Enterprise Microblogging

Excerpt

ICT support of communication in organizations is not only becoming more important, but also more difficult. For example, many knowledge workers increasingly experience information overload with regard to their email inboxes, as many users have fallen into the habit of sending messages to large numbers of receivers simultaneously (using the CC feature). Typical reasons for such behavior are that users want to reassure others, that they do not know for whom a particular piece of information might be relevant, or just habit. As a result, a majority of email users today is confronted with an unsorted mass of messages, of which only a fraction is actually relevant for them personally. The sorting and processing of these messages on the other hand is time consuming and cumbersome; moreover, the likelihood increases that the user overlooks important information in the flood of messages. Against this backdrop, the principle of Enterprise Microblogging (EMB) promises to create a new channel for organizational and team communication. Similar to Twitter on the public Internet, users can post short messages in this new channel, which is especially beneficial in cases where information may be relevant for a whole group of users that is unknown in advance. For example, users might post links to interesting online resources, report on important events or just update others on team tasks they have finished. The resulting information stream can then be composed and filtered by the platform users in various ways, in order to ensure relevance of what messages are personally received. Besides, all messages are stored and remain accessible and searchable for future reference. …