The world just gets faster and faster. Email, once considered the most efficient and speediest method of communication, is now cumbersome and slow, so we’re moving on. Well, we’re moving away from it anyway. There are solutions out there that eliminate the need to use internal email. Even Intel has something called “no-email Fridays”.
This article, published in the Financial Times, questions the need for internal emails, but I don’t know if we’re ever going to completely rid ourselves of internal emails. It’s important to keep records, and email is still pretty efficient for that, but we can certainly cut down on how much we use email. We use Microsoft Lync for much of our internal communication here at Telax. Not only does it help keep my inbox free of clutter, but the conversations in Lync are much quicker.
Email is useful to keep track of things I might want to refer to later, but how many emails is that? Microsoft Outlook does a decent job of providing a search function that can help sift through hundreds of emails, but it doesn’t take long for those hundreds of emails to turn into thousands. Suddenly, I’m looking for a needle in a haystack.
With programs like Lync, Salesforce, Dropbox, and even social networking sites, the need for email is diminishing. The same thing can be said for regular mail, often referred to as snail mail, but neither one is ever going to be completely eliminated. E-cards don’t have the same appeal as a physical card, and neither does an IM chat have the same impact as a well structured email, but that doesn’t mean we need to use email for every conversation. Most of the time a quick IM chat or even a voice call, which Lync and a good headset make ridiculously easy and kinda fun, is enough.
All in all, the goal is to save time and energy. Sifting through a hundred emails that say little more than “Hi, how are you” to find the one email that has the information you need is not the best use of anyone’s time.
Tags: efficiency, email, Lync, Microsoft, social media, telax