Third Class Mail

Sez Business Week:

E-mail at Dresdner [a European investment bank] is beginning to fade as the collaboration tool of choice. Instead, workers there, as well as at places like Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak, Yahoo!, and even the U.S. military, are ditching e-mail in favor of other software tools that function as real-time virtual workspaces. Among them: private workplace wikis (searchable, archivable sites that allow a dedicated group of people to comment on and edit one another's work in real time); blogs (chronicles of thoughts and interests); Instant Messenger (which enables users to see who is online and thus chat with them immediately rather than send an e-mail and wait for a response); RSS (really simple syndication, which lets people subscribe to the information they need); and more elaborate forms of groupware such as Microsoft Corp.'s SharePoint, which allows workers to create Web sites for teams' use on projects.

I have to admit, I was dragged kicking and screaming into Instant Messaging, but I confess it does make project collaboration more efficient than e-mail (which is lethargic for asking a simple question) or even the telephone (which I find intrusive and also kind of lethargic, especially as I always get voicemail whenever I call someone). And I confess I am starting touse it more for keeping in touch with people on a non-business level.