Email – obsolete in 5 years (max)…

Sunday greetings to all…

Email is a lousy communication tool and will die in 5 years (max). It is a limited tool for passing along simple information and to arrange a time to have a conversation. Also, “tweet-size” your emails to 140 words or less.

My Friday post highlighting digital/tactile interface with Pranav Mistry, in part, led to this entry.

Have you ever felt as though you answer email for a living? Take heart, because in two to five years (max), email will land on the scrap heap along with the CD, dial-up, and seem about as useful as a fax machine.

Why? Here are a couple of thoughts:

• Email is a lousy communication tool, plain and simple.
• Email is a decent means to pass along simple information and to arrange a time to discuss something in depth: that’s it.
• Conversations are (at minimum) two-way: email is not.
• Email is 20 years old.
• Because email is, too often, improperly used as a means of conversation it has become a drag on productivity. I have witnessed so many/many email “death spirals” based on “misunderstanding”, “reply alls”, “interim draft discussion” being interpreted as policy”, etc., etc.  (By the way, if you have some interesting death spiral e-boondoggles, please post a comment).
• “Tweet-size” your emails, if you can’t say it in 140 words or less (note italics statement at start of post)  – you probably need a conversation.
• If you want to discuss something set a time and use an online tool that actually enables a conversation- skype, wiki’s, etc.

And for the last time – if the subject matter is in anyway sensitive, confidential –  do not email/text/chat: if you post it online = public.

Last thought (from Inc.com) :

Jordan Zimmerman (Zimmerman Advertising) who calls the CEO’s of his major client firms every day – “All my client calls are cell to cell. We have a rule: I answer their calls; they answer my calls. I like the directness of phone conversations. You don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I use e-mail to alert people to issues and say, “Let’s call to discuss.”