Category: Business

What is the future of email as far as business communication is concerned?


Answer by Phil Wolff:

Let’s start from what computing and communications in general will be like in 20 or 30 years. I assume they’ll be:

  • more pervasive (seamless connectivity, internet of things, etc.),
  • more wearable or built-in (contacts, cochlear implants, dermal displays, etc.),
  • and we’ll have new services to help us bring that universe from overwhelm to whelm.

One more assumption: Natural Language Processing will completely blur the lines between spoken and written language, and even which language (Hindi,  Pirate, American Sign Language) you use. So you’ll be able to choose how you want to communicate.

So, in that hypothetical future, email is part and parcel of the whole mix of conversational media. Conversational media have several basic events:

  • discovery,
  • conversation initiation,
  • consumption (reading, listening, watching, feeling, smelling, haptic senses), and
  • expression (speaking, drawing, singing, writing, gesturing, etc.).

Discovery. How do you find who to talk to? In the 2010s, work-persona directories (LinkedIn (website)) and enterprise discovery services help find the person or group of people to contact for a given purpose. Since we’ll be awash in personal data long before 2040, we’ll have more than “white pages”, “yellow pages”, or “social networks” to find people. People Match systems, serendipity services, topic networks, reputation networks like Connect.me, tribal event networks like Meetup (company), and location services will help you discover the right person to work with or talk to at the right time.

Initiation. In thirty years your software agent/proxy/broker will field offers of new conversation before they reach you. Think spam filter meets alerting service meets professional assistant. Services will compete on how well they interact with you, how accurately their filters reflect your preferences for interruption and notification, and how well they negotiate a mutually agreeable blend of time and media. These “inboxes” will have a wealth of data to use to calculate whether, when, and how to notify you or to start a conversation: social proximity (you’re both friends of your ex-husband), prior interactions with you and others, affiliations (works for x, belong to y) and endorsements (your mentor says you should take this call), verification of identity, commercial offers (will pay 元10 for nine minutes in the next hour or a Starbucks cup of coffee), alternative ways to spend your time (you’re in line for a concert), your interest in the subject, whether you’re on company/personal/family time, etc. In 2013, Facebook decides which updates of thousands from those you trust fit into the fewer than 100 updates the average person reads in a day; in 2040 you’ll have more control of what shows up in your inbox.

[Side bet: Microsoft or Google will be better than you at choosing which ‘inbox’ items are the most interesting to you by 2020 based on user satisfaction tests.]

Consumption. One of the things people like about Skype is it’s easy to throttle up and down a ladder of intimacy. At the low end are slow-changing mood messages and presence indicators. IM lets you throttle up from asynchronous messaging to live back-and-forth chats. When that’s not enough you can add voice. And when you need to see faces and body language, you move up to video. In thirty years we’ll have more UI presentation methods to choose from like holographic avatars or Rapid serial visual presentation or having your tweets sung to you in the style of Taylor Swift. You’ll have new metaphors and design surfaces for consuming asynchronous conversation. And we’ll find it smooth to rapidly switch among any media and any visualization paradigm.

Expression. Thirty years’ ago in the early 1980s we didn’t have Internet, smartphones, electric cars, free video conferencing, private spacecraft or nanotechnology. We’re now in the 1980s of 2040, the subject of costume dramas and kids ironically 3D Printing our fashions. By 2040 we should have at least a few more billion people connected to cyberspace, some very intimately. The range of available connectivity, devices, and media will continue to diverge with haves and have-nots.

When talking human-to-human you’ll be able to toss original content – data from what you say or perform – into the conversation flow. The channel should take care of converting it from how you choose to express yourself (longhand, typing, talking, foxtrot) into forms preferred or needed by the other other person; consider this automation of the interpreter relay services provided for the visually impaired or the deaf on phones today.

Your channel will let you play “live streaming producer” on your part of the conversation, feeding media objects into the conversation as you like. You’ll even be able to merge and fork live threads/streams (think git for live conferences).

You’ll also have some control or influence about other attributes of your conversation. Who has the right to share the record of this conversation? How much? With whom? Can records of this conversation be destroyed in real time the way some email services delete email after expiry? Can we have this conversation permanently archived in public? How much anonymity or pseudonymity will you accept?

Toasters and insulin pumps. But email is not solely the province of people. We’ve been hooking up machines to email for decades. By 2040 we’ll have trillions of sensors and devices engaging in conversation with people and each other. Notifications from our bodies (Quantified Self), our things, and our places will be in our Personal Clouds. Our inboxen will test Inquiries from stranger devices just like inquiries from strange people: Is this notification from the bus you’re riding worth your attention now? If so, what’s the best context and form for engaging with it given you’re in a space where it’s impolite to talk and you’re using your hands to hang on for dear life? Some conversations just don’t need words, after all. You may just need to see a chart or hear a message; you may just need to grunt or wave in response. Remember to buy a premium personality for your pacemaker: for an extra two percent, the Bollywood star of your choice will be its living avatar.

Personal vs. Work. Do you remember when you had separate email accounts for each job, for your personal life, from your school, and for volunteer gig? Umpteen mailboxes? Whilst it keeps your peas from touching your potatoes and your boss from talking with your mistress, the actual act of juggling mutliple accounts is painful. You’ll have one queue, one spew of inbound offers to talk from every part of your life. You may offer different faces/handles/personas for each context the way you hand out personal and business email addresses now, but your single, seemingly self-aware “inbox” will let you wear the appropriate mask and project the appropriate identity for each. New legal constructs, like The Limited Liability Persona, will support this.

Work vs. Talk. You asked specifically about email for business. Email and other electronic media are part of how labor markets work today and how workers get things done together. So let’s talk about the Future of Work for a moment. Thirty years from now, on the other side of wars, famines, depressions, disruptions, and alien invasions, many elements of work will be the same: many of us will rent our time to people or organizations that will pay us. But expect much of that work, to be done with, if not through, your communication channels. There will be no need to have separate toolkits for conversation vs. metawork (work about work, like scheduling, to-do lists, project management, budgeting, etc.) vs. collaboration. Context providers will let you “skin” your full-body-browser to add the features that blend work, metawork and conversation together. Think of it as Bring Your Own Inbox/Phone/Reality. So whether you’re sortieing with your squad for work, tweaking your bots for fun, or negotiating a contract for your family, you’ll use the same conversational media.

Somewhere in 2040, email as we know it in 2012 will continue to flow. But we’ll be thinking about “email” then the way we think about teletype consoles and punch cards now: antiques that paved the way.

What is the future of email as far as business communication is concerned?

Google Facebook Yahoo and others form Internet super-lobby.


FROM THE WEEK MAGAZINE MOBI VERSION.
“The two companies join an All-Star team of tech giants to throw their collective weight around in D.C. — which could be a boon for internet freedom.

The tech world is used to seeing Google, Facebook, and Yahoo duke it out in an increasingly bloody battle for online advertising dollars. But this week, the companies showed their cooperative side, joining Amazon, LinkedIn, Monster, Zynga, and eBay to form the country’s first lobbying group dedicated solely to the interests of internet companies. The who’s who of tech luminaries is blandly called the Internet Association, but with its pool of big bucks, the group is sure to make an impact on Congress. Here’s what you should know:

Don’t tech companies already lobby Congress?
Yes, but only as individual corporations or in colloboration with groups that don’t focus exclusively on internet issues. Google has led the way, spending some $9 million in lobbying in the first half of 2012, up from $3.5 million during the same period in 2011.

Why are they joining forces now?
The companies received a wake-up call last year, when members of Congress tried to pass two bills — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) — that were designed to curb internet piracy. Internet companies, however, feared that the bills “would block or punish their sites for containing pirated movies, books, and songs,” says Cecilia King at The Washington Post. The battle pitted the companies against established lobbying groups for Hollywood and the music industry, convincing the tech sector to get serious about lobbying. The bills were ultimately defeated after protests from prominent sites and advocates for internet freedom.

What does the group propose to do?
The Internet Association says it will focus on the issues of piracy, copyright, privacy, and cybersecurity. The group also pledges to keep the internet as free as possible. “It is the internet’s decentralized and open model that has unleash unprecedented entrepreneurialism,” says President Michael Beckerman. “Policymakers must understand that the preservation of that freedom is essential to the vitality of the internet itself and the resulting economic prosperity.”

Is this a positive development for web users?
Perhaps. Some believe that the Internet Association will be a key force in preserving internet liberties, which means that it’s not “just another lobby representing the 1 percent,” says David Kravets at Wired. However, “as with any lobby, the Internet Association formed to protect its own interests,” says Natasha Lennard at Salon. The group will almost certainly oppose, for example, “certain privacy regulation intended to protect consumer information.”

Sources: The Hill, National Journal, Reuters, Salon, The Washington Post, Wired”

For eCommerce, eBay, Amazon folks: “How Google+ Changes Everything” Interview with Chris Brogan of “Trust Agents”


Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-9t

As an eBay/Amazon vendor and a big fan of “Trust Agents” and +Chris Brogan and +Julien Smith, this article will be of interest to anyone involved in those or any e-commerce areas, or marketing in general, for that matter.

Viralgra… get noticed now


When you want to get notice now
Share me, tweet me http://wp.me/p4njL-7i

If you need a creative mind, talk to me. I came up with the name, registered it and created the graphic and slogan this afternoon in less than two hours.

quickcard at gmail dotcom.

Be the first on you planet to Share and Tweet this, thanks

http://wp.me/p4njL-7i


Google Plus adds Tweet, Translate and Delicious to its Stream Post options… AND an ALERT to Delicious users.


New layout and functions
G+ New Functions in Posting in Stream

ADDENDUM: turns out this is a Chrome extension. But it’s great.

SHORTLINK: http://wp.me/p4njL-7x

As of this morning, several more functionalities showed up under posts in the G+ stream. Previously there was Plus1, Comment and Share. Now there are 3 more: Tweet, Translate and Delicious.

Apparently, not everyone has this functionality yet (same as with the advanced version of Hangouts). But I’m certain this one will roll our very soon to everyone. My page is http://gplus.to/quickdrawartist

Delicious
Delicious

This is significant on many levels, of course. One being that, as I’ve thought myself, Google+ will replace many things, but not Twitter, unless it buys Twitter. And if it does, it will probably have the same hands-off approach that it uses with YouTube. My perspective has been that Twitter has a special place and set of functionalities that “plays well with others,” including Google+. Twitter is clean, powerful and flexible and very well administrated. I have never been able to fathom why so many folks express the feeling that Google+ would replace Twitter. What was I not getting? At this point, I think it’s a safe bet that Google feels the same way about Twitter.

Very cool right? But Delicious? Why Delicious? Google already owns its own very good google.bookmarks.

DELICIOUS USERS, SEE THIS NOTE**

I think I know why, because Avos (owned by YouTube’s founders) has acquired Delicious from Yahoo and Google OWNS YouTube.*

As a long time fan of and early adopter of Delicious, this is great news on many fronts, to my mind at any rate. Delicious has some significant functionalities that Google.bookmarks does not. On the other hand, Google.bookmarks ties into the rest of your Google apps. So I think we’re going to be seeing a conflation of the two.

Lately, I have been bouncing miserably between Instapaper (it’s so fast and handy), Firefox bookmarks, and lately, with the advent of Google+, Google.bookmarks, while in the back of my mind wondering why I didn’t keep using Delicious. Probably because I’m allergic to Yahoo.

What would really even fantasticker would be for Google to also buy Instapaper and merge its sterling functionalities as well (and improve its folder function too, or replace it).

*http://www.avos.com/delicious-press-release/      YouTube Founders Acquire Delicious From Yahoo!

** This popped up for me this morning, so check it out if you have ever used Delicious: up “To continue using Delicious, you must agree to transfer your account information to AVOS by Friday, September 23, 2011. Click here to transfer now > https://secure.delicious.com/settings/optin “

Attention Delicious Users
Attention Delicious Users

“What happened to Delicious?” and alternative to Facebook? (see freelish and friendfeed)


Shortlink:http://wp.me/p4njL-5p

Reading “What happened to delicious?” is so depressing. Then, on the heels of reading this, I learned about Freelish http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_ideal_delicious_alternative_statusnets_freelis.php .

Also… just learned about friendfeed.com, which looks like a potentially more powerful,  cleaner, safer alt to facebook… Only to learn that it has been purchased by the devil’s spawn, Facebook in 2009.

Could Dior management truly have been ignorant of John Galliano’s rabid anti-semitism up until Feb. 2011?


Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-4B

RE: Galliano video and Huffington post link

Could Dior management truly have been ignorant of John Galliano’s rabid anti-Semitism up until Feb. 2011? Is it possible that Dior (and other firms that he worked with) did not know about John Galliano’s anti-Semitism until Feb. 2011?

To answer my own question: only if Galliano was having a psychotic break…. and I don’t think he was.

As a sidebar, this is funny, in a dark way, since as a gay man, Galliano would have herself attended said death camp wearing a darling little pink triangle.

How cool is Quora?


Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-41

How cool is Quora? Here’s a sample page  with the question and answer to : “How smart is Mark Zuckerberg, academic-wise? Is he as smart as Bill Gates?”

What’s that bumper sticker? ” It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

Well, it’ll be a great day when people worry as much about the size of their brains as they do about the size of their dicks or tits.

Email wrong way to network and do project management, BUT how do you get everyone on board?


Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-2N

Email wrong way to network and do project management, BUT how do you get everyone on board?

I’ve posted this question on Quora.com, btw.

For the umpteenth time I’m involved in a project that necessitates online planning and discussion between associates in different states and towns. And for the umpteenth time I’m finding myself fighting a losing battle to get people into some form of network (zoho, facebook…ANYTHING!) vs. having thousands of emails flying every which way. It’s like herding worms…. like trying to explain the superiority of telephone over telegraph. Two question really: 1. I’m looking for some good links that articulate how effing INSANE it is to manage/network a project by email. 2. A good strategy to get people to start USING the network and STOP doing it all by email.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR