Email is Dead – Or At Least Being Reduced By Web 2.0 and Other Advancements

Actually, it has been dead since last year according to Slate due to a new generation of technology, tools, and the ever evolving online sophistication of users that are using portals, wiki’s, twitter, web conferencing, shared calendaring and other tools to, if not eliminate completely, at least subdue email into submission.

A few companies have banned internal emails, while others reduce the quantity of email by using portals and RSS feeds for internal emails in addition to the following:

• For basic communication why not move to instant messaging or web conferencing??
• For calendaring, what about shared corporate calendaring systems or even simple solutions like sharing your Outlook calendar.
• Note taking, group information and file sharing – Why not build a wiki around your client-prospect relationship, internal initiative or whatever you are doing? It takes about a minute to setup and the medium induces collaboration, knowledge sharing, and allows for more freedom of expression and innovation.
• CYA – I don’t have a solid alternative for this yet, any thoughts?

Collaboration, communication and even sharing files with wiki’s, portals, and other file sharing tools is secure and more reliable for getting past ISPs, corporate filters, and SPAM/virus blockers.

Still don’t believe? Think about who is not using standard email:

1. Generation Y and anybody after. Hello, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
2. Most executives use Blackberry, Palm, iPhone or equivalent anyways (each of these mobile email solutions is at or near 15 million users).

Studies vary, but general consensus found on the Web is that 30 minutes a day per employee is spent on non-business email and up to 2.5 hours per day per employee. The average corporate email account receives 18 MB of mail and attachments each day!!

Comments

[Ephor]

Email is unproductive, but so our most corporate meetings. Check out this link calculate your own cost of meetings: http://www.payscale.com/meeting-miser

[Ephor]

Example proactive corporate measures on reducing "email hell": http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/email-hell.html