Fred Stutzman is one of the best technology orators I know of. His ability to distill cutting-edge concepts into laymen’s terms has always been impressive and not surprisingly Fred’s done it again: suggesting we consider Twitter updates to be equivalent to reading subject-only emails.

How does this become relevant in the context of work?

“The enterprise Twitter gives rise to a new channel of communications that offloads  from the inbox…the enterprise Twitter might just be the electronic, distributed water cooler of lore”

The workstream as we initially envisioned it plays this very role: a high-level flow of events, activities and important communications populating in real-time. This means a worker can have ‘awareness’ without the need for distracting deep-dives. As you see things that truly require your attention you dive-in or out as the situation demands.

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Tags: fred stutzman, twitter, twitter subject only emails, workstream

Michael Arrington wrote up a nice post on gmail’s outage yesterday so I won’t summarize that again, but I loved his play on the twitter whale that we all know so well. I just wanted to pass it on. Enjoy!

Tags: Gmail, google, Michael Arrington, twitter

As everyone already knows, Twitter acquired Summize.

What does it mean about for Twitter?

First and foremost, this makes Summize gives life to the data inherent in Twitter. We now have a faster and more efficient way to find people, objects and anything in between which we may want to track in Twitter. Thus Twitter is now a legitimate business intelligence tool with Summize acting as a stepping-stone to a demographic of early technology adopters and likely higher-income individuals. Cool.

Second, Summize serves the purpose of helping connect and establish new relationships. Here is a concerete example: let’s say you needed to hire a logo designer. Before, you would create a status update stating “looking to hire a designer” and hope that the people following you would help connect you to someone looking for work. Now, with much improved search we could actually locate someone out of our network, allowing users to be even more proactive and ultimately driving more viral growth as the number of connections grows. In some ways, Twitter suggests that there could be a marketplace or ecosystem more akin to Craigslist.

Summize is a great addition and we can’t wait to see how exposing more data and relationships drives Twitter adoption and usage. Also check out this great interview between Michael Arrington and Evan Williams.

Tags: Acquitisions, Beta Works, Enterprise 2.0, Evan Williams, social media, Summize, twitter, web 2.0

I saw this on the Go Big Always Blog and had to pass it on. Enjoy!

Tags: Apple, blogs, go big always, Microsoft, social media, social media survey, social software, social tools, twitter, web 2.0

In an article from the Big Idea Blog about how email is going out of fashion, it’s argued that in a rapidly changing business environment (where terse communication is frequently necessary) becoming unnecessary.

Is that really true?

The article claims that Twitter and Basecamp are replacing email for most tasks, and in my opinion, they probably are. Even though twitter tends to crash at least several times per day, people keep using it and it grows every day. Also the company is completely revamping itself with its new funds. It has a significant social aspect and for a person who has at least 200 people following them and who also follows 200 people, they have all kinds of worthless tweets mixed in with work. Although it’s an effective medium for communication, I don’t think it’s perfect in the workplace.

Basecamp is a much better alternative. First off, it is designed specifically for work and allows users to collaborate through its software. Secondly, it eliminates the social aspects of twitter and really allows users to concentrate on work and easily access desired documents.

If this trend continues then the world needs a piece of collaborative software that is easy to use and eliminates the need for email while combining the high points of a twitter and camp. After working on Workstreamer, I think it’s got the potential to do that and more.

Tags: Basecamp, collaborative software, email, Enterprise 2.0, twitter, web 2.0

From ReadWriteWeb:

Human history is one of progressive improvement in communication. From the 20th century mail was a fundamental form of communication. The invention of electronic mail (email) changed two things. It became cheap to send short mail, and delivery was instant. Email became favored for both corporate and personal communication.

But email faces increasing competition. Chat, text messages, Twitter, social networks and even lifestreaming tools are chipping away at email usage.

….Email has been the blockbuster and the Internet killer app for the past few decades, but it doesn’t have a monopoly. New more contextual ways to communicate are emerging and slicing pieces of the email pie, particularly in the consumer market.

We’re likely to see a consumer shift from email towards more compact forms of communication, but in the enterprise the email hold is strong and unlikely to be replaced any time soon.

I disagree with RWW’s analysis here. Any change that is as fundamental as the communications shift we currently see in the consumer sector will relatively soon percolate into the ‘enterprise’ setting. This is especially so because we are seeing a rise in entrepreneurial and contract based work. The enterprise setting itself is changing. Workers among these newer, more progressive types of companies — who we call modern web professionals — seek social, cheap and intelligent communications without the restrictions of middle management and corporate red tape.

I believe that a shift away from email will begin as soon as we see products that can demonstrate a true ROI based on their use and I think that time is nearly upon us.

Other Responses to This Discussion:

Broadstuff

Mark Evans

Alexander van Elsas

Zoli Erdos

Tags: chat, email, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise communications, readwriteweb, rww, social email, social workflow, twitter, workstreamer

Atlassian’s Confluence, an enterprise wiki, now supports Twitter: Meet Twikkir.

This is likely the first of many adaptations we’ll see where current “enterprise 2.0″ software get spiked with a dash of streaming. While it’s a good thought to try and bring a flow application together with a wiki, I’m not sure that the people using a behind-the-firewall enterprise grade wiki are likely to be the same folks who a) want or b) will use Twitter in a work context. Nevertheless, it’s a strong sign that enterprise 2.0 companies are aware that flow applications are going to be making waves in the near future.

Tags: atlassian, atlassian confluence, jira, Twikkir, twitter

Sam has written a post on his blog discussing the dumbness of email…

Email is dumb in the sense that the content of a particular message is subject to the interpretation of the person receiving it. While you know things such as a) who sent the email b) the date and time it was sent, really the crux of the message is not necessarily clear. People are notoriously poor communicators and in today’s multi tasking environment, particularly poor readers.

While the dumbness of email doesn’t matter much when email is being used for social communications, the lack of ‘intelligence’ in email really starts to matter when we’re talking about work. Deadlines. Action items. All critical to the success of a project – and our careers.

How many times have you emailed someone only to learn a week later that they ‘overlooked’ something you had asked them to do? How many times have you searched in vain, even with advanced systems like Gmail, to figure out what was assigned to you? Or how about when an email chain contains multiple changes to a deliverable’s due dates? Who changed the date and why again?

Email is not intelligent in that it lacks the ability to recognize and translate grouped text into action items. Microsoft Outlook, or iCal offer a slightly more intelligent approach. [For the full-post click here]

For other great thoughts on the failures of email check out this post by Tantek Celik:

The usability of email for me has deteriorated so much that I exclaimed on Twitter recently: EMAIL shall henceforth be known as EFAIL

Tags: design, email, email dumb, ical, tumblr, twitter, workstreamr design

Quoted from Keith Peters

The way I see Twitter is kind of like setting up a virtual shared office space where you and all your friends are going to work, hang out, etc. It’s kind of like background noise. You notice these trivial things people are doing just like you notice Jim from accounting brought back Indian food for lunch.

I see that Mike Chambers is off to have lunch with Lynda Weinman, Peter Elst got his email fixed, Danny Dura is going to the Game Developers Conference nest week, Eric Dolecki is listening to Iron Maiden while Ryan Stewart is pining for country music (ok, so my Twitter connections have questionable musical tastes :)).

For the original post, click here

Tags: attention, keith peters, office space, twitter, virtual

via Adam Carson

Tags: adam carson, flickr, questions, stowe boyd, twitter, workstreamr