Email, argh!

I apologize in advance because this post is something of a rant. I promise that there is a point to this though. OK, just let me say that without a doubt the thing that makes keeping up, getting work done and in general staying sane pure hell is email. I hate email! Last Sunday night, in frustration because I was so far behind in email, which of course happens ever time I have tight deadlines to make (you know, when I have actual work to get out) I worked till after 1am trying to get my IDC account down to 1 browser window. I succeeded only to sleep for 4 hours, get up, go to the gym and then come back and find the very same inbox that I had left with no unread emails once again, bogged down with all sorts of email (I hate to say useless email, because I'm sure someone thought what they were writing and sending to me was useful, but...). It's a signal to noise issue I guess, there's just so much that I can't get to what's actually important anymore. My email falls into several categories, 1. important information that I really need to know / take action on (this includes targeted briefing request from vendors that are clearly in a space I'm interested in and some meeting requests), 2. things I'm copied on that are really someone else covering their own backside with the ability to say quite defensively later, "well, I copied you on the email", 3. random information that someone thought I might find interesting (if I had the time I probably would find it interesting and on random occasions I do), 4. jokes (I like to laugh, jokes are ok, as long as I can tell from the subj line, then save for casual browsing later), 5. random, disassociated briefing request from PR / vendors that are not even remotely related to what I'm interested in, 6. spam, and 7. URGENT COMMUNICATIONS THAT NEED REAL-TIME RESPONSE (I know, it amazes me, I have not 1 but 2 mobile phones and fairly consistently monitor Twitter DM's but it happens fairly regularly, which speaks to another issue that I'll talk about later, the perception of reasonable response time).

Email is out of control, not that it didn't or does serve a purpose but its current state is clearly "broken". Volume is one of the primary problems but not the only one. It's very hard to concentrate on email when the noise level is so high but I find that the unboundedness of the format might be just as much of the problem. People often ask me why I like Twitter so much and why it's more effective than email for me. It's really simple, there's a 140 character limit so you have to get to the point pretty fast and there are simple ways to segment Twitter into things I care about, things I need to take action on and things I will read when I have some spare time. If every email was written with a clear subject line AND would fit cleanly into a preview window I could deal much more effectively. Also, why would you put an action request at the END of a very long email, don't you think I might get distracted or bored with the detail and not finish reading it? Put the action requests at the beginning or at least identify in the subject "action required / requested". Attachments are a whole different thing. Sometimes it is necessary to send me something that I just need for my records, that's fine. Or maybe the attachment is information sharing, that's fine too. If we're collaborating on something though, there are much more effective ways to work together over the versioning nightmare of email attachments. Personally I don't like behind the firewall, difficult to access content management solutions either, not that security isn't important, it is. I find that content management systems are really good at the management part of the workflow but maybe not so good at the working together part of it. Something like Google Docs, Zoho Docs, Google Wave, Etherpad (which Google just bought), wiki's; they're all good ways to work collaboratively.

Part of the problem is the perception of the timing of responses, or I should say a misperception of urgency and priority. Somehow we have become a culture that thinks emails are near real-time communication when in fact, they are anything but. Yes, Blackberrys and other smartphones have certainly done their part to make response time less, at least when I have the time to look at them. Just because I have more than one way to see email doesn't necessarily mean I can answer in real-time. It's an asynchronous method of communication. Phones (excluding voicemail) are synchronous / real-time, IM is synchronous, even Google Wave and Twitter can be synchronous but email is not. I feel like putting a tag line on every email or better yet an autoresponder (and yes that would be creating more useless email) that says "email is not answered in real-time, I will respond to your email if it warrants a response when I have some time to read it. If your matter is urgent, critical or needs a response in under 3 days, please call, IM, or Tweet". OK, overkill I guess but I do like the idea. IM can be annoying but there is presence built in so if I want to be left alone I can say so (or just not log in). Maybe there should be presence on email.

No email isn't going away anytime soon. There are lot's of ways to communicate that are more effective though, depending on the message. Maybe we need a communication manual for the Internet that helps people figure out the right channel to use for each type of communication. For example (and this is just an example, not complete, doesn't include all the vendors or solutions, etc.):

task	1:1	1:many	many
casual communication / information sharing	email, Twitter @reply, Facebook, phone, IM, Google Wave, Salesforce.com Chatter, SMS	blog, video OD, email, digital signage, Salesforce.com Chatter	Google wave, wiki
communication needing response	Twitter DM or @reply, IM, email, Facebook, SMS	email, video conference, Facebook	Google wave
emergency / urgent communication	phone, Twitter Direct Message, SMS	Twitter, digital signage, video	Twitter
collaborative work	Google Docs, Google Wave, Etherpad, Wiki, Zoho Docs, MSFT Online	Google Docs, Google Wave, Wiki, Zoho Docs, MSFT Online, video conference, webinar	Google Docs, Google Wave, Etherpad, Wiki, Zoho Docs
Channel	Mode
email	asynchronous
Twitter	asynchronous & synchronous
Facebook	asynchronous & synchronous
Phone	asynchronous (voice mail) & synchronous
IM	synchronous
Google Wave	asynchronous & synchronous
Salesforce.com Chatter	asynchronous & synchronous
Google Docs	asynchronous & synchronous
wiki	asynchronous
Video	asynchronous & synchronous

What do you think?