Introduction
An essay on seamless cross integration between mail client and social platform(s)
In this essay (in three parts) I am going to explore the topic by creating a context and give my analysis of the situation. I will paint a picture of the reasons why people are not as efficient as they could be. I will explore what is probably going on in large enterprises. Which finally leads me to some new ideas why seamless cross integration of products is way more important than tons of new features in product and platforms.
So one of the use cases that seems to be ignored in the collaboration space is the fact that sharing files and documents is done through e-mail as often as before. Even though Connections Files is a great way to share Files and Documents around it’s not done as much as you would expect. So let’s look at the root causes of this problem and why do people not change their behavior.
Some causes that we have seen within our deployment of Notes and Connections:
- People just are not used to Connections Files, they find it hard to use.
- People are used (habit) to putting their files in the mail and sending it to end-users.
- People are getting e-mails from the outside world as attachments.
- People still have their files on local disks and network shares, and drag and drop files into their e-mail.
- e-Mail is still the most common way to share stuff around to other people, to collaborate.
- People still think knowledge is power and they need to hoard and protect their content.
- Notes Mail and Connections Files are NOT integrated, it takes changes in one’s habits and workflow changes that are harder then just dragging and dropping.
- People live on file sharing, Office products and mail clients, not in browsers and Web pages.
- People are hard to convince to use yet another platform.
- People have their files and knowledge live in many places, mailboxes, Dropbox, file sharing, cloud drives, teamrooms, and… and…
- People send stuff to the outside world, then having stuff in Connections Files does not help. So drop it into an e- mail, and off you go.
- People don’t know anymore where their stuff is opened, so e-mail with attachments might be opened on mobile devices, on android, on ipad or iphones or a Web client. Or even sent to an external user with Google Mail or Outlook mail client, or Apple Mail. It should all just work.
There are the true believers. We call them evangelists. People who truly believe that the way to go is to leave email behind and start working as a connected company. They will tell you that email is inefficient and that you have to change your ways. They show you convincing examples of how to change your ways. They create the 7 habits of highly effective people without e-mail. And they are right, of course. In a way we can be more efficient by working in a more open and connected platform, where people collaborate more openly, where you work together online in real time on a document, instead
However in the meantime there are the haters too. They believe there is nothing wrong with their ways. They have worked this way for many many many years. Even though they can see some benefits in the way of the believers. They also see the flaws. They notice that the products are different. The ways of working are more open. You could easily see flaws. People make mistakes. So it boils down that these people resist. And start hating what the believers are telling them. They will resist the change that is happening. At every chance they will point out the flaws in the new way of working and the new tools. Some even believe that it might work, but point out that there is a whole other religion. It’s similar but another church and their ways and tools are just more appealing. They work better, smoother and have been around just as long. And that church copies some of the features, but improves upon them.
The truth is that the majority of people within an enterprise is caught somewhere in between the lines. They yet don’t see the benefits of the new ways of working and don’t understand the new tools. In fact, they just need to get their work done and want to get out of the office in time. They are just overwhelmed with the all the new functions and old options they are used to. They don’t want to change, it’s working just fine. They just want to be productive and get their work done. Of course they want to collaborate. Most work in teams anyway, so they have worked that way, right? Over the years the tools keep changing over and over again. And the collaboration is done by groups of people. So even if the individual believes there are better ways, there is still the bigger group that needs to change their ways. In the mean time the world is changing in an increasingly faster pace, with mobile and cloud introducing new options daily, it seems.
But what if we can incrementally change and grow slowly toward a better future? In the next part of this essay I will explore why products don’t help as much as they could…