Or rather it has simply atrophied but ironically due to over- rather than under-use. So sad to see folks still trying to make email do what they need it to do within so many corporations when facebook, twitter, blogs and a host of other media do a much better job of getting the message out and getting decisions made. The kids know and some smarter adults like Don Tapscott of ngenera know too. Unfortunately human face-to-face communication and the art of true meaningful conversation might be on its deathbed too.
THINK. What is the purpose of the emails you send? The underlying purpose?
- To communicate widely and poorly usually,
- to send attachments
- to create a record to refer back to,
- to let folks know what is going on or
- to ask what's going on
What else?
We have the newer, better, more timely, more direct, more useful technologies now that let us do all of the above in a much more human way...not stilted by structure...freedom to publish whatever and whenever you want and let the world filter it via profiles, filters, rss, tags and all the other meta-information out there,
THE FUTURE: Sending out ripples of what you specifically need and having that coming back to you in waves. Some would say that's here (I hear y'all, geeks! ;) but not in the true informational sense.
THE FUTURE + Not sending out anything but having a system match you with what you need based on what you do and deliver that to you.
THE FUTURE ++ Sending simple commands that live in an online OS that generate the systems that you will need in the future based on what EVERYBODY is doing...a twitter command line ;)
