[RTC List] NYT Article: I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip

[John Abela]

I read that with interest, so thanks for posting it.

I think there is a lot left out, and a whole lot more that needs to be
done before it is truly a viable solution.

At this point, email & phone are the two ways we do business both in
America and most of the world. To think that "adding more things" is
the way to "reduce things" (ie: email messages) just does not fly in
conventional wisdom, nor practicality. Sure, it is nice to say you
have reduced your email load by 50 or 80%, but the internet is flooded
with ways to solve these problems - from cold-turkey purge, to GTD, to
the 'from full to empty in 7 days' programs.... but when it comes down
to it, social tools are just not the viable, nor professional, way to
handle a problem of this kind.

Interesting, it seems like most the guys at lifehacker somewhat agree
with me: http://lifehacker.com/397457/can-social-tools-really-replace-email

I think the only thing this guy presents that is a valid solution is
the use of a blog/wiki for "repeat identical emails" (ie: responses to
'how do xyz?'). In this case, such is a good thing for a business...
but come on, shouldn't most companies already have some form of a
localized FAQ in place... but, I would have to argue the point that
neither a blog nor a wiki is the best way to have an "inhouse FAQ" on
a business level... which, is probably why IBM went with Beehive in
the first place.

John B. Abela


~~ I really do hate linkedin.... second only to myspace, facebook and
google.... oh-wait... that was three... well, you get the point.


On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 5:39 PM, John Hauser <jhauser at pobox.com> wrote:
> interesting article in the New York Times about how an IBM researcher (who
> telecommutes) drastically reduced his use of email by using other social
> networking tools: IM, blogs, wikis and by increasing his use of the
> telephone:
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/jobs/29pre.html>