The End of E-Mail
INC. Magazine, February, 2006 Issue
Author: Darren Dahl

Submitted to Dr. Akpan
Strayer University

By

Angela D. Davis
Information Systems for Decision Making (CIS 500)
Article Review 1 Week 4

April 30, 2006 2

This article seems to suggest that e-mail which has become a way of living, and communicating will eventually become another thing of our past. The article written by Darren Dahl makes a good assertion on why this may become the wave of the future to no longer need or use e-mail in business and in our personal lives. With e-mail becoming so demanding in just the volume a person may receive in a matter of hours, the volume of constant e-mailing is literally overwhelming no matter if it is business or personal. We don’t have a lot of time to read or to respond back to coworkers, communication between people who are in our groups to discuss or review projects by e-mail tend to get lost in e-mail shuffle, notification of interoffice schedule meetings sometimes will be missed due to too much e-mailing, and at home we just may not have the time to even look at our e-mail because of our family obligations once we are home. In this article, Tom Biro shares his thoughts about a possible new way of saving time and keeping track of how we communicate by using the “wiki” software to create webpages that can be used on the Internet or in the company’s Intranet. After reading this article, I agree that e-mail as we now use it will be replaced by this Wiki software and it will hopefully help in communicating in a timely, effective, and efficient manner whether on the job or at home.
Tom Biro, director of new media strategies for the MWW Group, a public relations and marketing firm of East Rutherford, NJ. The company employees 200 people across eight states which in my opinion may help shed why this company was in a dangerous situation found out that the firms e-mail system was in need of some serious over hauling. The firm hired a good director because Biro had an answer to the firm’s dilemma. Biro’s 3 answer to resolve the problem came in the form of “wiki”. Wiki’s is a piece of server software that you the user are allowed to update and create webpages fast and easy by way of a host site on the Internet or by using the firms Intranet. With the use of wiki, you or anyone with a centrally located access point can log in and edit information. If you are part of an internal group within the firm, you and the group can converse on the single document or spreadsheet and write ideas on the document in real time. The user or group can also write down any criticism they may have about a project, write notes back to each other for suggestion to move projects forward, they can also place images and new features on the wiki document. This allows for the user to do all of this work without sending constant attachments and documents back and forth by way of e-mail. Being able to do this your work on a wiki document keeps confusion to a minimum of what is the current or revised project and you will have a better organized group of people who really can see the job getting done in a timely manner.
Wiki’s can keep all revision history of any project or ideas so the user can go back to earlier statements if it becomes necessary. This is a positive way of communicating knowing that what ever was talked about, and then written on a wiki document will not get lost and the user can refer back to any statements for reference purposes on any question that was previously written. This is a great way to feel that none of the information will not be regulated to just current ideas and it definitely will enhance the user’s performance in terms of time management and positive rate of response time for each uses or group. This I think will make people in business and at home keep from dreading the daunting task of going through every e-mail and saving valuable time which 4 is a priceless in today’s world of I need it right now. Wiki’s will alter how we communicate in the near future just like e-mail did when we no longer had to physically write letters then mail them to communicate with people.
Wiki’s tend to get people involved in the idea process and it cuts down on the e-mail mail that much simply because of the volume that I receive each day. This wiki software also helps eliminate spam e-mails because you use it similar to a Microsoft Word document. You can set it up also like a journal, and or a bulletin board to submit postings of the latest updates of news, current group activity. This article has at least given some of us hope that we will not be so weighted down by e-mail volume and that wiki’s is a viable alternative.
This new software has been around being a product of the open-source wave in various forms for about ten years. The people that we call in the computer world as techies and computer hackers have used this form of communication. Attention for this format came out of the shadows when Wikipedia came on the scene. Wikipedia has we all know is one of the online versions of encyclopedia that is updated, written, and maintained by anonymous users. Because of this, sometimes misdeeds can happen on the Wikipedia site which leads me to the issue of security.
When you use this form of communicating, whether it is at home, or at the office, security is a major concern. The software can be set up to limit access for groups or individuals and you can also have passwords to be required. This is a very good thing to be able to secure your work, unlike e-mail because if you are knowledgeable about e-mail even a five year old can get into your e-mail. I should know because it actually happened 5 to me by way of my five year old nephew. In Dahl’s article he suggests that by the year of 2009, wakes will be installed on all corporate computer systems by this time. If this is going to come true, you will also see this occur for home use also.
You may be wondering how much will this new software cost? Well, there are lots of free open-source wikis so that you can download to use for work or home use. Some next generation wiki software has been specifically design for business users. For ten dollars month per user for business, the corporate buyer can have a powerful firewall version that allows integration among network directories and can be the central control for all company communications with minimum cost. Employees and human resource managers can have HR forms to list of upcoming project information on a wiki document. You can purchase software between ten to fifty dollars per user per month if you have a host wiki site. Biro’s group tested ten wikis and decided on one called PmWiki which is an open-source product that was downloaded and integrated into the firm’s network system.
Biro and his firm were able to double their productivity level, cut down the number of planned meetings, and cut down the number of conference calls. All of the employees can simply go to their web browser and get any and all reports at their convenience. This has attributed the firms other team members to join in on the success and include wikis in their departments as well. The firms HR department used the wiki to track the progress of new prospect and noted that communication had improved dramatically.
According to the article, JotSpot and Socialtext have host versions on the web. These two are not free but you the user won’t have to configure them to your network nor maintain it. Any person with Internet access can use these two versions of wikis. The only 6 drawback you may encounter is that the security is not the best. Proprietary and sensitive data may not be protected such as patents, client information, and trade secrets. The firm will have to engage in a company training programs for employees and establish a code of ethics to have decorum on the wiki site. You can tailor the wiki to have specific person of different departments to have access to control, monitor, and edit the wiki pages.
The MWW group and Tom Biro with using the wiki have had no considerable problems and their overall e-mail volume has been cut down by thirty percent. This has help their firm become more involved in the firms Intranet and employees bypass their e-mail system and go right to the wiki for what they need. This is a new change in how we will use these communication tools and I think this will be here for years to come until yet a new discovery is unleashed.