Oh, how I wish I could have been there to see his presentation. These slides only convey a snippet of his message.
Ray makes two points I really want to highlight:
- Don’t Technologize a bad business process
- Email is not CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
I’ve talk in the past about how new and social media is like a magnifying glass. It will amplify the good AND the bad. If you have a good process in place, new and social media will function as powerful leverage. If you have poor processes in place, new technological tools will highlight how bad those processes are.
Email is fast, efficient, easy, and somewhat archival. The big “but” is that it is transactional and can’t convey feeling or intent.
How many times have you struggled over just the right word to convey your feeling state in an email. Hard to do isn’t it? Have your recipients gotten the facts correct, but the intent wrong? Email is good for the transaction – getting things done. There is little place for the emotional in emails. Emoticons grew out of this lack.
Life and business are about relationships. If you are managing your business and employee relationships via email, don’t be surprised when those relationships falter.
