Blunt

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Email is such a blunt tool.

According to Microsoft, 97% of all emails sent over the net are unwanted. Postini (a division of Google) puts it at 94%. Blunt.

Value creation between people comes from conversing. Email is rubbish at conversation. Blunt.

Value creation in business is increasingly about collaboration. Email is rubbish at collaboration. Blunt.

In a connected world value comes from the seamless flow of ideas. Email is far from seamless. Blunt.

With a surfeit of information, it is search and aggregation that add value. Difficult, if not impossible on email. Blunt.

Email does not do community well. Blunt.

At it's worst email hampers productivity, effective time management, prioritisation. When Russell wrote about how distraction is not always a bad thing, he pointed at a great piece in The Guardian which quotes Dr Tom Stafford from the University of Sheffield: "Both slot machines and email follow something called a 'variable interval reinforcement schedule' which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits." Rather than reward an action every time, the theory goes, rewarding it only sometimes, and not in a predictable way, makes it disturbingly addictive. A study by Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University found that people tend to respond to email as it arrives, taking an average of only one minute and 44 seconds to act upon a new email notification. 70% of emails got a reaction within six seconds. Email is a distraction, but rarely of a good kind.

In the same Guardian article Roo Reynolds says: "I use other tools, where people are more comfortable hanging out". Comfortable. It's a good word. One of the advantages that Twitter has over Facebook is that it allows for a less simplified form of relationship symmetry. Relationships take many forms. Services which are opt-in, that give more flexibility to choose who can contact you, that better reflect the context of our connections, will win.

Email. Blunt. That is all.

Comments

[John Dodds]

G Mail - not so blunt.

[John V Willshire]

Sorting through the emails we get is what we do whilst we wait for the next emails to arrive.

You can't help feel like Sisyphus sometimes; he was the king in Greek mythology who, when sent to Hades, had to push a huge boulder to the top of a hill and make it stay there. It kept rolling back down. Every time.

Just like when you finally get to an empty inbox...

[Graeme]

True

Email = Broadcast, which is blunt.

It'll take a while for a) conversation and b) collaboration to kick in.

But the idea will spread.. it just needs some help.

GH

[neilperkin]

Thanks for the comments.
John D - not so blunt, but still blunt methinks.
John V - yeh, nice analogy.
Graeme - not a moment too soon IMHO

[Rupert James (Jim)]

Great post, Neil.

I agree. Email's blunt. But I'd also stress how dry and light-weight it is.

I'm baffled at our allegiance to email when Skype allows a far greater range of expression (2-way, instant, video) and Yousendit or FTP clients like Cyberduck allow for transportation of much, much bulkier content.

Bandwidth can't be wheeled out as an excuse. It's not as if anyone really uses a dial-up connection anymore, is it? I live in a developing Asian nation and manage to squeeze a download speed of 1 MBPS (and half of that for uploading) out of a frayed phone line.

I guess it's just the curse of convention. Clients, suppliers and friends alike stick to what they know in fear of not effectively communicating. It's still just too easy to hide from a missed Skype call or a FTP link if you want to.

[Andy]

With the assumption that you are referring to email generally and not spam specifically... I'm not buying it.

On the same basis blogging is blunt. Post (monologue), audience response, appreciative comments = applause. Oh I'm allowed to talk back? Just like a reply all button... does that constitute conversation?

Email doesn't do community? Who said this was the primary purpose of the medium? *Most* electronic media don't do community or conversation for that matter... just a narrowcast, tech mediated approximation of it.

Talking face to face can be blunt (as its defined here).

Horses for courses I say.

[tim harrap]

Yammer

[neilperkin]

Hi Andy.
Thanks for stopping by. I don't think blogging is blunt in quite the same way as e-mail. Exchanges involving multiple people often happen on email but it's a poor medium for it. Blogging allows for ideas to spread and build. I don't agree that response and comments are always appreciative (case in point - I'm disagreeing with you now) - I've had people disagree with my viewpoint on a number of occasions on this blog, and there are many discussions elsewhere that I've been a part of which have involved pretty healthy debates.
I'm not asserting that email ever had community as its primary purpose, just that in a connected world, community adds value that is missed through over-reliance on email.

[neilperkin]

@tim. Thanks - yes, am trying yammer already. Have to say I haven't quite got it cracked yet (getting uptake and comprehensive usage amongst a sizeable group of people is proving tough) but its an interesting tool

[Andy]

Thanks for the clarification, Neil. And the polite response to my rant.

"Value creation between people comes from conversing. Email is rubbish at conversation."

I am in violent agreement with the first half of this statement. What I am asserting is that email is no less or more a conversational medium than others you mention above. I have had some fantastic discussions in email, and sometimes these were side conversations to threads started on blogs.

The difference is that these conversations are, at that point, more one on one, private not public - to your point there is still value creation taking place because we are conversing. Does it reduce their value? I'd argue that without the audience people potentially take more risks, show more of themselves and as a result he conversations deepen. And the impact of this on relationships and therefore community (and its health) is important.

I'm not an email apologist. And i value thought provoking posts by bloggers whose views I respect (that's why I'm here).

What I am questioning is how one defines the value of the medium/platform in enhancing conversation and community. I think there is a necessary movement between private and public, between intimacy and distance. As a result each platform is potentially blunt when used without question or by default (over reliance as you've mentioned in your response above), its not exclusive to email. Hence horses for courses.

[neilperkin]

Hi Andy. Thanks for the follow up. You make some good points. I agree that each medium is good for certain things (like you say, horses for courses), but I think that too often email is used as a default medium when there are tools and formats that do specific jobs better (blogs, wiki's, twitter, yammer et al). I still believe that in a connected world, tools that are more sophisticated in their appreciation of the context of those connections work better.

[Andy]

Reading that last sentence in the context of this conversation, I now find myself nodding.

And I'd add that people that are more sophisticated in their appreciation of the context of those connections also work better ;-)

Thanks for keeping this going.

[golublog]

Makes me self conscious about the next email i sent out.

[Gavin Heaton]

I am using Twitter more and email less. If I need more than 140 characters, I tend to pick up the phone and chat. Call me old fashioned.

[tim]

Glad to hear you are having problems on uptake with Yammer. It is such a useful "cooler conversation" type thing - free expression - positives about how the world is for you at anyone moment or not as the case maybe. Either case it can open the way for colleagues to engage. I'm all for it!!

[tim]

Oh yes and Yammer goes on to a blackberry like a dream.