I did an analysis of my family text messaging usage over the past six months to see if the release of iMessenger between our iPhones made any difference.  If you’re not familiar with iMessenger, it’s an update to the texting app on the iPhone that recognizes when you are messaging another iMessenger user and sends the message as data rather than as a carrier text message.  I think the graph below pretty much speaks for itself.

While this is automatic with iMessenger, I’m sure you could get similar results if you used data based messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger rather than SMS when possible.  It also explains to me why AT&T eliminated the middle tier text messaging payment plan.  It’s now $20 for unlimited or pay as you go.  Since we have three people on our plan it’s still cheaper for the unlimited, but if it was just me I’d be giving it second thoughts.

Social Business.  It’s all the buzz now.  Everyone who’s anyone in business is proclaiming the virtues of the social business model for success.  Let’s cut through the hype.  There are some things that the concepts derived from social networking for personal use can be leveraged in the business world.

Activity Streams - knowing what your co-workers are working on and providing relevant feedback without spending the day crafting unwieldy emails.

Status Updates - sharing with your team what is happening in real time instead of during the weekly status report.

Following - letting the system tell you when things are happening with people or projects of interest.

The hitch with all of these though is when there is no way to take practical action on the thoughts generated in “socialized” interactions.  Any system, tool, or solution that fails to provide a method of managing the results of said conversations is no better than having a meeting without an agenda.  Lots of talking may go on, but afterwards no one is responsible for anything.

When considering social business tools always ask this, “What are we going to do when the talking stops?”

Why is it that so many people want to make collaboration projects so darn complicated?  Overloading interfaces with features, trying to fit every possible idea into one solution, and not doing anything until it’s “perfect.”  There’s times when having something that is “good enough” is far better than not having what is “perfect.”  The key is to design collaborative solutions in a way where they can be organic.  They need to grow and adapt with your needs as those needs change.  No one goes out and buys all the clothes their child will ever need in their life when they’re born, now do they?  Concentrate your energy on design solutions that meet your needs rather than meet everything you think you want and you’ll find yourself making progress a lot sooner.