In case you needed more validation than conversations with co-workers – being buried in your in-box is a global work productivity issues. A firm in the UK estimated that dealing with pointless e- mails is costing them £39m a year. Some companies have gone as far as to hire e-mail consults and create e-mail free days. (Note to self: add e-mail consulting to list of new services for my business.) Not only has that but the article stated that Britons take 14 million sick days due to stress every year and that can be related to too much e-mail and having it available to you 24x7x365 on a variety of devices.
The article also mentions Ray Tomlinson who in 1971 ( that is 36 years ago for those slow at math) wrote the code that enable him to send e-mail between two computers.
E-mail might have been created 36 years ago – however it only been 15 years (give or take) that businesses began adapting as it a communication tool. It’s odd now to even consider business without e-mail.
I think back to my first job out college where our company was just building a Website and trying to figure out how to make it more than a brochure on the computer. Somehow without e-mail I managed to sell a great deal of print advertising for a national magazine using my personal charm in meetings or by phone and a fax machine to close deals. I wonder if I would have sold more or less ads if had been using e-mail at the time.
Now most companies use e-mail as the primary communication tool to do everything – talk to clients, make deal, communicate to employees and now employees us it as a proactive way to protect themselves from bad deals, angry clients or back stabbing co-workers. (Which I’m convinced doubles the amount of e-mail in my in-box.)
Maybe they should change CC in Outlook to CYA – because that is the primary reason people add someone the CC line. Which makes me wonder how did people cover their asses before e-mail?
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