Allow me to ask some questions about common communication bottlenecks.

Have you ever tried to track a person down inside your company and spent what seemed like hours, or even days trapped in voicemail tag just to get a simple piece of information? Perhaps something like another person’s contact details, or to follow up on how a meeting, or job went? How about tracking where your employees, or coworkers are so you can work around their schedule? How about where your people were on a specific day months ago because you needed the information to resolve a customer issue?

Have you ever had to delay an important decision because you couldn’t get in touch with somebody in your organization by phone, or email once again looking for details?

Have you ever searched for information that you knew was somewhere in your email only to never find it? Did you have to email, or call somebody else to get that information resent to you?

Have you ever had a phone conversation with somebody and told them you will email them the information they need when you get back to your computer, or when you have a chance?

In each of the scenarios above the information that was being sought was trapped somewhere; perhaps your email, another person’s email, somebody else’s address book, or perhaps their work log – if they even keep one. Maybe it was recorded on somebody else’s computer, or just in their head. Regardless in each of these cases the information you sought was trapped in a silo somewhere. I use the term silo because it is an apt metaphor for storage mediums where information piles up, but isn’t easily accessible by others.

Imagine how much easier your life would be, how much more productive you and your employees, or coworkers would be if everybody had access to shared address books, shared calendars, shared notes and shared documents. Then imagine being able to access all of this shared data from any device connected to the network; your laptop, your desktop, your iPhone, or even somebody else’s computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

How much time could you save tracking down simple things like contact details?

How much time could you save by reading a shared calendar entry where all of the participants added their own notes? Or even a single calendar entry that described how a meeting one of your service, or sales people had with a client, or supplier? Could you provide them with additional insight and guidance after reading those details that you currently aren’t getting? Could you help them drive more business by adding your perspective?

How much time could you save by always knowing where your service and sales people are?

How many additional meetings, or service calls could you schedule with clients if you had a bird’s eye view of how your people’s time was scheduled?

How much time could you save by not having to email documents back and forth because they were stored in a central location accessible by virtually any network connected device?

I suppose some businesses aren’t aware of the multitude of software tools on the market to facilitate better group collaboration. However, I also see lots of organizations that have the tools, but don’t use them. You only get out of a collaboration system what you put into it. The more data you and your people record in a such a system the more you will get out of it. Getting the process started is the hardest part, but once you have consistent and immediate access to all of the simple information described above it’s hard to imagine functioning without it.

I would encourage you to look at how you store data and how you share it in your business. If you already have the tools in place use them! Define standard formats for recording certain data then let your people know they are expected to enter information in those formats for the benefit of everybody.

As you can probably gather I’m a big fan of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. However, the software platform is less important than how you use it and doing so on a consistent basis.

Cheers,

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is an fantastic open source solution for communicating and sharing information, but don’t just take my word for it. Check out the reviews on Google.

Cheers,

Think about the following in your organization …

How much time is wasted moving people to the physical location of paper records to utilize the information in them?

How much time is wasted having email conversations where the questions could have been easily answered by storing simple things like customer contact details, employee calendars and job schedules in a central location?

How much time is wasted trying to find  current revisions of documents, spreadsheets and presentations?

How much time is wasted playing “phone tag” trying to get answers to simple questions such as; where are my employees/co-workers today and what are they doing?

How much time is wasted for outside workers calling into the office seeking information from administrative personnel? Conversely how much time is wasted by administrative people calling field workers for information that could have been easily accessed through common records on the network?

In a nutshell silos reduce productivity and frustrate people who increasingly expect information to be readily available and complete. Silos are the major reason why most operations are not getting the full advantage of the network’s ability to interconnect business processes.

In future posts I’ll discuss how to break your information out of silos through the use of effective collaboration tools and business practices.

Cheers,

Storing information in central locations that are accessible by everybody on a team seems natural to many of us, but there are still a lot of medium and small sized businesses who cling to the dead tree format for a significant portion of their operations.

When I see people filling out reports then faxing them to another party only to be entered manually into a standalone system I wonder if the person who owns the business knows how much time could be saved by having the first person enter the data themselves over the network making it immediately available to whoever else needs it. Just think of the reduction in potential data entry mistakes as well.

Paper records aren’t just time consuming and prone to errors – they are an information silo – meaning the information is trapped in a format that isn’t easily shared, or accessed by others. That topic will be the subject of my next post.

Cheers,

The gist of his observation is that people who have significant knowledge in their industry can fall into a trap where they assume other people – namely their customers and potential customers – have the same level of understanding. He refers to this scenario as “the curse of knowledge” and points out how it can lead to major missteps and lost opportunities. He suggests spending more time with customers and listening to what they say to break free of this condition.

I found his article interesting because the situation he describes is especially pertinent to those of us who work in the technology industry. Years ago I realized that talking speeds and feeds with clients was a great way to kill a sale. Since that point in time I have made an effort to develop messages that are easy to understand. My premise has been if something is easy to understand it should be easy to communicate, which in turn should make it easier for people to buy into.

I also wholeheartedly agree with Scott’s suggestion to spend more time with customers. On more than one occasion I have been surprised at how a client interacted with some piece of technology in a completely unexpected manner. Gaining that type of insight has proved to be invaluable when developing strategies for myself and my clients that is applicable to end-users.

Being a good listener and observing other people are two habits that can help all of us avoid “the curse of knowledge”.

Cheers,

Cheers,