Email RIP – the future is collaboration

It doesn't feel that long ago that John Chambers (then CEO of Cisco Systems) announced: "Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make email usage look like a rounding error." That was a bold claim at the time that prompted a wave of amazing innovation, and launched a thousand e-learning companies. 

Twelve years later, that prophecy is still unfolding and I was reminded of it recently by renewed press coverage of another CEO announcement. This time, Thierry Breton from Atos Origin set an ambition "to be a zero email company within three years". Zero email?! Could this statement be marking the very learning revolution Chambers anticipated? I think it just might be…

Improved collaboration tools

Breton explains that his ambition to eradicate all emails between Atos Origin employees will be enabled by improved communication applications and new collaboration and social media tools.

The convincing demographic drop in email usage by younger employees in favour of more immediate messaging services or communal networking sites would seem to be evidence that email is indeed becoming passé. While I'm not sure this is quite the education model Chambers had in mind, it is definitely in the same direction…

Reducing cost or adding value?

Interestingly, the justification for the radical Atos policy is actually 'information overload' - to move away from unproductive activity caused by information pollution. So Breton's motivation seems to be decluttering daily tasks.

In my mind, however, there's no doubt that the real potential of this shift is to unlock more effective work by learning from untapped collaboration - not just clawing back a few precious working hours each day. To coin a popular theme here, the learning is the work (I work therefore I learn) and so to collaborate effectively is a necessary feature of any learning (and working) in the new information economy.

Implications for workplace learning

So - what does this mean for e-learning and other forms of workplace learning?

Well, if email is the digital successor to the handwritten letter, e-learning has clearly been the first digital successor to the traditional classroom course. Now, as email is itself being superseded by a variety of tools to enable richer human interaction and community-building, e-learning itself is evolving using the same tools and online communities to merge work and learning, communication and teaching. 

The main lesson here is that, rather than 'copying' the format of traditional learning/communication settings, we should open our minds to the flexibility offered by the new technology-enabled working. Portals, sharing tools and community collaboration may provide more fit-for-purpose ways of supporting productive work. Rather than 'just-in-case' courses, we can access informal learning at the point of need as we go about our day-to-day tasks.

I do agree with the many commentators who point out that email is in reality far from dead (there's always going to be a need for exchanging, storing and auditing formal communications electronically). Likewise, I'm under no illusion that traditional learning media and classroom training will be totally swept away by the online revolution.

The technological march forward, however, does throw up some important questions about what email is for, and what it isn' t - and therefore a good prompt to us to reconsider what the traditional training setting is for, and what it isn't. In trying out new media, we want to be careful not to add to the 'information overload' or 'clutter' caused by inappropriate distractions getting in the way of work and learning. 

A new era?

On many levels, Atos Origin's zero email ambition is a bold move. A challenge to the status quo (even one as recent and as ubiquitous as email) is one to inspire us all. Part of me wonders whether this sort of proclamation rivals the heralding of the 'paperless office' era (mine certainly still isn't) but, nevertheless, the spirit behind the push to harness technology to its limit to improve work and communication is a valiant one. And in any case, closer to day-to-day life, Breton's attitude of critically reviewing how his organisation could work differently to improve business success can be nicely applied to us in the L&D team too.

Al Bird is learning consultancy director at KnowledgePool. He can be contacted at al.bird@knowledgepool.com