SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter and feature analysis from Lance Haun, vice president of outreach for MeritBuilder, the main guy over at Rehaul.com and a member of the SmartBrief on Workforce Advisory Board on this blog.
Last week’s poll question: E-mail is increasingly being replaced with real-time communication platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Wave. What do you think communication will look like in your business in five years?
- Still driven by e-mail first, other technologies second, 65%
- We’ll be using something so new, it hasn’t been discovered yet, 18%
- Primarily real-time communication platforms such as chat, collaborative suites and social networking. 14%
- Technology? We’ll still be using paper memos in 2014! 3%
“An overwhelming majority of people believe that e-mail isn’t being replaced anytime soon. Considering how entrenched communication platforms become a part of an organization, it isn’t a surprise to see this sort of response. The more interesting part is that nearly 20% leapfrog current real-time tools and believe we haven’t even see the communication platform we’ll be using in five years.” –Lance Haun
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Most of social media tools require an email to set up an account, receive activation, etc. So while we may be using these social media more and more, email ain't going anywhere anytime soon. And according to our HRmarketer HR buyer research, email is still the best way for suppliers to hit them cold.
But then again, mainstream email was never supposed to take off like it did either. So who knows what's in store for new communications tools.
Exciting times!