PUB_ASK erosion of collaboration_20121003GL

Email and the erosion of collaboration Wednesday, October 3, 2012

11:45 AM

EMail and the erosion of collaboration

Edit

by Greg Lush on 7/11/2012 8:56 AM Category: Collaboration ​For many years, with legacy TLG, we proved that if a slight amount of inconvenience was applied that folks would get the taste of collaboration. We also discovered that when most got a taste, they learn that collaborative tools are efficient. That starts the process of decreasing their use of email as a collaborative vehicle.

Some might say that we "stacked the deck" a bit, and they would be correct. We deliberately put in mechanisms to encourage and in many cases compel the sharing of information outside of email. Most of you know my disdain for email as an intellectual property based tool. EMail is great for pulling users back to collaborative environments which contain and properly manage our knowledge.

It strikes me as a bit old fashioned that we are even having this conversation, come on, what gives? How many of your teenagers actually use email? Most are collaborating between one another with direct messaging or in semi-public discussion threads. Unfortunately we are at a bit of a cross roads, ABMIT policy states that users may have as large of an email box as they desire. As a result, we have seen our collaboration methods erode since the acquisition.

So, what now? What are you doing to turn away the erosion of our collaborative environment and encourage folks to NOT use EMAIL for anything except basic messaging? We desperately need your help so your ABMLQ folks can continue to weave our social fabric of inherent collaboration. Thoughts welcome!

-----6 Comment(s)

Comments Simple and pure of Purpose

Edit

In my experience people actually want to use collaborative tools. The key is to have a deliberate plan and design in place which is very clear on the purpose. Think about the success of Facebook, Instagram, etc. These are all VERY simple forums which compel collaboration.

The new ABMLQ design leveraging Facebook, Issuu and then bridging to SharePoint is what we believe to be the correct approach, time will tell.

Greg Lush on 7/11/2012 9:16 AM Erosion is prevented with good foundation but....

Edit

Just like with mother nature, deforestation produces soil erosion which leads to flooding and other catastrophes. A good foundation put in place or allowed to fluorish always breeds better results. In the case of collaboration, however, I think if users who are new to the FSG culture are not aware of what collaboration truly means, it's too easy to revert to old habits. I would venture to say that to some, sending an email to one or more people qualifies as collaboration. Having an email quota limitation would be nice but Greg's post is right - we should do the right thing regardless. We just need to let everyone what the right thing is (more to come on this via our Solution Awareness initiative).

As we've done before, if the systems don't help us compel the outcomes we need in order to collaborate, then we need to incorporate the collaborative tools into our processes and keep to the policies that require their use. A good/simple example is the use of the System Access Request Forms. In the legacy ABME world, such requests would've been emailed to the Location Requestor. At FSG, we use a SharePoint Portal to process such requests - does it seem redundant? maybe. But it allows us to have visibility to the requests and the processes that they affect (educational, quailty, etc.) because they are not important to only one person (in this case, the Hiring Manager, HR or the Location Requestor). So when someone bypasses the System Access Request form, it affects other processes that they may not be aware of and collaboration is eroded.

Email is not totally without its merits or uses but in FSG's world, it should be a bridge between the consumer of information and where the information resides (SharePoint, etc). In most cases, the bridge isn't even necessary.

Melissa Cipriani on 7/11/2012 11:01 AM Cloud Based Environment

Edit

Years ago the thought of putting documents into a collaborative environment was creative. Today my children store their homework documents up in the "cloud." Together they share their assignments with their teacher and vice-versa through the collaborative environment of "GoogleDocs."

We were light years ahead of everyone, in most cases - even ahead of "Apple." All you need to convince people to utilize the collaborative environment is to remind them to use the portal.

Years ago we used to create video files and burn them onto CDs but today we house a huge learning environment that is available to all employees, 24 hours a day from any computer using "M Tube."

Collaboration is "KING" and people constantly need a reminder to quit passing along documents/files through email and stick to the portal. It works, it's simple and it's efficient! Work Smart!

William Krol on 7/12/2012 10:00 AM Change is always difficult

Edit

In my opinion, the reason why so many people rely so heavily on email is because it is such an imbedded part of our daily routine. It is hard for people to explore the possibility of using new collaboration tools. Most people are just closed minded to embracing the two biggest tools we have. Between SharePoint and SFDC, we should be seeing a tremendous decrease in email generation and an increase in effective collaboration. However, as with any type of change in routine, most people just continually fall back to using what they are "comfortable" with even though it is not as effective as the new collaboration technology that is available to them.

Notes Page 1

The biggest danger we face with electronic communication lies with our customers. So many people rely on email as a way to protect themselves. They have the understanding that if an email trail exists, and a problem arises, the customer can be held accountable and not us. The flaw in this thinking is that when problem arises, even if the client is at fault for not responding to a prior email, there is still a negative impact on the relationship with the client. Assigning blame to the customer is never an option. We are in the relationship business and pointing out a customer’s lack of follow through will only damage any relationship with that client you may have ever had. So even though you think you are covering your tracks, in all reality it still will not save you from the inevitable problems when disaster strikes.

As a society we have gotten so far away from personal interaction that the art of relationship building is becoming less and less the focus on our customer acquisition and retention. It is not uncommon for anyone to spend 20 minutes or more typing an email with critical details and/or questions for our customer and then complain about not getting a reply for days, or at all. Ironically, a simple 5 minute phone call would continue to build the relationship and also show personal attention to the client in a way that email has no capability of achieving. Do I really need to go into the fact that an email cannot contain any tone, inflection or urgency? Even worse, an email will be cast into your client’s inbox pool of despair. You are now no different than any other competitor or spam blast that is vying for their attention and business. If we all ignore our inboxes due to the large amount of junk that are in them, why would you expect your email to gain the attention of your customers? How does that help you “build” a long term relationship with a client and establish personal trust with them?

I am not saying that email does not have a place, it does. However, it needs to be minimized and used for simple communication. As far as customers go, telephone and face to face interaction is what will separate us from every other competitor in the world. Collaboration tools our company has at its disposal such as SharePoint and SFDC need to be embraced and trained thoroughly so that everyone can implement those tools into their daily routines. If ABM employees knew the true capabilities of SharePoint and SFDC and used them on a daily basis, the effectiveness and efficiency of daily operations would reach new levels of success. The only thing stopping that from happening is people’s unwillingness to accept and implement change.

So this is as simple as I can make it: “Pick up the phone and talk to your customers” and “Embrace the collaboration tools that can make you more effective and efficient”.

How can we sell efficiency if we are not acting efficiently? Embrace the tools and see the difference.

Loren Smith on 7/12/2012 10:04 AM Great feedback

Edit

William - you're on point with the Cloud (future) and our use of the Portal (today)...thanks for the feedback.

Loren - as always, so nice to hear the sales' perspective on things.

Thanks EASI supporters!!

Melissa Cipriani on 7/12/2012 10:39 AM Agree with all

Edit

William - your point reminds me of the age of floppy discs and flash drives! Remember when our workspace was consumed with containers for storage? It's such a relief that we're now able to focus on maintaining the destination for our information rather than maintaining the vehicle.

Loren - your example also speaks to appropriate investment of value (time). If we're spending more time focusing on drafting, sending, tracking, and forwarding emails we're effectively placing our value there and not with our customer. Our partners portal and anonymous portal environments add to our edge in the marketplace - giving out customers the freedom to use the same tools for collaboration that we use "behind the scenes" when delivering top-notch service!

Janeen Hodge-Jackson on 7/12/2012 11:43 AM

From <https://portalexternal.thelincgroup.com/insight/ask/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=e4f4fcd9%2D8189%2D40f1%2Db5bf%2D08eca8014d7d&ID=102&Source=https% 3A%2F%2Fportalexternal%2Ethelincgroup%2Ecom%2Finsight%2Fask%2FLists%2FPosts%2FAllPosts%2Easpx&Web=57ff45b3%2D4838%2D4057%2D98d9% 2Dc8f6a8adec86>

Notes Page 2