Social tools help improve business communications, increase collaboration and nurture innovation, but what do you do if people won't use them? And how do you grow from a pilot to company-wide use?
The Email Problem and How To Solve It
3 Sept 08
Email is becoming a problem, with people sending and receiving hundreds each day. 'No Email Days' don't help, nor do inbox size limits. So just how do you reduce email and improve people's relationship with their inbox?
Suw Charman-Anderson is a social software consultant and writer who specialises in the use of blogs and wikis behind the firewall. With a background in journalism, publishing and web design, Suw is now one of the UK's best known bloggers, frequently speaking at conferences and seminars.
She recently launched Kits and Mortar, a blog about planning a green, cat-friendly self-built home. Her personal blog is Chocolate and Vodka, and yes, she's married to Kevin.
Kevin Anderson has been an online journalist since 1996, designing, editing and writing websites for both broadcast and print media. In 1998, he joined the BBC and became their first online journalist based outside of the UK, covering the US for its award winning news website. After coming to the UK in 2005, he developed a blogging strategy for BBC news, helped launch a programme on the BBC's 5Live covering weblogs and podcasts and was on the team that launched the interactive radio programme World Have Your Say on the BBC World Service.
Kevin is now the Blogs Editor for The Guardian, where he is responsible for management, strategy and 'leading by doing' for Guardian Unlimited blogs.
Last week I gave a tech talk at Google about social software within business, the difficulties we face when introducing it to people, and tactics for fostering adoption. I spoke for about 25 minutes, and then we had a lively Q&A for half an hour. I will admit that I was quite nervous about it - I mean, there are lots of very smart people at Google, and I wasn't sure if what I was saying was just teaching grannie to suck eggs. I think about 20 - 30 people turned up, and most of them seemed to enjoy it, so I can only hope it was interesting and useful for them.
Google videoed it and had it up online in no time at all, so here it is:
If you don't want to watch it all, then Steph Booth took written notes to go with it.
Thanks very much to Kevin Marks for organising it for me.
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