with new relationships? Which is the hierarchy level?
  
• Decide which social software tools are available for the kind of interaction (communication, collaboration) your are looking for and elaborate a list and practice.
  
• Write an email to your database to share what kind of communication you expect through each channel and how to collaborate with you and/or your organization. Bring clarity and write which channels you will use for what purpose. Remember the distinction in between communication and collaboration.
  
• Encourage people to stop using e-mail themselves and to start using some of these same social software tools as well, to share their knowledge and collaborate with one another.Instead of responding individually to messages that arrived in your in-box, started to use more social networking tools, like instant messaging, blogs and wikis, among many others.Spend time with them to show how you would both work, collaborate and share knowledge in a completely different, but much more productive way.
• The rest should be going out there, in the open, in the public space(s), transparent and with an opportunity for everyone to contribute!
  

There will be a need for educating the people you collaborate/share knowledge with to use/learn the tools that will help enhance and enrich the already existing interactions

For collaboration:

• Share and update big files in a file sharing system that cuts down on the back-and-forth of sending big presentations and video files.
• Use R.S.S./Atom feed readers,notifications or triggers as primary method of receiving notifications of content relevant to your work and to handle Bacn*. They give control of what you receive and when. It will help you process all of those notifications which tell you the new / updated content available out there, in the open, public spaces, for everyone to digest and process further accordingly. Whereas with e-mail, you are still the one who needs to process everything in a locked, private environment where hardly anyone else has got a say with what you would want to do with that content.
  
• Use an instant messaging tool for short communication
• Instant messaging tools can be useful for collaboration if they are part of other tools. Like voice overIP.
• Blogs, wiki, forums
  

For communication:

• Use the telephone much more and add a more personal form of interaction.
  
• Use a video conversation tool to avoid spending a lot of time in writting and avoid sync communication times. I am trying http://www.seesmic.com
  

• Email
• Twitter and/or identi.ca
• Audio replies and conversations. I am trying http://www.evoca.com
  

*Bacn (pronounced bacon) is the term given to electronic messages which have been subscribed to and are therefore not unsolicited but are often unread by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as email you want but not right now.


Check out: Memorandums to employees by Dave Pollard if you want to see a great email sent to peers for the purpose of using email more effectively.

Check out the next presentation:



And the tips that derive from this work:

stop using e-mail and re-purpose it altogether:

"The five steps are: i. ban attachments & instead link to files sitting in a more permanent location;
ii. if an email conversation involves more than 5 people then shift it elsewhere,
iii. make your tools as simple to use as possible,
iv. encourage role modeling of good behaviours by senior staff,
v. begin with a small step in the right direction rather than trying to change the world in one go." (Emphasis mine)

I told you the presentation was amazingly good, right? Well, it gets better! If not check out the five issues to consider now:

"i. security. email is insecure anyway but you need to clearly establish access guidelines for each location where documents are stored,
ii. privacy with new tools is important - e.g. staff need to understand how public their discussions will be,
iii. develop an archiving / retention policy for your documentation,
iv. do not hit staff members with too many tools, they could be overwhelmed with choice,
v. consider different IP options for ownership of content esp. if consumers are involved."