Seems that the family of business communication is taking an interesting turn according to Michelle Conlin in this article entitled E-mail Is So Five Minutes Ago. This article, featured in Business Weekly, makes some excellent points about the downfalls of email as a collaborative communication medium in a corporate environment. Conlin exclaims that Wikis and Blogs are becoming the new way for teams to practice an “open disclosure” protocol advised by Ivy League business schools. Excellent article filled with a lot of great points.

Personal Anecdote Tangent
One section of the article I found to be of most interest to me concerning a recent event, is that reference to instant messenger in the office place.

That’s what Darren Lennard is beginning to grasp at Dresdner. Instead of chatting via e-mail, Lennard now uses the bank’s own version of Instant Messenger.

Upon an office visit to a large business here in the Lansing, Michigan area, I asked the receptionist to speak to the owner of the company. The receptionist sat at her computer, typing away, nodding her head that she would see if he was in at the moment. A number of minutes passed, and she still sat in her seat. I figured that she was just being rude, but as I was being patient, I said nothing. Eventually (probably five minutes later) my patience began to wear really thin, wondering if she would ever see if I could have my appointment. Then she finally provided a response to me that the owner was currently not in. At first, I was a little upset with the receptionist, figuring her for blowing me off and not acting as a friendly face of the company. But then it dawned on me that she had been sitting there conversing with members of her office, finding out if that individual was around.

Now that is one efficient way to handle an office environment. Instant messenger.

Everytime we go grocery shopping, we’re faced with a tough decision. Buy the name brand, or save 30 cents and get the off-brand. Tonight I had a craving for some pizza rolls. Conveniently I was at Meijer (an overpriced version of Wal-Mart found here in the Midwest), so buying some wasn’t a difficult task. However, in going to the frozen food section of the store, I was faced with the common decision. Totino’s or Meijer brand. After my friend stood there calculating price / oz. for a few seconds in his head, we decided to give the Meijer brand a shot (they were on sale of couse). To the check out. To the oven.

Believe it or not the Meijer brand were actually really good. In fact, I want to say-for the record-that they were actually better than the more expensive name-brand competitor. Now let me beg the question. What edge does Totino’s have over my pizza roll purchases in the future? If I have become to trust Meijer as much as the great Italian cuisine of Totino/Jeno, why should I pay more? What happens to a name brand company when they are being undercut by generic-ism, generic-ism that is, in fact, meeting their quality of product? May seem like a silly point to make, but you can see why this could be an important subject to Betty Crocker.