Go Fetch – Throw PLM A RSS Bone!

Do you ever get the feeling that you are a dog and your design data is a stick?

All day long you are asking people for information that helps you in the creation of a design deliverable. The typical way of doing this is a cut and paste process of email back and forth. This works because it is simple to create the message and you can format the request any way you desire. The problem comes when get what you asked for, a reply! You are now left to fetch the message from the mess of a thing we call an inbox. Email, the killer app, is doing just that, killing us. Not sure this is true just google email productivity…

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with micro messaging. The problem is the management of these messages. Email or lets say messaging systems have done little to nothing relative to improving how we manage, store or organize our messages. The reality is things are getting worse… We have more messaging options today – handheld devices and/or new messaging solutions like twitter and yammer.

Don’t you feel like a dog looking for a bone when you search your inbox? I know I do! Sure search works if you can remeber enough of a string that was in the mail discussions, but typically even a day later you cannot. I’ve seen dogs that can find a stone thrown in the water if you give them enough time… Wouldn’t it be cool to stay in the your dog house, you know the place where you had a need to create a message. What if I am creating a budget in excel and I need to ask some for some information, why not click the cell, create a message and have the reply come right back to this cell? In CAD why not select the feature, right click, create message and have the replies comes back to this feature? No inbox, no search, no mess … no fetch.

Is RSS an automated fetch?I think you can say yes to this question. The problem I see is how many feeds can you manage before you have another inbox mess? My guess is this is a small number and therefore RSS ends up generating more noise than value. Unless there is a simple way to turn on and off or dynamically manage these feeds. What if you could fetch on the fly? What if you could select a cell in excel or a set of features in CAD and see all the discussions (all questions asked about this selection) and all the replies and all the supporting files people used to reply?