Email is a powerful business tool, but unfortunately ends up being used for many tasks that are better handled using other applications.
Below is a list of ways email is abused:
1. Non-time sensitive information: Email's strength is in sending time sensitive communications. However, email breaks down when inboxes become clogged with messages that are not necessarily time sensitive. For example, links to blog posts, jokes, marketing emails, and discussion list subscriptions clog things up and can each be addressed in other formats. Using blogs or forums are great alternatives for this type of information since they're easily searchable and sorted by time, making it easy for people to catch up on information that's relevant to them when they have the time. And they could subscribe to the information using an RSS feed.
Check out this video about the volume of email sent internally at Google for an example of how back this can get. There has to be a a better approach than email for communicating internally like Chris Wetherell describes.
2. To do's: It's time to stop using email as a to-do list. Do you change read messages back to unread as a reminder? Are you addicted to message flags? Get out of that habit and start using some form of project management software that will help you prioritize those tasks. I like
Basecamp for this purpose. Requesting to-dos via email is an unnecessary step. Just publish them directly to your company's project management software where they can be appropriately prioritized and won't disappear in the never ending queue of new emails hitting your coworker's inbox.
3. Email forwards: get out of the habit of sending jokes, news, and other nuggets to coworkers and friends via email. You're abusing their inboxes with this stuff. A blog is a much more appropriate way to communicate this type of information since it doesn't compete with the work your friends are trying to get done. They'll still read what you've written when they have the time, and you may find that there is a larger audience for what you've written if it's published to a public site. And if a joke is not appropriate for publishing to the web under your own name, it shouldn't be sent by email either.
4. Photos: This is what
Flickr's for.
5. Group Discussions: If your company has cc: lists that are longer than the original message, there's a good chance you should be using some form of discussion board, blog, or forum platform to make the conversations easier to track, search, and archive for future employees. Using email for large group internal discussions locks up business intelligence, making it impossible for new employees to understand the decision making process behind processes and applications they're responsible or using and improving.
What would you add to the list?
1. Posted by: Alistair McDonald on March 7, 2007 6:39 AM:
What would you add to the list?
I'd add unnecessary copying of other people. If you don't need to know the info for your job, and you are not being asked for anything, you don't need to see the email.
This seems to be an institutional thing - some places do it, some don't. If your organization does it, then a manager might get dozens of CC:d emails from his staff every day.
I guess some places/people do it to add "weight" to their email - "Look, I'm CCing my boss's boss on this, so make sure you respond in time.". But
(1) you can always show/forward your sent items later, if you don't get what you need and
(2) any place where there is little respect for each other, or where people are just too busy to do their jobs, has bigger problems than just full email in-boxes. Perhaps they're full because of all those CCd emails?
I'd also add use of a work email for personal things. Keep them seperate, keep personal stuff out of the office, and keep work away from personal emails. A good policy is to refuse to deal with staff on their personal email addresses - claim "security" if you like.