Here’s a tech company that is looking to completely eradicate his company of using email for internal communication, instead opting for instant messaging and a “Facebook-style” interface. I kinda thought it was going to say he wanted more face-to-face meetings of his employees, but to each his own I guess.

Oh yeah, and they have 74,000 employees. This is not a small company.

We do tend to over use email, don't we?

My question is, what would you do if your company decided to get rid of email entirely for internal communication?

Would you quit? Embrace it?

Would it be a breath of fresh air or a sign of poor leadership?

I’m not a huge stats, diagram, infographic type of guy.  Just ask @gumboshowjoe, who regularly tries to get me to look at these charts so that I’ll be really, really sure that this social thing and that mobile thing are gonna be huge.  I get it, I don’t need reams of data to tell me that.

However, a ton of people do like that stuff and as I read through this presentation to get ready for a speaking gig coming up, I thought it was worthy of sharing if you haven’t seen it.

Enjoy it, you data-crunching maniacs.

I was challenged to give my thoughts on this article in ClickZ by Simms Jenkins, titled, “Digital’s Great Teenage Misunderstanding“.

Now, before I start, I should clarify that Simms is one of the foremost email experts in the country, an all around smart dude and someone that I have had a bit of fun debating with over the years on email vs. social.  He recently hired @ryanptuttle which only continues to prove to me that he knows what he’s doing.  Plus he’s got a great book that you should read.

In the article, Simms is essentially taking Zuckerburg to task for his quote, “High school kids don’t use e-mail, they use SMS a lot. People want lighter weight things like SMS and IM to message each other.”  The point Simms is making is larger than just debating Zuckerburg’s quote though, as we’ve all heard (and many of us have said) that email is dying mainly because young people don’t use it, preferring social and mobile.

I’ll first start by saying, email isn’t dying.  I don’t see a future any time soon where email isn’t a part of our lives.

BUT, fax machines also aren’t dying.  Neither are the paper and pen.  Sure, we will still use these things in the future, but that doesn’t mean their importance in our lives isn’t becoming more and more diminished over time.  They are, and I believe email is as well.

Yes, as pointed out in the article, teenagers become adults and join the work force and get an email account.  This doesn’t exactly prove the point that teenagers aren’t using email much anymore.  And if you’re trying to market to teenagers today or anytime in the near future, email isn’t going to be a very effective channel for you.  Especially if its mostly seen as a way you communicate… while you’re at work.

Another point in the article is to show tweets by others that make a comparison to email such as:

• Most teens don’t have kids, there will be no children in the future #e-mailisdeadanalogy - @mostew
• Kids don’t drive. Therefore, cars will soon cease to exist. #e-mailisdeadanalogy - @MartinLieberman

Uh, right.  But the point is, don’t try to sell diapers or cars to teens and kids.

Where I think I’ll agree with Simms (though I don’t want to put words into his mouth), is that email is still one of, if not still the, most efficient and effective marketing mediums.  It just is.  Will people use less email going forward?  I think the answer is obviously yes.  Is that because of social media and mobile (sms)?  Has to be a contributing factor.  However…

I could make the argument that this is going to be the best thing to happen to email since CAN-SPAM.  Think about it, why do most people hate not love email?  Spam.  Spam is so widely spread because its so cheap for the spammers.  Barely costs anything.  Oh but wait, what’s cheaper than sending an email?  How about posting a tweet or a Facebook post.

Yup, suddenly spammers are going to have an even cheaper way to annoy people.  And they can reach more people through social media.  And there are dumber younger people using social more than email.  People that are more likely to fall for their spammer tricks.

So is social killing email?  Nah.  But its still fun to mess with Simms ;)

One of my favorite tools for brainstorming and ideation is Mind Meister.  I use it in many ways, including putting together the presentation I’ll be giving at the DMA this week.  And its iPad friendly which is cool.  If you’re not familiar with mind mapping software, you should check it out.  It looks like this:

I got the below email yesterday.  I pay for the premium version of Mind Meister which gives you, among other things, unlimited maps, the ability to edit maps offline and additional security.  It’s pretty cheap, $59/year.

They encourage you to get your friends and contacts to sign up for the premium service.  As a satisfied user, I’m very happy to do this.  So I do.  Which ever person that I get to sign up for the Premium service, I get an additional 3 months.  That’s such a great, and simple, way to get me to help promote their service.

We call that 1to1toMany marketing.  The idea is simple.  A brand connects 1to1 with their customers, finds the passionate fans, and gets them to market to their friends: 1toMany.

Mind Meister gets it.  Does your company?

I wrote a blog post a few hours ago on why analytics is killing social.  I casually threw in this comment:

In the meantime, social is strangling email marketing

This week I was on a panel at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Atlanta. It was a debate format and the title of our session was, “Can email and social live happily ever after?“  My main point on that topic was that social is making lazy email marketers even lazier, because now they are distracted by this thing called “social” so they’ve got their already-ROI-proven email campaigns on auto-pilot.  So in a way, social is killing off email.  But that’s beside the point (though I’m happy to debate that if anyone is interested).

Seems that @simmsjenkins, resident email badass (I believe that fyi) had this to say:

“they’ve got their already-ROI-proven email campaigns on auto-pilot. So in a way, social is killing off email.”

You gotta do better than that logic if you are going to lob another anti-email grenade out there.

So rather than letting this debate take over the analytics post, I’m moving it here…

I think people have it all wrong about Twitter.  I really don’t think Twitter is any more a social network than email is or text messaging is.  The only difference between Twitter and those tools is that its wide open.

I think a social “network” is something you enter into mutually with other people.  It’s a community.  Twitter is a 1-to-many relationship.  You can’t join my Twitter network.  You can follow me, in which case you can receive my updates.  But just because a lot of people follow a person and receive their updates, that doesn’t make them a “network”.  It’s no different than joining my email newsletter list.

Here’s an example.  When you go to a conference and hear someone speak, do you have a social relationship with them?  No, of course not.  That’s Twitter.  Sure, you can raise your hand and ask a question during the Q&A, but that’s about the extent of your relationship.

Facebook, however, is a social network.  It’s a relationship that two people mutually agree to enter into.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m on a panel next week at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Atlanta.  The topic is, “Can email and social live happily ever after”.  I’m starting to come to the conclusion that they are two completely different things.  I think the real question might be, “Can your brand.com website survive in the social web.”

I know most of you reading this think Twitter is very much a social network.  Let’s debate.

* full disclosure, I had this debate a while back with @ivey.  I doubt he has the stones to jump back into it with me.

I’m lucky enough to know @simmsjenkins, probably one of the smartest dudes in the country when it comes to the finer points of email marketing.  In fact, if you don’t have his book The Truth About Email Marketing, you need to buy it asap.

Simms wrote an article for ClickZ and he asked me what my thoughts were on the future of email.  No surprise, I was more bullish on the ways we can reach people via social than email, but it’s still one of the best (if not the best) communication channels today.

You can read the whole article (link above) but here’s what I said:

“It’s my opinion that email marketing is both the most effective form of marketing and at the same time the least maximized. Because email is inherently effective, marketers get away with poor processes and little innovation and still are able to produce better ROI than their other marketing efforts.”

and

“In 2010, you’ll start seeing marketers pushed to evolve their email practices by consumers growing use of social networks in lieu of email. I see social being a big threat to email but at the same time being the impetus that marketers needed to stop taking email for granted.”

What do YOU think?

I was honored recently to guest blog for one of my favorite groups, 1to1 Media.  You can read the post on their site but it starts like this…

Marketing has seen tremendous change over the past five to 10 years. Take a closer look at direct and digital marketing specifically and you’ll see a clear shift. Marketers are beginning to combine the opportunities made possible by the principles and disciplines of direct marketing with the accountability and engagement that are possible with digital marketing. We call this shift iDirect – where the blurring of the lines between these disciplines is being used to garner greater customer engagement that leads to measurable and dramatic gains in ROI.

Read more.

Attention brands. Be very careful when considering your relationship with your customers. All mediums are not created equal. Here are some good rules of thumb, from the consumer’s point of view:

- I’ll sign up for your email when I want deals and coupons. And sometimes to stay up to date on your industry.  But only sometimes.  Mostly I want discounts, specials and deals.

- I’ll follow you on Twitter if I want to keep up with what you’re doing.  And sometimes for deals but if you’re just about deals, I’ll only pay attention to you for a little while.  And you gotta pay attention to me on Twitter.  I expect a little back-and-forth.  Also, I’ve been trained to complain on Twitter, so be ready (more on that later).

- I’ll sign up for your emails if I have to in order to buy something from you (for receipt), BUT I’d rather not.  Instead, let me “sign in” via Facebook Connect or Twitter Oauth.

- In most cases, I don’t want to hear from you via text messaging. I just don’t, so don’t scam me into signing up. It will only hurt our relationship. Now if you have a really compelling offer, then I’ll give it a shot.  The Chick-fil-A at Colony Square in midtown Atlanta is a good example of text done well.  Most of the other programs are just noise.

- I will follow you on Twitter if it becomes an easier way to get your customer service folks to listen to me.  And they better listen, because I have a VERY LOUD VOICE.  When I’m on Twitter I don’t use my inside voice.  Remember, I have to check my email, so make it worth my while.

- I will download your mobile app if it benefits me in ways Google can’t. Just gonna give me locations to your stores?  Not really interested in that.  But if you can improve my life, maybe improve our relationship somehow, I’m interested in that.

Just for a moment, let’s imagine a world where Twitter replaces email…

• NO MORE SPAM!*
• Due to the limit of 140 characters, those rambling, long-winded emails we all get would be no more.  People would get to the point.
• People would be forced to actually talk to each other rather than relying on email.
• Brands would be forced to be direct with their email communications – “Hey, we have a new product called Product XY, check it out”, “We’re having a sale on forklifts, buy 2 get 1 free”.
• Unsubscribing becomes oh so easy.
• NO MORE SPAM!
• Your marketing budget would suddenly drop (no more creative costs, distribution costs, etc.).
• Email would become what it should be, a direct marketing channel rather than a branding one.
• Tired of designing email to render on all platforms, text vs. html, etc.?  No more.
• All your messages would get through as there would be no more CAN-SPAM rules because…
• NO MORE SPAM!

Let me know if you have any additions!

* Ok, ok, so perhaps there is a tiny sliver of spam possibilities with Twitter.  But still.