Let’s face facts: E-mail just sucks as a business communications tool.

Way too many people get copied on way too many irrelevant messages. It’s a distraction. Context gets lost. Monstrous file attachments hog valuable server space and bandwidth. And some employees (typically the ones without backbone) use e-mail as a crutch to make their voices heard or send out commands to their fiefdoms, when face-to-face would be more effective.

Today in the Des Moines Register, we were mentioned in an article about the use of social networking within the workplace as an alternative to e-mail. (Except they left out our company name, Lava Row.) Lots of organizations are creating small networks within Twitter to improve communication and collaboration, and — even better — they’re getting it done quicker. BusinessWeek recently featured a Twitter vs. e-mail debate, which we encourage everyone to check out.

Google just acquired Jaiku (a web-based app similar to Twitter) and we highly suspect they’ll be mashing it into their office productivity suite soon. So, what creative things have you done in your office to improve communication?