I just read a great post on the Collaboration Soapbox blog by Louis Richardson titled “How to get your head out of your inbox“. In the article Richardson explains how he is using social networking tools to reduce the amount of email he receives. The basic concept is this: when you get a piece of mail, decide if that email is something that is really a two way personal conversation that you should respond to or if that email is something that really applies to a group.
If the email is really for a group (hint: there may be more than one recipient, but maybe not!), then take the opportunity to post your answer to your social software site (blog, wiki, forum, twitter, facebook, etc) rather than reply or reply all to that message. Once your post is there, then send a link to it in your email reply. This effectively moves the conversation out of your inbox and everyone else’s inbox too.
Another important advantage to moving this conversation to the social platform is that it now becomes available to a wider audience if you allow that. We’ve all participated in email discussions between just a few people that suddenly turn into valuable information either when someone new get’s cc’d or you discuss it with others. Moving those emails to the social network can speed up that process.
