Social intranets benefit the enterprise by facilitating communication. The ability to connect with others through the intranet reduces our reliance on email which tends to be slower and less effective than tools like instant messaging and microblogs. Besides, we lose a significant amount of time and productivity every day, because we have to process so much email.
In this post, I’m going to show how many of the things you are currently accomplishing with email can easily be replaced by internal social networking applications.
These apps often do an even better job than emails, especially if you want immediate response or better archiving.
1. Task: Follow up on a report.
Instead of sending email: Send an instant message.
Your message will pop into your co-worker’s screen and get their attention even without them checking their email. Plus, they can respond much more quickly through IM than through email. And you’re not taking up additional memory in your company servers.
2. Task: Get comments on a draft document.
Instead of emailing the draft document: Upload it in a folder.
Emailing drafts back and forth gets confusing very quickly. Soon, nobody knows which document is the most updated version. Or you all work on the draft at the same time and somebody has to merge everyone’s revisions into one document.
Instead of all that nonsense, upload the draft in your intranet. Each person takes turns checking out the document and revising it. A good intranet platform will keep track of different versions of a document, so you know when changes are made and by whom, and can revert to a previous version if needed.
3. Task: Get a comp design approved.
Instead of emailing it: Upload the compre images in an intranet photo album.
Colleagues can post their comments on compre studies. Supervisors can click on an approve or disapprove button, and you can keep track of who has reviewed the compre or not.
4. Task: Brainstorm on a product or strategy.
Instead of emailing ideas back and forth: Start a discussion forum.
Capture everybody’s inputs in one forum thread. Got a photo, video or slideshow to share? Post it there as well.
5. Task: Collaborate on a presentation.
Instead of emailing contributions: Create a wiki.
Everyone involved can type their inputs directly onto one document. Embed rich media for a more engaging presentation.
6. Task: Get your team members’ vote on possible conference venues.
Instead of sending email: Create an intranet poll.
It’s hard to keep track of votes via email. Instead, make it as easy as clicking a button, and see and share results in real time.
7. Task: Find a common free time for a team building activity.
Instead of asking for everyone’s available dates by email: Use the intranet calendar.
If those involved use a common calendar, finding a common free time takes only a quick glance. If you’re using separate calendars, you can merge them into one master calendar.
8. Task: Share a set of links to websites your team members should be reading regularly.
Instead of emailing the links: Create a links page on the intranet.
No more hunting around for important links. The links page is always accessible in the intranet, and they’re hyperlinked, too, so your team members can easily go to the relevant websites.
9. Task: Share a slideshow presentation.
Instead of emailing it as an attachment: Upload your slideshow in Slideshare, then use the HTML code to embed it in your intranet status update.
Your colleagues can view the entire slideshow right in your status, and post their comments there as well. Another option is to embed the slideshow in your intranet profile page, so it’s always available and searchable.
10. Task: Document and share your thoughts on an industry event.
Instead of writing an email about the event: Publish your experience in an internal blog. If you emailed your content, people can easily delete it, or leave it to read later — until it gets buried by other emails and is soon forgotten. If you publish it in your intranet blog, your colleagues can post their own comments. It will come up in relevant searches. It’s archived in the intranet for future reference and discussion.
These are just 10 ways you can reduce internal email by using internal social media, such as Noodle. Can you think of other ways to get your work done better without using email?