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Blog versus email as a communication tool

I get deluged with emails sent to me for my information, but that require no response.

So I couldn’t help but notice what Scott Niesen, Director of Marketing at Attensa, had to say in a presentation at Enterprise 2.0, about drawing a distinction between ‘what you need to know’ and ‘what you need to respond to.’

As paraphrased by Doug Cornelius, who attended Niesen’s session:

A blog is a communication tool. It is well suited to what you need to know. Email is better for information that has a need to respond. Take a look at you email flow and think about how much of this you need to react to. Most of it is just information you need to know. But by the information being pushed into email, my inbox is acting as my content management system. A blog or a collection of blogs makes a much better content management system. It is easier to search, easier to find content and easier to add content.

Hear hear. Use a blog. Use a project management tool like Basecamp (basically a blog). Use a wiki. Use Google docs/spreadsheets for colaboration. But email for delivering information I need to know is distracting, oppressive, and impossible to keep track of.

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