Comments on: My good deed done for Mike Arrington

E-mail overload is a fact of life but there are already existing solutions. What's missing is real commitment from the likes of Microsoft and IBM, et al.

[lymond01]

The right tool for the right purpose. With email, instant messaging, and the phone (as well as less immediate document exchange sites), the bases are covered, it's just a matter of priority. E-mail should not be used for quick questions to a single person, things that need a fast response, or issues that are recursive ("I need to order this." "Ok, let me check with Sue on the account number." "Sue, which account number?" "55566555." "Thanks. Please use this account number."...seriously, pick up the bloody phone.)

If you haven't implemented chat in your department, you probably should. It's like a less-intrusive phone call. You need a response, but don't need to disturb someone with a telephone call (hands leave the keyboard, meeting is interrupted, etc). Instant messaging is great for quick contact and it can be answered almost no matter what if the person is sitting at the desk.

Phone is for important matters where it's easier to get your point across.

[rcrusoe]

I agree, people use email inappropriately much of the time. If you want me in a hurry, call me or IM. I only open my email once every two hours during the work day. And never after hours.

[BarneyHK]

The answer is Orla. www.orla.org. There are four things required to solve the problem of email overload: (1) a new interface for Outlook making it easy to organise all the work that results from the email you send and receive (2) purposeful training to allow that new interface to deliver value (3) measurement of the improvement in performance to provide out the intellectual and financial investment and (4) anticipation of the behavioural change required for its all about getting people to move their cheese! Read our White Paper and watch our one minute movie to understand why the problem persists and why technology by itself will never solve it.

[Dana Gardner]

The answer is called manual labor. Wetware beats hardware at this delicate triage level. When you grow too big to handle the a job (a good problem), you hire. Arrington, or anyone else this swamped, needs to place a warm body between themselves and the river of communications. In other words, he needs an assistant. And he can afford one.

[boriquajake]

emails that you don't want to open and read are called "spam". If that many people are sending you crap you don't read, why are you not declaring it "spam" and having your email client block them from ever hitting your inbox again? I don't get it, if you don't read it now any important little nuggets are getting lost anyway.