Time wasting??? this shows how people do bad research
I would like to reinforce mogoredmax a bit more. I am not allow to tell whom, but actually some major top 500 company (at least 2 we work with directly) have informed me in meeting that they are not allow to exchange e-mail with each other anymore, except to confirm and exchange project related information.
All inter company information need to be first exchange by voice (phone), direct contact etc...
Why!! well very simple, they notice that the social network so important in there world wide acting company was "dying" since everybody was just e-mail around (80% useless e-mail on my account if you ask me, as I don't really care what should be served in a conference room with our meeting, we have staff for that!!!!) Instant messaging (Skype and co are always off-line with me) etc... there no interaction between real people anymore and this vastly affect productivity and innovation in company.
Yes 50% or more of the talking is not productive, but 80% of our solution solving is resulting by direct conversation (yes we solve 80% of our problem by just talking to each other!!! surprise, surprise)
I am the COO and COD of our group and solve most of our business with a real hand shake or a good conversation not by sending e-mail back and fort. Yes I hate facebook, but not for the product but because if commit us to become "nerds" and kill our social competence (yes I know it's a paradox since FB is a social network) by reducing our contact to simple post and message without most of what make us different to a PC, our human emotion (business is about contact and social contact)
So after so many words, I will not take a short coffee brake and talk to my colleague next door and do some powwow, just to talk about the weather (nice weather in Germany at the moment) and maybe we will solve some problem "just talking" around
