Death to Email!

Fast Company: Email Is The New Pony Express--And It's Time To Put It Down

Email, like paper letters delivered by horseback, has become an unproductivity tool and may just be the biggest time killer in the modern workplace. Here's where companies are headed next. ...

So what's the solution? Our idea: Turn email into a conversation. Get rid of the inbox. Build an online platform where departments can post and respond to messages on central discussion threads, Facebook-style. Then integrate that with Twitter and Facebook so great ideas can be broadcast--with a click--to the world. Conversations isn’t a revolutionary concept; it’s a duh-it’s-about-time concept. And it’s worked for us and 5 million clients. A year from now, we may well be reading email its last rites. Here’s why:

Email has become an unproductivity tool. Right now, the typical corporate user spends 2 hours and 14 minutes every day reading and responding to email ...

Email is linear, not collaborative. Email was never intended for collaborative work. ...

Email is not social. Email is where good ideas go to die. ...

Your inbox is a black hole. You may be able to quickly and easily search your inbox, but odds are the rest of your department or company can’t. ...

Sharing documents on email is a joke....

I hope he is right.

Comments

[Dan Anderson-Little]

I'm really curious about this Mike--as a father of three kids who mostly communicate via texting, FaceBook, and Twitter, I can see what this person means. I often have to send my kids a text after I send them an email so they will read the email. But much of my email is texting by another means--that is I am coordinating with one person (or a small groups of people). And many people my age (45-60) don't text nearly as much as they email. And Twitter and other social sites require that people monitor those with some sort of newsfeed or aggregator. I don't know many people my age who use news feeds. If it is intra-organizational communication, I think the notion of "conversations" makes sense. But email still has a place--it is frequently better than phone calls because you need a response soon, but not immediately. And, most importantly, how will I be able to warn my friends about the latest computer virus that will END THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT?

[Michael W. Kruse]

Dan, initially entitled this "Death to Email! (Sort of)". ;-) I think the issue is that we have tried to use email as tool to accomplish many things it was never intended do and does not do well. My theory is that corporations will develop models that are going to spread out to the public. I'm right on the edge of getting HootSuite. Email won't completely disappear any time soon, anymore than snail mail will. But hopefully newer more productive models are on their way.

And BTW, yes it is the end of the world as we know it. And along with R.E.M., I feel fine. ;-)

[Almas Khan]

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[Cameron]

Hmmm... it sounds like he's suggesting something similar to Google Wave.

[ceemac]

Not sure how a "Platform" will be any better than e-mail for promotiong conversations. The folks that check their e-mail several times a day will check the "platform" several times a day. The folks that look at their e-mail 3 times a week will look at the "platform" about as often.

Of course a business can make regular checking of the platform a requirement of it's employees. A little harder to do with a committee of volunteers.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Cameron, maybe Myspace is Facebook as Wave is to whatever this next new platform is. ;-

Ceemac, I'm thinking of trying to solve a problem by doing something like a blog post and having people crowd source a solution, rather than sending out an email that develops of endless collection of email responses, branching to multiple threads, with one thread or place to see the entire discussion.

There is also software that makes meeting scheduling far less painless than the process of 20-30 emails that can emerge from five people trying to set a date for a meeting.

Instead of sending an email to describe an important new idea, people could video conference a presentation and interact on the spot.

I suspect there will always be a need for something akin to email but a lot of the stuff we try to do by email could be done much better using other platforms. That was my point.