Whitespace: Is email dead... and what will replace it?

Issue 67: November 2010

• Workplace email set to be replaced by online 'conversations'
• Social media for work purposes to reach 20 per cent by 2014
• Intelligent 'whitelists' predicted to reduce information overload

The announcement this month of Facebook's new messaging system has significant implications for workplaces around the globe. More than just an email program, the new application offers social media users the opportunity to converge all communication channels – email, SMS and online chat – into the one 'social inbox'.

To achieve this, Facebook's will accommodate a converged stream of cross-medium communication between a sender and receiver with all messages from all media automatically collected and displayed under the sender's name.

At first glance, this enhancement seems to be all about personal rather than professional communication or even a tool that's only of interest to Facebook addicts. But when the bigger picture is considered it becomes clear the social inbox has the potential to reshape workplace communication as we know it.

What's wrong with email 1.0?

The heavily publicised unveiling of Facebook's social inbox and its accompanying @facebook.com email address has many wondering why email should be changed in the first instance. After 20 or so years aren't we all comfortable with it? Doesn't our current inbox achieve everything we need it to do?

Yes, email has made private and professional communication more convenient but it also comes with a large amount of baggage. Along with the issues of information overload and spamming, email currently fights for our attention with other communication channels including SMS, instant chat and social media messages.

The solution to these problems, according to the ever ambitious people at Facebook, is to converge all messages into conversation threads. And whether this system is popularised by Facebook or other software developers, the idea is likely to be attractive to anyone who's tired of juggling up to five separate communication tools at the same time.

Preparing for the Facebook workplace

The social inbox concept has emerged at a time when social media use has overtaken email as the globe's most popular form of electronic messaging. A trend that's particularly evident amongst younger digital natives, with only 11 per cent currently using email to communicate.

This shift away from email is occurring at a time when managers across the world are grappling with how to deal with Facebook use at work. Banning the social media monolith is one option, yet this approach appears unsustainable at a time when employees are demanding greater control over how and where they work.

Conversely, some companies, such as IBM, are embracing social media by introducing Facebook-like applications; others are using Facebook itself as a communication channel. Both approaches appear to dissolve the line between private and professional messaging, but don't be afraid, programmers tell us, your social media inbox is here to help.

Introducing the 'whitelist'

While the idea of bringing several communication channels together in one thread is a clear a benefit of the social inbox, pundits believe the ability of emerging messaging technology to act as a 'digital personal assistant' holds significant promise.

In the near future it's predicted social inboxes will intuitively prioritise messages according to their importance, an idea known as the whitelist. This would mean communication from the boss would automatically be brought to the attention of the recipient while unsolicited or advertising messages may only be revealed at the end of the day.

The social inbox may also allow workers to customise their private communication with personal messages or social media chats scheduled for 'social media breaks' (a high tech version of the tea break), rather than at times when they can distract workers from the job at hand.

Will Facebook win the race?

Facebook's early innovation in the area of converged conversations via a social inbox has many wondering just how powerful the company will become. Will we soon live in a world where Facebook is as central to the workplace as it currently is to the world's social media existence? And if this occurs can companies trust Facebook with their emails?

Fear not, futurists advise. Facebook may be the first to release a social inbox but they might not own the idea in the future. In fact, Facebook's concept is far from being a finished product due its ambitious nature. This means a competitor may rise to the challenge of releasing a more intelligent or popular social inbox first.

As for the question of whether email is dead, the answer is no – at least not in the short term. But with a Gartner survey suggesting 20 per cent of business communication will occur via social media by 2014, email will become social and conversational... hopefully its latest incarnation will also streamline our increasingly cumbersome online lives.

Whitespace is published monthly by the Australian Institute of Management - Qld & NT. Sign up to have a copy sent direct to your mailbox.