Email bites back http://www.ibiscommunication.co.uk/email-bites-back/comment-page-1/#comment-19 Richard Meeus Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:36:18 +0000 http://www.ibiscommunication.co.uk/?p=559#comment-19 One of the pertinent comments made in response to the (in my opinion - poor) article in The Times was that email was not dead, but also that Twitter, Facebook et al were not to be seen as the all new pervasive methods of communicating. Moreover, consolidated communications would be seen as the way to talk, pass information and discuss topics in a portal that obfuscates the background methods of transmitting the data. IM, twitter and texting are very prevalent - and certainly ubiquitous in the under 25's - but they will only be used as additional tools to complement email - especially in the business world. The concept of a presence indicator - the main draw in many IM solutions - soon becomes more of a burden than a blessing as more and more people hide/busy/offline their status to prevent a plethora of inbound IMs requiring supposedly immediate response. What is perceived as urgent by one person is often seen as tedious & irrelevant by another. Email allows the recipient to make that choice of when (and if) to respond. People may complain about receiving 200 emails a day, but conversely find it easier to deal with the synchronous flow of an inbox rather than hold 8 concurrent IM conversations. As business user's workloads increase, email is seen as a workflow device even though it is poorly designed for that task. The reason people will email across a desk for an answer to a question is not because they do not want to talk or interact, it's because they want a record of the conversation. Accuracy is increasingly important and users want to adopt a CYA approach in case an error is spotted. Consolidation is key, however it needs to be delivered in a way that is simple and intuitive to use, easy to search (very important) and multi platform - and if you want the kidz to keep using it - cheap. One of the pertinent comments made in response to the (in my opinion – poor) article in The Times was that email was not dead, but also that Twitter, Facebook et al were not to be seen as the all new pervasive methods of communicating. Moreover, consolidated communications would be seen as the way to talk, pass information and discuss topics in a portal that obfuscates the background methods of transmitting the data.

IM, twitter and texting are very prevalent – and certainly ubiquitous in the under 25’s – but they will only be used as additional tools to complement email – especially in the business world. The concept of a presence indicator – the main draw in many IM solutions – soon becomes more of a burden than a blessing as more and more people hide/busy/offline their status to prevent a plethora of inbound IMs requiring supposedly immediate response. What is perceived as urgent by one person is often seen as tedious & irrelevant by another. Email allows the recipient to make that choice of when (and if) to respond. People may complain about receiving 200 emails a day, but conversely find it easier to deal with the synchronous flow of an inbox rather than hold 8 concurrent IM conversations.

As business user’s workloads increase, email is seen as a workflow device even though it is poorly designed for that task. The reason people will email across a desk for an answer to a question is not because they do not want to talk or interact, it’s because they want a record of the conversation. Accuracy is increasingly important and users want to adopt a CYA approach in case an error is spotted.

Consolidation is key, however it needs to be delivered in a way that is simple and intuitive to use, easy to search (very important) and multi platform – and if you want the kidz to keep using it – cheap.

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