3 posts tagged “email”
I used to use a great plugin for Outlook called "Lookout" that handled the indexing of my email and files (local and network).
It did super fast searches, used very little resources, and was free. It was a Microsoft beta program and was only around for a few years. They got rid of it when they incorporated search into Vista.
The problem with Vista's search (as well as Google desktop search) is that when the file set get large (3+GB email and 100GB's of files) it uses up a ton of resources and slows things down to an unacceptable degree. Neither MS or Google desktop search is all that standout on indexing network files either.
Man, how I miss Lookout!
That why I was so excited to read in TechCrunch about a new indexer (and much more) called Xobni ("inbox" backwards - oh how these email search apps like the backwords spelling!), now in beta and about to be aquired by Microsoft. It looks like a lightning fast indexer, with catogorization, meta data, threaded discussions, and web-lookup thrown in.
Oh, how I want this!!!
I'm hoping to start the beta soon!
I recently had the following scenario related to me by a good friend of mine: Someone sent out at our company yesterday a broadcast e-mail to everyone in the corporation asking if they had a recommendation for a specific situation. It happens occasionally. Someone else replied to all with a specific suggestion. She should have replied only to the sender, but not a big deal. Then someone else replied to all asking to be removed from this list (possibly facetiously, possibly not). Oh, my, the results were entertaining. In the end, more than 75 e-mails were sent to everyone in the company, each one a variation of: Their IT guy estimated approximately a half a million e-mails were generated internally. My friend estimated that, even if each email took only 1 second for people to look at and delete, there were still 17 working days lost cumulatively to this email chain. It really underscores how modern tools - in this case email - aren’t always all that modern anymore and are, at least in some cases, not even the right tools for the job... Imagine if employees had specific spaces on their corporate intranets where teams could outline problems with members who would likely have the knowledge and background to solve them. Imagine if employees could post a request for information in a common area devoted to the kind of knowledge they were seeking. Then other employee, who had something useful to contribute to solving the problem, could discuss the situation in a threaded discussion. Imagine if solutions could be presented in these spaces in a format that could be easily tagged, searched for, and even modified in the future as others refined the processes and added to the base of knowledge. But, of course, no imagination is really necessary. All these tools exist - and a few forward thinking companies have already implemented them. Now all those companies need are enough forward thinking employees to really make them work. Much has been made about the Web 2.0 revolution and the rapid rise of social media over the last two years. And, while the public social-media-scape makes general social relationships easier to form and maintain (and will surely generate some new Web-billionaires in the process), the real economic promise of the Web 2.0 revolution is going to come from within corporations. I truly believe internal social collaboration and sharing is the next big productivity step about to be taken by companies that rely on knowledge workers. The key, of course, is to get those knowledge workers to “get it” and contribute their private-knowledge base into the whole public-knowledge base of a corporation where it can mix with other’s contributions creating a “force-multiplying” effect. Employees need to realize that the old adage about money is now just as true about time…It takes time to make time. A little time spent by a few folks on an internal social-media site (perhaps a blog, wiki or discussion group) would have saved a company 17 days of worker productivity. Imagine the bright future for the first few companies with employees who really get that!
I was talking to a friend of mine the other night about the strangest email snafu I've ever heard of. Let me outline the events (names/emails are changed to make possible investigation easier)...
My friend sends an email about a meeting for the next day from home to a business associate of hers...let's call him Sam Frist (Email = samfrist@nonamecompany.com) at 10:31pm.
Email arrives in Sam Frist's inbox at 10:32pm, and he replies the next morning around 9:15am.
The next morning my friend receives a reply from Sam (Samantha) Foster (Email = samf@bicyclesrus.com) at around 10:45am to the same email. Sam Foster is wondering how she recieved the email, as she knows nothing about it.
My friend does not know Sam Foster. Sam foster does not know my friend. Sam Foster and Sam Frist do not know each other (Sam Foster even incorrectly assumed Sam Frist was a women like herself). The email was only sent to Sam Frist (I verified that). None of the parties used a common email server on either end. Nothing was in common except the same first name and the same last initial.
Except...however...it is likely that both Sam Foster and Sam Frist were using T-Mobile Blackberry's at the time....
This is like if I left a voice-message on your home answering machine in New York, and it also, somehow eneded up on an answering machine at a strangers house in New Mexico...and both home owners used Western Bell. It seems pretty serious to me.
Why is it all that serious...?
Someday, when CNN or CSPAN goes to a long shot of our various cabinet members and presidential staffers...see how many are using Blackberry's...
