Twitter is just paranoid info overload

Perish the thought that Twitter ever make it past the corporate firewall. Bringing this 'tool' into the workplace is an absolute recipe for disaster. Imagine the interruptive capacity of email married to chat, sister of SMS. Admittedly I have signed up and experimented with it myself and see it as a useful tool to keep appraised of the movements and meanderings of a half a dozen people, but any more than that, for me at least, it's just overload. I have to laugh when I check out who is following who and see that some people are following TENS OF THOUSANDS of people. I mean, come on! If you have not cottoned on to Twitter yet take this 4 minute animation in. Right on the money!

Recent talk gets me thinking “what’s wrong with people!…”

I gave a presentation yesterday here in Perth to a gathering of about 30 SME business owners who were looking at ways to get more with less during these testing economic times. As I was coming to the end of my one hour talk it occurred to me that the Send-Receive-File email management paradigm has a great deal to answer for. The arguments for sorting out the email issue are so compelling (and at Orla we all eat our own dog food and are INCREDIBLY productive when it comes to organizing and prioritizing our daily work) that I imagined website activity from Western Australia would have a bit of a upward blip during the 24 hours which followed. Barely in fact. That said, I did meet a very charming lady from a WA company who is all over the email as problem with her team at work. Got a lovely follow up mail this morning saying they learned a lot from the talk and were implementing the ideas I presented to them. Nice!

The talk can be downloaded here

Email management fragmentation - the problem persists

So here's the gig. The approach to addressing the modern problem of email management for the white collar worker boils down to the simple reality that people need to make a decision about their next actions resulting from having received an email and then acting upon or recording that next action for future attention. No more, no less. Scooting around You Tube on an email management search just now, I came across this video which is a neat tool and certainly of value but by no means the solution. Actually, its pretty indicative of products and services that simply miss the point.

Getting the email monkey off your back

Email has an insidious grip on its users. It's time to take stock and give yourself a break. Acknowledge some realities!

1. Acknowledge that there is no way anyone can actually deliver on all the requests made of them via email. There is no shame in not being 'perfect' when perfection is completely unachievable.
   
2. Understand that less is more. Communicate, don't lecture, when composing emails.
   
3. Recognise that everyone has this problem. No-one 'loves' email so don't feel guilty that this technology has gotten out of hand; it's hardly your fault. The solution is within you; you are not the cause of the problem.
   
4. Change your attitude to email. It is not a panacea; it's a powerful communication tool – no more and no less. Use it; don't let it use you.
   
5. Make the technology work for you. Identify the 10 standard things you consistently request or reply on, and create a signature template to supply the information you need to communicate (thank you's, responses to FAQs, admin requests etc.).

    

6. Ditch, ditch, ditch. Why keep the electronic equivalent of every supermarket receipt, bus ticket, scribbled Post-it note or mildly interesting information flyer about some event you know you're never going to attend? Re-reading old emails over and over again adds nothing to your ability to turn them into productive output.

    

7. Go to your inbox reluctantly. If something is uber-urgent you'll find out quickly enough when the person calls you. Treat each visit to the inbox as a distraction from your real work, and when you do go there triage all the mail you find, plan and organise the resulting work and then get back to the fun stuff that you're actually paid to do (no one's job description begins with 'spend 2-3 hours sending and receiving email').
   
8. 'Always on' emailers usually ascribe more value to getting an email than actually doing something as a result of receiving it. Recognise email for what it is: almost always an interruption to something much more important that you could be doing. (Weekend Blackberry users take note: Why do you allow your employers to have you work for no pay outside of already extended business hours?)
   
9. Recognise that there are only 10 things you can do with an email, and use the triage method to take the next action to make one of those decisions.
   
10. Realise that most email is ephemeral. It is relevant only for a very short period of time and so can be dispensed with aggressively, either by planning the work, putting the email away or ditching it forever.
    
11. Tell people you've changed your habits. Ask them to call you more; define when it's good for you to be contacted by mail; let them know how you'll handle emails, plan your work and schedule their responses, and tell them how your system works for you (a signature template is a good technique to use here). Set, then change, people's expectations, and then live your new email work style.
    
12. Value your time properly. At work, it's all you've got and there's never enough of it. Recognise all of the time you are losing to email; your health, career and family will all benefit. Email has robbed you of your time; take it back.

Harold Taylor has identified five 'laws' or effective guidelines for maximising the use of time.

Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion (otherwise known as the 'I've got a deadline' law). Deadlines become a goal to work towards: the closer you get, the more effective with your time you become. Unrealistic deadlines cause stress.

The Pareto Principle: Also known as the 80/20 rule, meaning that 80% of your results are achieved from 20% of the things you do. It's therefore vital to focus your energies (and time) on the 20% of the work that delivers 80% of the results that progress you towards your goals.

Law of Diminishing Returns: The closer you get to finishing a task, the time taken to 'perfect it' increases exponentially. The extra value created by doing near-perfect work mostly doesn't justify the cost of the extra time spent on it. For most work, close enough is good enough.

Law of Comparative Advantage: Do only the work that is valued at your worth. Assign, delegate or outsource any task that can be done for less than you earn or desire to earn. Put a value on your time and be guided by that value in deciding whether or not to undertake a given task.

The Pleasure Principle: We avoid pain and seek immediate gratification. This explains why we procrastinate over the tough work and prioritise the fun work, even if the 80/20 rule is being broken. Recognise this and plan for it.

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.

Email Behaviour - the root of all evil?

I was scooting around the web the other day looking for new thought on ‘email-as-problem’ and came across this Forbes article from October 2008 which I missed the first time around. Ross Mayfield describes ‘Email Hell’ and does a reasonable job of essaying a bunch of well known tactics to get to grips with the problem. However, he misses the fundamental problem by a country mile.

Namely....

It is the design of email clients which have cognitively patterned their users to perceive the communication technology we call email as ‘send-receive-file’ (the name of this blog strangely enough).

We figured out there are two aspects to email management in the modern age that need addressing.

Solving the problem before email hits your Inbox.

(2) Managing the activity that results after an email has actually hit your Inbox.

Dealing with the before issue is really all about well documented and debated first generation solutions which, in essence, involve:

(a) An enterprise-wide social contract as to how email technology should be used within an organisation.

This can be reflected in an Email Code of Conduct (one page, maybe 10 points) endorsed by the Board of Directors crafted after taking in the views of key corporate stakeholders and constituencies.

(b) Common sense.

The elements of the internal social contract are positively adopted by the individual and then incrementally extended beyond the walls of the enterprise; using;

(c) Simple software tools:

Such as appended signatures detailing how you wish to transact via email; auto-completion of email subject lines with 'at-a-glance' understanding of what is being communicated therein and Action Required, Background Information, Closing Observations - type, ordered segments to outgoing emails which request activity of others.

(d) A bit of training to give effect to the above:

Not much, it isn't rocket science: 4 or 5 hours is enough.

Solving the after issue is all about cognitive re-mapping of email technology users.

Consider: it took 70 years for the telephone to become a mainstream consumer technology, 15 years for the fax and 18 months for email. The essential design of email technologies (which have not significantly

changed since email arrived on the scene), has encouraged a cognitive mapping of Send-Receive-File in the people who use them (i.e. all of us).

This is a nonsense.

Even Bill Gates is on record as saying that email has spawned a generation of filing clerks…

99.99% percent of all email messages carry no value after the content has been communicated. At the point of reading an email, it is what the reader needs to DO subsequently that becomes relevant. How is the resulting next action to be managed? What cognitive process should be followed to allow this next action to be achieved? How can the email technology be used to facilitate these facets?

The answer lies in the 4Ds: Ditch, Deal, Delegate, Decide.

Check out our one-minute overview of the 4D process.

Thus, the challenge is to cognitively remap email users:

OUT: Send-Receive-File IN: Ditch-Deal-Delegate-Decide

This is a people-focussed, not technology-focused, activity. Moving from the Send-Receive-File paradigm involves three things:

1) A new software environment which drives the 4Ds.

2) Low-impact, high-value learning to transition to the 4Ds, guided by the software.

3) Proof that real value is being created by having made this change.

In Orla, we have developed a program which ties this solution to the after issue all together. Using a simple software reconfiguration of Outlook (via a plug-in) and a total of no more than 4 hours of personal training in the corporate environment over the course of 21 days, the after issue can be readily and definitively solved. Through the use of the custom designed Tmail feature, Orla also provides the software tools needed to address the before issue too.

A guru speaks (I think)

The venerable Mr Allen overengineers a very simple subject, his own ideas about next action decision making and putting stuff away where you'll be able to find it again. His best selling book Getting Things Done is certainly readable, but this talk to the chappies at Google wanders about and had me lost about 5 mins in. Snakes? Karate Punches? Dead Batteries? Psychic RAM? And are distractions really "mismanaged commitments"? What the hell is 'bouldnerness' David? That said, he is right on the money in his key message, namely, that technology and systems will never replace human cognition and that systems merely serve the purpose of freeing up the intuitive capabilities of the mind to determine what must happen next. If you have read Getting Things Done, the GTD process is positioned as methodology neutral, meaning that the GTD approach can be undertaken using any technique or technology. My company's product, Orla, is, needless to say, fully compliant with the GTD concept.