The possibility that social networking tools will take a bite out of email in organizations suffering from IO has been discussed for a while, and some forward-thinking companies have been seeing progress in this direction. But the news from France last week takes this to a new level: the CEO of IT services firm Atos Origin, an international 49,000 employee corporation, has declared that he plans to make the company Email-free in 3 years. The intent is to replace all internal email with alternative comm channels using the new crop of social networking and collaboration tools. Read about it here (thanks to IORG member Pascal Frion for pointing this out to me).
Given our own tagline of “reducing information pollution”, IORG members will be delighted to hear CEO Thierry Breton stating that “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives … We are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”
So will this succeed? We have three years to find out, but given the strong leadership shown by the man at the top, I’m betting they can at least come close. I’m also expecting to see more of this happening in other companies, but Atos Origin will remain the first large organization to take this leap. Let’s wish them success!
