E-Mail: Tough Nut to Crack
This is a page straight from my book of philosophy. Lot's of great technologies. Start off in the bliss and excitement of a new cool tool, and then, slowly, the shine wears off. Now I like getting my newsfeeds in Outlook (I use Newsgator), but I have a long line of other applications that have fallen into the dustbin of my hard drive. The point being made here is one all software vendors and consultants should take note of: understand how your users/clients work, before you recommend the latest solution.
Here's a good case in point. I use Shinkuro to converse with my friend Jon of Borealis Networks (the host of this website) all the time…in fact as I'm writing this. I used to think that Shinkuro's Spartan chat window was drab, and could use more features. Then as I used it more and more I got to like the basic simplicity of typing in one pane and reading in another. Oh there are features that I'd like to see, like copy from the message window, but overall the simplicity makes it a great tool. Something to think about.
“To fix what's wrong with e-mail, vendors must listen to average users.Much of the information coming out of the Inbox conference–held in San Jose, Calif., earlier this month–focused on how to fix what have become very big problems with e-mail. The suggested improvements and innovations make sense to me, but, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking: People will make use of these new features for a while, maybe, but then they'll just revert to e-mail form.”