Goodbye And Goodluck: Replace E-Mail With Content Delivery

Have you ever said something out loud and thought "wow, that sounds a lot worse when you say it out loud?"  When it comes to technology a few things fall into that category.  The first has to do with the pervasive and often detested Folder Structure.  "I can't find anything, it's a mess" is how many describe their network shares.  

Folders were first added to early versions of DOS (Disk Operating System) over forty years ago.  For some reason technology from the early 1980s is STILL used to organize documents and to some extent, tag them with a rudimentary set of restrictive and rigid metadata. 

Here's a fun exercise.  Say out loud "our organization is using 40-year-old technology to store and retrieve documents."  It's a strange addiction for organizations. Still using technology that is ill-equipped to survive in a world of mobile devices, quick searches, and instant access.  It seems hard to imagine, but it's the reality in which we live.

The ubiquitous network shares are frustrating for everyone and cost organizations time and money every day.  While everyone recognizes the problems of internal employees navigating a tangled web of cryptic folder names developed by people who have long since left the organization, the chaos of the network shares often creates a much bigger problem.  Across the world today as you read this, incorrect versions of documents got "sent out" because someone pulled the document from the wrong place on the network, and "we didn't know there was a newer version out there."  

This leads to the second thing that we ought to say out loud, but we'll need a little context first.  The connected modern world has shifted to an information on demand society.  Yet many organizations are still "sending out" information.  Importantly, the information is often simply not available on-demand.  The information is also almost always tied to some business process and has some context within the organization, but sadly, neither the business process or the context surrounding the document get delivered.  Here's where e-mail comes into the picture. 

As a Content Delivery System, E-Mail strips documents of their context and removes the business processes.  Why did we send out the wrong version of the document? It's simple, we use a tool that disregards the document version and the internal approval process.

That leads us to the next part we need to say out loud.  "In a connected world, our Content Delivery System doesn't deliver information on demand, and it disregards the context and business processes associated with the information."  That's a mouth full but read it again and ask yourself why any organization seeking a strategic advantage would use such an outdated Content Delivery System?

As you begin to think about every document as a piece of content with valuable bits of information all wrapped up in a business process, it seems astounding that such a valuable "thing" would be attaching to an e-mail and sent out.  What we are effectively saying is "good-bye and good luck... I hope this is the right stuff and it's going to the right person, and they know what to do with it." 

But wait, it gets worse!  Sometimes we ALL forget to attach a file and hopefully someone tells us so we can follow up with another e-mail.  Sometimes the e-mail gets blocked because the file is too big, has the wrong extension or doesn't meet other requirements set by the receiving e-mail system which you have no control over and no way of knowing.  Sometimes your e-mail gets flagged as spam because of rules you don't control.  When you think about it, there's a stunning amount of "luck" when relying on goodbye and good luck e-mail as a Content Delivery System.

Let's contrast that with work that TEAM IM is doing for clients right now.  Content is being made available on demand and importantly, within the context of the organization which includes the business processes.  Imagine, rather than just sending a file in e-mail and hoping it goes through, you are able to extend your business process and the context surrounding the content to directly engage people outside your organization.  Imagine a world where E-Mail has been replaced as a Content Delivery System and your valuable content and business processes work together cohesively even outside the walls of the company.

The days of uneasy "goodbye and good luck" E-Mail are replaced with controlled and managed processes that get extended to customers, suppliers and business partners.  You know where the content is, who has seen it and what they've done.  Easy examples of how organizations may leverage these advantages include Contracts, Standard Operating Procedures, Safety Documents, Field Service, Accident & Injury Claims, and Engineering and Job Site Documents.  

I have great news!  You don't have to imagine.  Start small.  Take a single business process and roll out a new process for content delivery.  Do a proof of concept.  It builds confidence, experience and momentum.  Soon the business processes and departments that use them will be coming on-line one after the other and before you know it, you're looking at a dashboard showing the health of your processes instead of chasing e-mails and statuses all day long.

With the tools and capabilities available today, there has never been a better time to tell your E-Mail system "Goodbye and good luck" and switch to a capable Content Delivery System.  Reach out to TEAM IM today and let's have a discussion about "the art of the possible."  Let's find a path forward so your organization can say "goodbye and good luck" to the chaos of uncontrolled e-mail once and for all.