By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    data analytics in sports industry
    Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
    6 Min Read
    data analytics on nursing career
    Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
    8 Min Read
    data analytics reveals the benefits of MBA
    Data Analytics Technology Proves Benefits of an MBA
    9 Min Read
    data-driven image seo
    Data Analytics Helps Marketers Substantially Boost Image SEO
    8 Min Read
    construction analytics
    5 Benefits of Analytics to Manage Commercial Construction
    5 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Reclaim email as a business tool
Share
Notification Show More
Latest News
big data mac performance
Data-Driven Tips to Optimize the Speed of Macs
News
3 Ways AI Has Helped Marketers and Creative Professionals Streamline Workflows
3 Ways AI Has Helped Marketers and Creative Professionals Streamline Workflows
Artificial Intelligence
data analytics in sports industry
Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
Big Data
data analytics on nursing career
Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
Analytics
data analytics reveals the benefits of MBA
Data Analytics Technology Proves Benefits of an MBA
Analytics
Aa
SmartData Collective
Aa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Inside Companies > Reclaim email as a business tool
Inside Companies

Reclaim email as a business tool

MIKE20
Last updated: 2010/11/21 at 5:52 PM
MIKE20
5 Min Read
SHARE

Any serious business discussion about information must include email.  Like it, or loathe it, email is a major part of every knowledge worker’s life.  Unfortunately many staff have grown to hate its intrusion into their personal time, the fragmentation of their work and the expectation of a rapid reply to important messages.

Any serious business discussion about information must include email.  Like it, or loathe it, email is a major part of every knowledge worker’s life.  Unfortunately many staff have grown to hate its intrusion into their personal time, the fragmentation of their work and the expectation of a rapid reply to important messages.

The result has been that many people argue that email should be phased out and replaced by the next generation of social networking and collaboration tools within the enterprise.  To some extent, this is true with collaboration and business messaging tools continuing to gain in popularity.  However, email still remains the most popular way for most people within business to share information.

More Read

Data Scientists

What Aspiring Data Scientists Are Looking For in Hiring Companies

5 Innovative and Diverse Uses of Big Data
Learn from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Data Management Hard Knocks
Intacct Improves Cloud of Collaboration, Payments and Reporting
Robot HR: How HR is Contributing to Unemployment

There are some things that we can do and in this post I suggest two quick actions that can change the email culture.

First, create the concept of “email bankruptcy”.  The term has been around for a while, but it is time to give it some formality.  Many staff report that exiting the company they work for, and the resultant clearing of their email, is a tremendous relief.  In effect we’ve created a reward for resignation, which is usually the exact opposite of the behaviour we want to encourage.

A potential solution is to allow staff to declare themselves “email bankrupts”.  The act of doing so will result in a declaration, through a message to all who have sent an email outstanding in their inbox, that nothing prior to the given date will be read or actioned.  The bankrupt then has a clean inbox and a fresh start.

Declaring bankruptcy should have some consequences, but they must not be too serious (name and shame would normally suffice).  In addition, like a financial bankrupt, they should be given some assistance to help them avoid the situation in the future.

Second, encourage staff (starting with yourself) to batch email sends.  Email was created based on the analogy of paper memos.  Those memos went through an internal or external mail system (“snail mail”) that caused a natural lag in the communication.  People typically looked at their incoming mail in the morning when they came to work.  If there was a backlog of mail they took it home in their briefcase to read and reply – but the sending was done the next day.

There is nothing wrong with doing work out-of-hours.  What is a problem is that the resulting messages appear in our colleague’s inboxes within moments of us sending them, creating a reminder that they should perhaps be working as well.  Worse, the near instant nature of email encourages responses that are rapid rather than considered – leading to many people working through something that in the past required just one person to do it properly.

The solution is to batch email in the same way that paper memos were in the past.  Email clients typically allow you to select a “delay” option.  For instance, in Outlook, go to the options tab and select “delay delivery”.  Set the delay to the next business day when working after hours and to a time several hours hence when responding to an email during business hours.

The result of this batching is that you still get the sense of being in control of your inbox without the depressing reality of a flood of replies coming in as fast as you deal with them.  As people get used to you working this way they will consider their reply carefully so as to maximise the value in the information that you return, knowing that they can’t create a dynamic conversation.

Email is a powerful tool and to reject it outright because of its shortcomings would be a mistake.

We must, however, all work to make it much more effective.

Read more at MIKE2.0: The Open Source Standard for Information Management

MIKE20 November 21, 2010
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

big data mac performance
Data-Driven Tips to Optimize the Speed of Macs
News
3 Ways AI Has Helped Marketers and Creative Professionals Streamline Workflows
3 Ways AI Has Helped Marketers and Creative Professionals Streamline Workflows
Artificial Intelligence
data analytics in sports industry
Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
Big Data
data analytics on nursing career
Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
Analytics

Stay Connected

1.2k Followers Like
33.7k Followers Follow
222 Followers Pin

You Might also Like

Data Scientists
Big DataExclusiveInside CompaniesITJobs

What Aspiring Data Scientists Are Looking For in Hiring Companies

7 Min Read

5 Innovative and Diverse Uses of Big Data

8 Min Read
Image
AnalyticsData ManagementData QualityInside CompaniesRisk Management

Learn from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Data Management Hard Knocks

3 Min Read

Intacct Improves Cloud of Collaboration, Payments and Reporting

0 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

AI and chatbots
Chatbots and SEO: How Can Chatbots Improve Your SEO Ranking?
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Exclusive
ai in ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence for eCommerce: A Closer Look
Artificial Intelligence

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US

© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?