On October 9, top tech blogger Robert Scoble wrote a post regarding a question he was asked during an appearance at Cisco this week about applying Web 2.0 techniques in the enterprise. His response struck a chord with us at Zapproved. He replied that “every day I’d try to come up with some way to avoid using email.” To top it off, he gave the problem a great name: The Enterprise Email Crisis.
Reading Scoble’s overview of the problem mirrored many of the same observations we had when designing Zapproved. Email is a great tool, but in today’s enterprises it is introducing massive inefficiencies into the system. Scoble labels it the “n*n problem” which encapsulates his hypothesis that the number of emails generated by a group is equal to the number of people squared. He describes a hypothetical news release approval in which 10 approvers generate 100 emails ― plus a huge headache because of version control issues.
Hmm, I think we should all start calling this The Scoble Theorem of Enterprise Email. I’ll get working on the Wikipedia entry right away.
Back to the issue of email. I’ve experienced it. I’m willing to bet that if you’ve worked in a company that has its own parking lot that you’ve lived it too. It’s a problem that needs a solution and therein lies our opportunity. We feel like we are building an ideal platform to solve this problem with Zapproved. It’s lightweight, simple, puts a sharp focus on decisions, reduces loose ends, and keeps everyone working on a centralized document.
As Scoble concludes: “I am looking for companies that solve REAL pain in enterprises and that deliver real benefits to bottom lines and productivity. It’s going to be those companies that will survive lean times…” Even in re-reading those words, it makes us want to work even harder because we have a great opportunity in front of us. We ARE one of those companies.
Stay tuned, Mr. Scoble, you’ll be hearing a lot more about Zapproved soon.
Posted by Chris Bright 
