The guys who think tech will solve the email problem get it wrong again (who funds these companies?)

These guys are barking up the wrong tree. It never ceases to amaze me how these approaches to email management are conceived and then turned into a commercial offering. I have done a lot of work in this space (read til my eyes bled)

 

Research into email management possibilities has explored:

 

• A 1992 prediction that organisations would remove email systems once the negative effects on productivity were proven (1).

 

• The categorisation of email messages without imposing a requirement to create and maintain rules, allowing for prioritised email reading (2).

 

• Email perceived as a metaphor - namely (A) email is a filing cabinet that extends human information-processing capabilities, (B) email is a production line and locus of work co-ordination, and (C) email is a communication genre supporting social and organisational processes. (3)

 

• The role of the inbox in task management. Concluding that the inbox is a poor place to co-ordinate the management of tasks resulting from the email it contains, changes should be made to better support the tasks that result from email received. The author, a PhD candidate, concluded that getting control over email is 'a daunting task' (4).

 

• In 1997, the potential for the use of visualisation based on 'time of arrival' as the principal arrangement to display email (5). This research was carried forward in 2002, when it was concluded that visualisation of tasks across time aided the efficiency in finding information in messages related to tasks (6).

 

• Researchers from Microsoft in 2001 proposed new email viewing arrangements 'by threads' (which was introduced in Outlook 2003 (7)). Comprehensive work subsequently undertaken in 2005 (8), also involving Microsoft researchers, revealed that the concept of grouping emails by thread was not proving of great use. Out of a study population of 233 subjects, 27% didn't know of the 'group threads by conversation' feature inside Outlook, and 26% knew about it but didn't use it. Those who did use threads, according to the study, did so only 'occasionally'.

 

• Factors other than the importance of the message determine how people think about and handle their email. Email usage appears to reflect differences in how a message is perceived, depending on the personality of the reader, the demands of work and the relationship between the sender and the recipient (9).

 

• 2003 research concluded that the inbox experience should be rethought not in terms of messaging, but in terms of the activities that people are trying to accomplish (10).

 

In their comprehensive 2005 review of the existing email-related literature, Nicolas Ducheneaut and Leon Watts assessed the research undertaken to date and agreed that, whilst building an effective email system should draw down on empirical analysis and design, there had been little research to date into the theory surrounding email software interfaces.

 

They took the view that the theory that might best apply to the research would depend on the researchers' views as to what email actually is. Is it a communication tool? An archive? A collaboration tool? Is it a problem of attention allocation? They urge a real debate on what email actually is and does (11).

 

I concur. Once you clear away the smoke and mirrors of obfuscation caused by the nature of email technologies and the approach to their development, certain realities become self-evident:

 

• Email is merely a communication medium. It is the way most of our work now reaches us.

 

• The inbox is just the gateway to our working life.

 

• An email itself is not in or of itself 'work' per se. Our work is what we actually do. Email is merely communicating to us something we need to know or consider in relation to our work.

 

• As a discrete piece of information, each email can have a decision made in relation to it that will allow us to progress our work forward.

 

• Considered merely as a discrete piece of information, each email can be actioned according to the needs of our work, whereupon it becomes 'context-relevant'.

 

• In making a decision about each email and engendering a 'context-relevant' outcome from that decision-making exercise, we 'organise' our work and create a personal workflow-management methodology.

 

• There are only 10 'context-relevant' actions for any email received. These are:

 

i. Transfer to the deleted items folder.

 

ii. Prioritise and treat as 'super-urgent'.

 

iii. Delegate the work resulting from the email to another person.

 

iv. Keep email close to hand to accommodate a short-term filing requirement.

 

v. Put the email away for good to satisfy a long-time filing need.

 

vi. Associate the information with appointments and meetings you need to schedule or have previously scheduled.

 

vii. Associate the information with today's tasks to be completed.

 

viii. Associate the information with future tasks to be completed.

 

ix. Associate the information with, or as, a matter 'pending'.

 

x. Collect the information, categorise it according to need and then save it away for active reference.

 

• These 10 context-relevant actions occur as we 'triage' our email.

 

• In the context of Microsoft Outlook, the definitive triage outcomes are achieved through the adoption of the 4D decision-making methodology.

 

 

1 Pickering, J.M. & King, J.L. (1992). Hardwiring weak ties: Individual and institutional issues in computer mediated communication, Proc. CSCW 92, 356-361.

 

2 Balter, O., Sidner, C.L., (2002) Bifrost Inbox Organizer: giving users control over the inbox. ACM ISBN 1-158113-616-1/02/0010

 

3 Ducheneaut N., & Watts L.A. (2005). In Search of Coherence: A Review of Email Research. HCI, 2005, Vol 20, pp. 11-48

 

4 Gwizdka, J., Reinventing the Inbox – Supporting the Management of Pending Tasks in Email (2002). CHI, April 20-25 2002 Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA ACM 1-58113-454-1/02/0004

 

5 Yiu, K., Baeker, R.M, Silver, N., & Long, B. (1997). A Time-based Interface for Electronic Mail Management. In proceedings of HCI International '97. Vol 2 Elsevier, 19-22

 

6 Gwizdka, J., Future Time in Email – Design and Evaluation of a Task-based Email Interface (2002). c.f. http://www.emailresearch.org/

 

7 Venolia, G.D., Dabbish, L., Cadiz, J.J., Gupta, A. (2001) Supporting Email Workflow, Microsoft Technical Report MSR-TR-2001-88

 

8 Neustaedter, J., Berheim Brush, A.J., & Smith, M.A. (2005) Beyond 'From' and 'Received': Exploring the Dynamics of Email Triage CHI 2005, April 2-7, 2005 Portland, Oregon USA, ACM 1-59593-002-7/05/0004

 

9 Dabbish, L.A., Kraut, R.E., Fussell, S., & Kiesler, S. (2005). Understanding Email Use: Predicting Action on a Message. CHI 2005, April 2-7, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA, ACM 1-58113-998-5/05/0004

 

10 Bellotti, V., Ducheaneat, N., Howard, M., Smith, I. (2003). Taskmaster: recasting email as task management. Palo Alto Research Center

 

11 Ducheneaut, N., Watts, L. (2005). In search of coherence: A review of Email Research. HCI, 2005, Vol 20, pp 11-48.

“If it’s this bad at Microsoft,” Mr. Horvitz added, “it has to be bad at other companies, too.”

It’s worth a few moments to reflect upon how far we have travelled with email in the last 15 years.

Volume – in 2006, it was estimated that genuine emails are sent by 1.1 billion emails users around the world each day, with 50 billion genuine messages dispatched daily accompanied by at least 120 billion spam. (1) Email traffic is growing at between 10% and 25% per year. (2)

Size - the size of personal email records is increasing exponentially. One study reports that 27% of email-using employees have reached or exceeded the amount of storage space allowed at work. (3)

Overuse - overuse of email is impacting on user effectiveness. 59% of employed American adults admit to wasting a lot of time searching for lost email. Moreover, between 47% (those who earn less than USD35,000 annually) and 65% (those earning greater than USD75,000 per annum) admit to wasting time looking for email they know they’ve received.(4)

Productivity - email has had a profound impact on individual productivity. More than 25% of employed US adults acknowledge that the volume of email they receive causes them to fall behind in their work.(5). In 2005 the Wall Street Journal reported that white-collar workers waste 40% of their day, not because they aren’t smart but because they were never taught organizing skills to function in the modern workplace.(6) A typical knowledge worker spends about 2.5 hours per day (or roughly 30% of the work day) searching for information. (7) In a 2007 study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, such as writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming email. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.(8) “I was surprised by how easily people were distracted and how long it took them to get back to the task,” said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft research scientist and co-author of the paper. “If it’s this bad at Microsoft,” Mr. Horvitz added, “it has to be bad at other companies, too.”

Morale & Health - email causes stress. (9) According to some reports, 80% of existing health expenditure is now stress-related. (10) In 1999 it was estimated that job-related stress cost US industry USD300 billion p.a. (11) 71% of white-collar workers feel stressed about the amount of information they must process and act on while doing business; 60% feel overwhelmed.(12)

In 2005 AOL conducted a survey of 4,000 email users on email reliance, and reported ‘an obsessive-compulsive need to check email morning, noon and night.’(13)

42% of vacationers check their business email while on holiday, and 23% check it on the weekend.(14) Employees are taking an average of 1 min 44 seconds to reply to a message, with 70% of employees responding within 6 seconds! The disruption caused is 64 seconds before they get back to work; 40% of such interruptions are self-generated (i.e. not caused by the email pop up). (15)

This 2001 research confirmed the findings of a 1994 study, namely that people answer emails as they arrive, treating the technology as they would the telephone.(16) The typical US worker is interrupted by communications technology once every 10 minutes.(17) A 2004 study reported that both interruptions and the consequent task-switching caused by email takes a toll on workers, who tend to spend an average of only three minutes working on any one activity before switching to another.(18)

Negative health effects of this modern phenomenon were reported as early as 1989.(19) Studies showed that the increased pace of work leads to stress, (20)(21)(22) that employee stress can cause serious problems for the organization, (23) and that the pressure of email leads to a reduction in IQ greater than that caused by the use of cannabis (24). In a study undertaken by the University of London, “Respondents' minds were all over the place as they faced new questions and challenges every time an email dropped into their inbox. Productivity at work was damaged and the effect on staff who could not resist trying to juggle new messages with existing work was the equivalent, over a day, to the loss of a night's sleep.”

So, dear readers, if anything is in need of a shot in the arm, it’s got to be email.

Where are all the new ideas?

1 The Radicati Group: www.radicati.com

2 IDC, Worldwide Email Usage Forecast 2002-2006

3 Fortiva and Harris Interactive

4 c.f. Fortiva and Harris Interactive

5 c.f (1)(2)

6 http://online.wsj.com/public/us

7 IDC White Paper: The high cost of not finding information 8/2001

8 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/business/25multi.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=f295711cb4a65d9b&ex=1332475200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

9 Australian Psychological Society, Email communication survey (2005)

10 Center for Disease Control & Prevention reported in Fast Company magazine 2/03 pg. 88

11 Data Communication 2/98

12 Institute of the Future, Menlo Park, California

13 AOL, (2005), Email addiction survey cited in Hair M., Renaud, K.V., Ramsey, J., (2006) The influence of self-esteem and locus of control on perceived email related stress pg. 2 (www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbe)

14 Westling, D. (2001) Gartner finds US vacationers addicted to email. Survey shows 42% of users check business email on vacation.

(http://www.gartner.com/5_about/press_room/pr20010702a.html)

15 Jackson, T., Dawson R., & Wilson, D. (2001). The cost of email interruption. Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 5, 81-92

16 Markus, M. L., (1994). Finding a happy medium: Explaining the negative effects of electronic communication on social life at work. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 12, 119-312

17 2005 Institute for Future & Gallop

18 Gonzalez, V. M., & Mark G. (2004). Constant, constant, multi-tasking craziness: managing multiple working spheres. In proceedings of the 2004 conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 113-120). ACM Press.

19 Levine, R.V., Lynch, K., Miyake, K., & Lucia, M., (1989). The type A city: Coronary heart disease and the pace of life. Journal of Behavioral Medicine (Historical Archive), 12, 509-524

20 Arndt, R. (1987). Work pace, stress, and cumulative trauma disorders. Journal of Hand Surgery, 5, 866-869

21 Houtman, I. L., Bongers, P. M., Smulders, P. G., & Kompie, M. A. (1994) Psychosocial stressors at work and musculoskeletal problems. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health, 20, 139-145.

22 Steptoe, A., Fieldman, G., Evans, O., & Perry, L. (1993). Control over work pace, job strain and cardiovascular responses in middle-aged men. Journal of Hypertension, 11, 751-759.

23 Calabrese, J.R., Kling, M. A., & Gold, P.W. (1987). Alterations in immunocompetence during stress, bereavement and depression: Focus on neuroendocrine regulation, American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 1123-1134.

24 http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1465973,00.html