When Atos chairman and chief executive, Thierry Breton, recently announced that his company would stop using email and eliminate it altogether internally by 2014 the world took notice. But this isn’t the first recognition that electronic mail might contribute more waste than tangible contribution, and there must be a better way to communicate short of talking in real-time. Electronic mail was an innovation driven evolution from physical (snail) mail, but it still resembled physical mail, with letters, pictures, addresses, and optional return receipts. It saves the paper and is very fast.
Email can be used to maintain conversations if the individual(s) on the other end are able to immediately respond. But, email, like snail mail, is better served for asynchronous communication when you want to tell someone something or ask for something and the information or response can wait. Sometimes you want to ask someone a quick question. Do you create and send an email, initiate a chat session, or send a text? The chat session gives an instant answer or lets you know that the person is not available to respond. I found it strange that calling them on the phone, or in some cases walking over to meet them in person, to ask was actually an afterthought. Maybe you want to collaborate as part of a group. Do you send an email to a large group, generating an exponential amount of email correspondence, or do you use a social networking tool to share information and collaborate in a workspace both in real-time and asynchronously? Meet-me lines can allow you to collaborate in real time but the social networking tools allow you to actually retain a record and possibly produce something as a group rather than having someone record minutes from a group phone call. All of these are valid ways of communicating.
The truth is all these forms of communication have their place and communication will continue to evolve. I often joke with my family that “I get a lot of work done in email”. What I mean by this is I’m able to perform multiple tasks at nearly the same time by working both synchronously and asynchronously with large numbers of people by sending them information, directions, decisions, approvals and connections to others who can help them. Email is not my only method of communication. New methods that become available are quickly adopted.
The communication innovation that is occurring now is unified communication and collaboration or bringing all forms of electronic assisted communication together into a seamless connected experience.
The communication innovation that is coming next is using advanced storage and search capabilities to enable humans to practically “remember” everything they’ve experienced through communication and interaction.
The key is to choose the most effective communication method for the situation and not contribute to information overload. The problem is that whenever a new method is created it doesn’t take long for people to find ways to abuse it. Another problem, or opportunity, is there are many new ways being introduced.
