The collaboration corroboration.

Of late during the course of my work I have noticed more and more prospects with queries on social collaboration /intranets. Everyone seems to want a “facebook” for their organization. And why not! After all, effectiveness and efficiency is brought out through team effort. Reports on the same suggest that-

• Social collaboration tools are on the rise in the workplace.  Of those people who use these tools at work, 59% say that their usage has increased over the last year. 
• 91% of respondents say that email remains their most frequently used tool for inter- and intra-company collaboration.

The greater use of social software together and strong continued use of email is hard to reconcile given that email and Web 2.0 collaboration still sit in separate silos. End users definitely see a place of social collaboration tools in the workplace. However, the breadth of reach of these tools and user adaption has impacted the usefulness of these tools. A survey suggests that 63% think the biggest problem weakness of social collaboration tools is that their co-workers don’t use the same system (i.e., they use email only).Cars have “crumple zones” to absorb the impact of opposing forces; sadly, the crumple zone here is user satisfaction and efficiency.

A new model with zero compromise is the need. We are doing disservice to our customers by forcing them to trade off the benefits of one tool vs. another. Users should be able to reach any person or group using their preferred method of collaboration and have easy access to content regardless of where it was created—bridging the gap that currently exists between email and social collaboration. 

Let me know your thoughts on the topic.  How do you think email should evolve in order to accommodate users of social collaboration tools?  I’m curious.