This is a great post by Chris Wand over at Foundry Group about email and its painfully slow, even nonexistent evolution since it burst on the scene and has since become THE corporate communications and collaboration tool.  I agree and echo most of these points and this is a pretty succinct summary of both the obstacles as well as some of the innovation going on to address it.  About a year ago, I posted some thoughts on email being the original and ranking social network.

"…the email infrastructure is now being used for more than just
email—it’s a collaboration tool, a document exchange mechanism, and
even a de facto file storage system (to many this is a huge problem in
itself). Email is the core, and without doubt knowledge workers need a
new generation of tools to manage it effectively and get the most out
of it."

However, email is just part of the equation.  What’s missing here (I believe) is a broader discussion of how we engage, communicate, and share beyond email.  No doubt email is the common denominator that we all return and the "core" of what defines our day’s activities in the workplace but what about webex presentations, time spent in tools like salesforce, blog posts and comments, phone calls, IM exchanges, text messages, etc.? (see post below on hyperconnectivity).