What is the Future of Email?

All of this this talk about Teams, Groups, SharePoint, and Yammer – and yet not much talk about the leading collaboration tool in use today: email. Yes, that’s right – email. Having a discussion on collaboration without email is kind of like talking project management tools without mentioning Excel, which remains the top tool for the category. In project management, Excel may not be the best tool, or the right tool for every solution, but it’s the default solution and, in most cases, gets it done. Same goes for email. There are amazing tools out there for connecting and sharing and collaborating, and yet email persists.

In this month’s #CollabTalk tweetjam we will dive into the topic, and hear from another fantastic panel on where they think email will go in the future. While we’ve heard for more than a decade that “email is going away” the reality is that it continues to be an important part of how we communicate and share within the enterprise. Our focus this month will be “What is the Role of Email in the Digital Workplace?”

I’m really looking forward to hearing your opinions and experiences. Please join the community discussion on Wednesday, March 29th at 9am PDT. You can join the conversation on the Twitter platform of your choice using the #CollabTalk hashtag, or log into the dedicated tweetjam space at http://twubs.com/CollabTalk

If you’ve never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twubs, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, retweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1. How important is email to communication and collaboration?
2. When is the right time to use email, and when is the wrong time?
3. Social was *supposed* to replace email. What happened?
4. Will email be reduced to a notification service, leveraged by other apps? Why or why not?
5. How has the cloud impacted the way your organization uses/looks at email?
6. What are your favorite email innovations from the past 5 years, and why?
7. What will be email’s role in the Digital Workplace going forward? (Think 10-year road map)

Of course, there will be side-questions, side-conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. The dialog is usually thought-provoking but also fun. Participating on this panel are a number of MVPs and experts on SharePoint and Office 365. Of course, this is open to the public, so please join in the discussion!

• Dr. Steven Marsh (@drstevemarsh), director of product marketing at Metalogix
• Drew Madelung (@dmadelung), SharePoint and Office 365 MVP and architect at Concurrency Inc.
• Darrell Webster (@DarrellCWebster), Office 365 MVP and senior technology strategist at BitTitan
• Barry Jinks (@BJinks), founder and ceo at Colligo
• Fernando Melo (@frmelo21), SharePoint architect and evangelist at Helios Cooperative
• Brian Alderman (@brianalderman), SharePoint MVP, founder and ceo of MicroTechPoint
• Jeff Shuey (@jshuey), founder and managing director at NuNalu, president of IAMCP Seattle
• Treb Gatte (@tgatte), Business Solutions MVP, international speaker/man of mystery at TumbleRoad LLC
• Chris Slemp (@cslemp), director of strategy at CarpoolAgency
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Sebastien Levert (@sebastienlevert), Office365 MVP and specialist in Azure, SharePoint, and O365
• Erica Toelle (@ericatoelle), portals and content manager at Valorem Consulting
• Andrew Connell (@andrewconnell), SharePoint MVP, and founder, instructor, male model at Voitanos LLC
• Jeff Willinger (@jwillie), Office 365 MVP and director of collaboration and social business at Rightpoint
• Dean Swann (@sdeanswann), social collaborator, growth hacker and product manager for UnlimitedViz
• Heather Newman (@heddanewman), co-founder and cmo of ContentPanda
• David Willis (@Exclaimer), senior marketing executive at Exclaimer
• Paul Stork (@pstork), SharePoint MVP and MCM, principal architect at BlueChip
• Noah Sparks (@noahsparks), community igniter and strategy manager at Carpool Digital
• J. Dan Attis (@jdattis), SharePoint MVP and sr. solution architect at B&R Business Solutions
• Marlee Long (@cardiolog), marketing manager at Intlock
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Office Servers and Services MVP, founder of PixelMill
• Bo Woronowicz (@boworonowicz), independent consult, president of Office 365 Seattle
• Eli Robillard (@erobillard), SharePoint MVP, musician, fly-fisher, collaboration technology guy
• Jennifer Mason (@jennifermason), SharePoint MVP and director of innovation & strategic solutions at Planet Technologies
• Melinda Morales (@trulymelinda), solution consultant at 3Sharp
• Patrick Curran (@pcfromdc), director, federal group at Planet Technologies
• Kelvin Hoyle (@kelvin_hoyle), VanSPUG president, SPS Vancouver board member, systems specialist at WorkSafeBC
• Jussi Roine (@jussiroine), SharePoint MCM and MVP, chief architect at Onsight
• Jeffrey Schwartz (@jeffreyschwartz), editor of Redmond Magazine and editor-at-large for Redmond Channel Partner magazine
• Jeremy Thake (@jthake), vp of product technology at Hyperfish
• Gokan Ozcifci (@gokanozcifci), SharePoint MVP and IT infrastructure consultant at Neoxy
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and TyGraph
• Bill Ayers (@SPdoctor), SharePoint MCM/MCSM, solution architect and developer
• Kate Juanengo (@kjuanengo), community manager at AvePoint
• John White (@diverdown1964), SharePoint MVP and cto at UnlimitedViz Inc.
• Michal Pisarek (@michalpisarek), SharePoint MVP and founder of Bonzai Intranet
• Robert Toro (@SharePointToro), SharePoint practice director at Slalom
• Randy Drisgill (@drisgill), SharePoint MVP and branding and design expert at Rackspace
• Richard Harbridge (@rharbridge), SharePoint MVP and cto of 2toLead
• Brian Culver (@SPbrianculver), SharePoint MCM and founder, president of Expert Point Solution
• Shyam Oza (@ShyamOza), senior product manager at AvePoint
• Antoine Faisandier (@a_faisandier), co-founder and ceo of Powell Software US
• Nikkia Carter (@carterMcGServ), ceo at CMW LLC and tech speaker
• Tom Resing (@resing), senior content developer, modern assistance and support experience at Microsoft
• Ben Henderson (@ben3003), solutions specialist at RecordPoint
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Simeon Cathey (@simeoncathey), ceo and co-founder of ContentPanda
• Bo Woronowicz (@boworonowicz), independent consult, president of Office 365 Seattle
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, independent consultant
• Dan Usher (@binarybrewery), SharePoint MVP, implementation engineer and architect at Booz Allen Hamilton
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Office Server and Services MVP, chief evangelist for Beezy, and founder of CollabTalk

Hopefully I’ve captured everyone who has confirmed. If not, drop me a line. Otherwise, everyone is invited – and I’ll see you online this Wednesday. And if you can’t make the time – don’t worry. I’ll capture the entire discussion in Storify late on Wednesday, or early Thursday. Watch my Twitter feed @buckleyplanet for updates.

And thank you once again to this month’s sponsors — Exclaimer and tyGraph!