Do you realize that fifteen years ago almost no one used email?  I know that sounds pretty crazy these days when everyone, including little kids and some pets, have their own e-mail addresses.  do you remember how business got done back them without it or am I showing my age?  My question is do you think that e-mail has made your business more effective or just more chaotic?

image

Before e-mail, management had to make conscious decisions about how to control information.  Do you remember inter-office mail envelopes — the ones with the place to write the people who needed to see something?  Do you remember routing slips for memos with their complex paths, if..then…else loops, and "return to Joe" formats? Do you remember having pieces of paper routed with places for you to initial after reading?  Do you remember requesting copies of information be routed back to you from the originator?  Do you remember faxes?  Do you recall all the meetings with the scripted formats where the majority of the reason for meeting was the broadcasting of content that was not available elsewhere?  You get the idea… work was conducted before e-mail.  If memory serves, it was actually conducted fairly effectively.

Now don’t get the idea that I am a luddite and can’t appreciate or see the many benefits of e-mail over paper.  I get the environmental, postage, supply, and time savings.  I easily grok the asymmetric, distance independent enhancements that it provides.  I am willing to conceded that e-mail may the greatest efficiency improvement in corporate history. I am not sure, though, that overall there was a net gain in effectiveness.

If you work in any large organization you will recognize these annoyances.

  • You boss sends a task via e-mail to an entire team without naming a responsible individual.  She assumes that someone will take ownership and action.
  • Someone sends you an email instead of calling or talking to you.  The "conversation" requires tons more typing back and forth because the topic is not linear.
  • Some people send emails that are really instant messages and mean nothing 10 minutes after they are sent.  Unfortunately, your inbox gets stuffed with them all day while you are off-site and have to spend 15 minutes reading them just to discover they are meaningless.
  • One of your co-workers sends you an e-mail with actionable information that you simply miss.  They then consider you "informed" of the contents and tell people that "they told you about it".
  • You send a question to someone and they never respond.  You wonder if they just missed it, chose to ignore you, or are intentionally snubbing you.
  • Some teams use layers of "receipt requested", "delete without reading notices", and "read acknowledgement" flags while other teams can’t figure any of them out.
  • One guy sends all of his e-mails cc: ALL even though you could care less about it.
  • One girl never cc’s you on e-mails even though your job and hers are intertwined and the information could really help yours.
  • Some co-workers respond to e-mails in seconds, others in days.  Many expect you to respond in half the time that is comfortable to you.
  • Some use subjects like "Important Information" or leave them blank all together.
  • The person in the cubical right next door, never speaks to you, but e-mails you all day.
  • The person in the cubical to the left of you, assumes that you don’t need to be cc’ed on e-mails because you must have heard the information by simple proximity.
  • One boss uses secret distribution lists that there is almost a popularity contest to get included on in place of the provided standardized work center based ones.

You get the idea.  With great e-mail powers came even greater responsibilities for using them.  I am not sure that our organizational business rules, workplace standard practices, and generational expectations kept pace with our technology here.  Who is the arbiter of the above behaviors and how are the "rules" distributed.  Does all this e-mail really make our teams more productive or is it really just fueling more chaos at work?

Let me know what you think about this.  Share the practices of your organization below.  Feel free to Twitter or Digg this story, too.  I have provided easy to use buttons on both ends just to keep the conversation going.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for October 19, 2009 by Scott Coughlin

Image Credit: businessemailetiquette.com

Be Sociable, Share!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.