Last week I wrote about the “death” of email which through a chain of events (thanks Joshua) put me in touch with Lars Ploughmann who by coincidence was posting on the same idea at the exact same time. The main difference being his post being much more thorough round-up of arguments around the issue than my quick post. Go read Lars’ discussion here.
In August of this year, I published some thoughts on how effective email is when it is used as the only or main communication tool for a project. The post became part of a discussion on multiple blogs so I shall try to pull the arguments together and provide my inchoate conclusion.
I can also do Lars’ infographic one better, I was meeting with a banking industry executive and colleague of mine last week who had no fewer than 14 thousand accumulated unread (an not spam) messages in his outlook inbox (of an amazing 140 thosand in total, “hey at least I see 90% of my email” he protested). I don’t think this is so uncommon, the enterprise is clearly reaching an oversaturation of email. It’s time to start working on new tools don’t you think?
I like your friend’s witty comment about reading 90% of his email. In some environments, the notion is that “if it is important, they will send it again” – a strategy that sometimes evolves to “if it is important, don’t communicate it in an email”.
I like your friend’s witty comment about reading 90% of his email. In some environments, the notion is that “if it is important, they will send it again” – a strategy that sometimes evolves to “if it is important, don’t communicate it in an email”.