Share/Save/Bookmark

Oct 24, 2009

Is Twitter the new face of spam?

(Excerpt from article on AwarenessNetworks.com)

With Twitter being the hottest online space at the moment, marketers are trying to crack the code on getting to twitter users.

Lets face it, Twitter is broke, and in the exact same state email was at in the early days. Why not try to exploit it.

We tolerate a flow of junk because its new and cool. We can easily point to a relevant tweet to justify our obsession.

Spammers see an opportunity too and are mirroring genuine behavior. I see a number of tactics in use.

Don't be offended if you personally use these tactics for your own personal tweeting. Spammers want to look like you.

However, ask yourself if you use these tactics because you are trying to get the most out of the conversation, or are you personally trying to attract followers? You may be a spammer.

Read full article...

Oct 19, 2009

Like it or not, email is the nerve system of modern business

Compared to the phone, it is asynchronous and provides a written record to the sender and recipient for follow-up action or later reference. In this respect, it is much more useful than instant messaging or social networks.

It can be frivolous or deadly serious – it’s possible to be fired via an email, but also due to an email. Many vital decisions are made by email exchange, and the implication of our usage findings is that these may be made on the move, on tiny screens, and when otherwise off-duty.

Whether within their own office or between organizations separated by thousands of miles and many time zones, the sender will assume that all sent emails are received, and that they are read.

They will frequently expect a response within hours, let alone days. All this despite the ease of misaddressing, the hit-or-miss nature of mobile synchronization, the spam filters, the reply-to-all clutter, and the mass deletions required to stand any chance of keeping one’s inbox usable.

For many information workers, the email client is their primary business application. They spend many hours of the office day reading, responding and collaborating via emails.

The email history created by these responses and interactions is so poorly maintained, and the ability of knowledge workers to search for important content within current and past emails – their own and those of their colleagues – is so poor.

In a large organization, several millions of emails are handled each day. Most are of no lasting consequence, but each day there will be a significant number of important emails involving the organization in obligations, agreements, contracts, regulations and discussions, all of which might be of legal significance.

In this report of AIIM we discuss how these important records are being dealt with, what policies are in place, how aware staff are of the issues, and which technologies are in use.

Oct 15, 2009

Association for Information and Image Management, AIIM

AIIM is the community that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control, and optimize their information.

For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes.

AIIM is also known as the enterprise content management (ECM) association.

AIIM is international in scope, independent, and implementation-focused. As the industry's intermediary, AIIM represents the entire industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel.

As a neutral and unbiased source of information, AIIM serves the needs of its members and the industry through the following activities:

* Provides events and information services that help users specify, select, and deploy ECM solutions to solve organizational problems.

* Provides an educational roadmap for the industry.

* Creates opportunities that allow users, suppliers, consultants, and the channel to engage and connect with one another - through chapters, networking groups, programs, partnerships, and the Web.

* Acts as the voice of the ECM industry in key standards organizations, with the media, and with government decision-makers.

Resources about email managment on AIIM website.

Oct 12, 2009

Social media drives increased email use

Despite an initial hypothesis that increased time on social networks might be taking Americans away from their email, a Nielsen research analysis found that the heaviest social media users actually use email more, perhaps because of the steady stream of messages that social networks dump into participants’ inboxes.

Nielsen then examined the amount of time that each group spent on email in the year before the study, and subtracted the email consumption of those who do not use social media from those who do in order to account for possible external forces.

Study found that social media use appears to makes people consume email more, not less, particularly for the heaviest social media users.

In other words, findings make sense because social media sites such as Facebook send numerous and periodic status-update and notification messages to social media users’ email addresses.

See chart on MarketingCharts.com.

Oct 8, 2009

Information overload affects us all

(From Guy Kawasaki's article on Open Forum)

Kem Meyer is the communications director at Granger Community Church. Her book, Less Clutter. Less Noise, helps churches, businesses, schools and not-for-profits find ways to get the word out and, simply, do better. In this guest post, she explains how to simplify your marketing.

Information overload occurs when we receive more information than our brain can process. Even if it’s good information, too much of a good thing isn’t good anymore. Whether you’re an information addict or Zen advocate, information overload affects us all.

If you’d like to contribute something of real value that improves quality of life, it’s as simple as dialing back your own volume...

Life is overwhelming enough as it is. Your business, church, school, or social cause shouldn’t be piling on more and adding to the confusion. Look at your own emails, mailings, brochures, web site, and identify where you need to turn down your volume. It’s the right thing to do for everyone.

Here are five ways you should be looking to help reduce the stress for your customers...

Oct 7, 2009

Ways information overload may be causing you harm

Increased stress, impaired cognition, information addiction...

Most of us already know from experience that the abundance of information we enjoy today comes at a price.

Less apparent is the tremendous hidden cost information owerload imposes on the organization as a whole. But, incidentally, you can calculate the costs involved in the individual management of e-mail.

The possible link between information overload and suicides among employees at France Telecom may be spurious.

Research indicates that information overload can have a negative effect on such activities as organizational decision making, innovation, and productivity.

Time lost to handling unnecessary e-mail and recovering from information interruptions cost Intel nearly $1 billion a year.

Surprisingly few companies even acknowledge the problem, much less make any attempt to do something about it.

Read interesting article by Paul Hemp, on Harvard Business Review Editors' Blog.

But organizations could save a lot of time and money facing internal spam messages, by training their workers to approach written communication dynamic integrally.

If professionals learn when e-mail is better than others communication channels, why, and how to use it in those cases, they can reduce many of the inefficient information flow present today at work.

Yes, I know that it's only part of the challenge. But the amount of productivity related on internal spam is significative. An this is one of the contributions I want to do with my book Email at the workplace.

Oct 4, 2009

Questions about information overload at workplace

Is it a maligned phenomenon?

Is it a cultural crises?

How much distracting information decreases organizational productivity?

How it affects you personally and your proffesional image?

How many information overload can leave you feeling overwhelmed?

Are you going to read all email messages you receive?

Is today’s onslaught of information a bane or a boon?

What’s so bad about information overload?

Interesting conversation with Xerox CEO.

But... Among other things, you can face information overload understanding its dinamic. So, you can prevent a lot of messages that you produce without realizing.