I have been using Cyber Dust for about a month now and have had the opportunity to talk to several great people from NASCAR drivers & pro athletes to private equity fund managers. There is a diverse crowd there that is really engaged and willing to have a conversation with you. The more I used it, the more I really liked it. It simply feels more like a regular conversation to me than any other form of electronic communication. Recently, I made the decision to get all of my partners and employees to use Cyber Dust and here are some of the reasons why I made the move:
- How many memos really need to be saved? Think about how much clutter you have in your email system because despite your best efforts to get employees to clear their inboxes they still just let messages pile up. With Cyber Dust you can remind your employees of things like holiday office hours or cleaning the fridge in the lunch room by the end of the day, etc. Believe me, even though the message disappears they will get it and seriously do those really need to be saved forever?
- That funny joke that you know someone is dying to forward that is likely to get broadcast out in short order will never get the chance to go viral with Cyber Dust. Sometimes they are inappropriate, often only to one person. However, they almost never are intended for all eyes in the office. What was that joke again? I guess you will never know now.
- On a more serious side, Cyber Dust encourages more concise communications. Sometimes lots of words are needed, but more often than not less is more. Since messages disappear quickly it allows for communications that are more conversational that most likely will result in more production at work and less time typing unnecessarily long emails (plus reading and responding to them).
- If a legal situation comes up (and it happens to all businesses), email servers, chat logs, and other forms of communication are discoverable. In general, that may support or hurt your case depending upon the situation. However, despite even your best efforts it’s often not helpful and it certainly is a pain to have to pull from your servers. More communications on Cyber Dust will reduce that workload on your IT team and your overall risk as a business.
- With blast lists in Cyber Dust you can easily create a message distribution list for your team that will make it easy to get the word out quickly just like you currently do with email. This is an easy way to let the team know about wins that you have gotten whether that is a new contract, a big sales day etc. It’s great to keep them in the know, but not the type of communication that needs to be kept forever.
- Inevitably some employees will resist and tell you that they simply can’t conduct their business via Cyber Dust. Well, keep in mind that your customer’s information and all your business transactions are kept in your system of record whether that is a CMS or other software you run your business by. That is where those details belong not buried in long email conversations or instant messenger chats anyway.
- Some employees do have problems with memory and that can be an issue with Cyber Dust messages that disappear. If you find yourself in that situation you can always repeat a blast to your team’s blast list (and honestly probably should anyway). With that said, it can be a really good way to identify employees that you need to communicate with differently to keep everyone on the same page. You may have that situation now with in-person conversations and never know it.
- Negotiations are often a chain of communications and discussions most of which do not need to be on record and frankly are better left off the record. Obviously you will still have a contract that will govern any business relationships you enter into but with Cyber Dust you can carry on more conversations without having to pick up the phone and/or worry about confidential negotiations leaking.
- Confidentiality is by definition a very sensitive topic and one that is generally not kept as often as you might think. You know that email signature that says the email you just received is for your eyes only? How many times have you forwarded that (be honest)? With Cyber Dust if a communication is truly confidential then you have a much better chance of it staying between you and the receiver.
- Now one of my pet peeves, the ridiculous reply all emails. If you want to ask your team a question in general it is not necessary for everyone to reply to everyone else yet for some strange reason they are compelled to do so. With Cyber Dust that is a thing of the past. You can ask the whole team a question, blast it to your team list, and get individual responses as you intended.
I’m sure there are several more reasons why Cyber Dust is a good idea to incorporate into my businesses but those are the first that come to mind. I think it’s a really great tool for internal and external business communications that if you haven’t explored, you really should consider it. If you want to get more information you can go to http://www.cyberdust.com or just download it directly on your mobile device. If you end up jumping on Cyber Dust send me a dust at +kenneymyers and let me know what you think.