I often address the problem of email overload in this blog. Recently a colleague pointed out to me several high-profile articles focusing on the same problem.

A NY Times blog post in December 2007 asks "Is Information Overload a $650 Billion Drag on the Economy", describing it as follows:

The information-overload toll is largely a byproduct of workers grappling with the growing tide of e-mail, instant messages, cellphone calls, wikis, blogs and the like.

... while technology investors bemoan the lack of decent solutions:

• 2,433 Unread Emails Is An Opportunity For An Entrepreneur


• Did Darwin Skip Over Email?

E-MAIL has become the bane of some people’s professional lives.

The NY Times article goes on to describe the new wave of tech startups that attempt to address the problem by tinkering with your inbox (ClearContext, Xobni, BoxBe, RapidReader, et al), and then dismisses them all by pointing out that:

None of these services really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps us prepare replies.

Indeed. The true problem here is not the email protocol, or current email clients, both of which serve their purpose reasonably well. The problem is what I call network overload, which refers to the increasing volume of human interaction in the workplace. This interaction manifests itself not only as email, but also as phone calls, conference calls, text messages, instant messages, face-to-face meetings, and in many other ways.

To solve the network overload problem, one must first ascertain its cause. In this case, the root cause is not due to easier communication via technology such as email. Rather, the root cause is the increased amount of collaboration that most people are expected to participate in.

To deal with this, one first needs a means of sorting the wheat from the chaff - distinguishing messages (of any kind) that are part of an ongoing collaborative activity from messages (of any kind) that are simply informational.

Only then is it possible to fix the real problems of email:

• Discussions that fizzle out, fragment among different colleagues, or
  lose their purpose


• Attachments scattered all over your file system


• No way of ensuring use of a specific version of an attachment, or even
  of knowing what version your colleagues are using


• Actions that cannot be tracked, or for which you are not sure if anyone
  has even taken responsibility


• Doing work without knowing what value anyone is getting from it


• Having to spend too much time assembling audit trails for work carried
  out

TAKE AWAY

The next generation desktop productivity tool cannot possibly be a clever Outlook plug-in that endlessly re-organizes the messages in your inbox, hoping thereby to discover hidden nuggets of gold. This is fiddling while Rome burns! Rather, the next step forward in workplace technology is software based on a robust theory of human interaction: a Human Interaction Management System (HIMS).

A HIMS helps you understand the collaborative work processes (Stories) in which you are engaged, and makes it easier for you to execute your part in these Stories. As the NY Times would say, a HIMS eliminates the problem of e-mail overload by helping you prepare replies.

If you are interested to try out a HIMS, the reference implementation of a HIMS is the free HumanEdj, available now in beta.

Posted by keithhb in Email | Permalink | Comments (0)

When visiting Sun Microsystems last week, I picked up a booklet they are currently giving away: "Being the best @ Email for Dummies", subtitled "Stop the email madness".

The book is actually part of the well-known John Wiley & Sons "... for Dummies" series. What is interesting is that Sun saw fit to sponsor its production, and commission one of their staff to write it.

Sun do offer an email solution. However, there is no advertising for this in their Dummies booklet. The only plug they make for their own products is for their Sustainable Computing initiative, which has no obvious relation to email.

Further, the advice given in the book itself does not necessitate use of Sun software or hardware in any way.

So why have Sun gone to the trouble and expense of producing this book and giving it away free?

TAKE AWAY

I have described in a previous blog post how "If you want efficiency in the 21st century workplace, email is the place to look."

It seems that Sun has got the message. They clearly hope to create the general impression that their company understands the pain felt by everyone currently using email (which is just everyone), and can offer a way forward.

What a shame, then, that their advice doesn't go nearly far enough. Most of the problems we all face with email are hardly touched by the Sun booklet:

• Discussions that fizzle out, fragment among different colleagues, or lose their purpose


• Attachments scattered all over your file system


• No way of ensuring use of a specific version of an attachment, or even of knowing what version your colleagues are using


• Actions that cannot be tracked, or for which you are not sure if anyone has even taken responsibility


• Doing work without knowing what value anyone is getting from it


• Having to spend too much time assembling audit trails for work carried out


• and so on.

Over the next few weeks I will be addressing these problems in this blog, and showing how they can be resolved via a new breed of lightweight software solutions. If you find email frustrating as a workplace tool, stay tuned.

Posted by keithhb in Email | Permalink | Comments (0)