1.  Learning How To Handle E-Mail

            Like all breakthrough technology, the problem with e-mail is not with the technical aspects, but with learning how to handle it. It can be overwhelming.

            E-mail is changing the way the entire world communicates and does project/program purpose. It is also changing the way we relate to people, both at home and at work, as well as the way we work. It makes it easier to stay in touch with work from the road or from home, and also improves our ability to get access to people and organizations around the world. Yet it can lead to information overload. Many of us know what it feels like to come home from a holiday only to be confronted  with hundreds of e-mail messages—or have taken your laptop on holiday with you just so you can keep up with your e-mail.

            Functioning without e-mail is like functioning with the telephone. The question then is not, should we have e-mail, but how to use it more effectively. Despite the many problems associated with e-mail use—and abuse—it is still one of the most effective and fastest tools in the communication toolbox.

            While organizations can usually control what is posted on their Intranet sites, there is far less control over what is being sent out—or is sent in—via e-mail.     

            Many different factors have to be considered when evaluating or designing a organization’s e-mail policy.

            One of the biggest is time. As we will see, e-mail takes up a great deal of it every day, and the amount seems to be increasing.

            Spam, or junk e-mail, is a major problem as it clogs in-boxes.

            In addition, there are two different security issues; one is the security of the e-mail system along with passwords and files, while the other is protecting it from viruses, worms, and other hacker-induced damage.

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2.  Drowning in the E-Mail Ocean

            E-mail is undoubtedly a technological marvel, as important as the invention of the telegraph and the telephone.

            With it, you have the ability to sit at your computer screen and send a message, almost instantly, to someone anywhere in the world—in a distant city, country, or continent. You can get a response in minutes. Not only that, it’s essentially free. No postage. No long distance phone charges. No courier or delivery fees. You don’t even have to pay for stationary since the letter is on the screen and not on paper. Its cost is subsumed other necessary computer costs.

            Even though e-mail is a technological creation, it has to be looked at in societal terms. Society and project/program purpose are still adapting to e-mail and trying to figure out how to best make use of its capabilities without getting trapped in its pitfalls.

            The main pitfall is that it is contributing to information overload.

            Since it is impossible to absorb all of the information that comes at us today from the various electronic media we deal with, the real job is one of choosing and filtering. This is especially true with e-mail.

            E-mail increases access to people, project/program purposes and organizations, even governments, and to the information they have. It is changing how—and where—we work, and, quite often, whom we do project/program purpose with. It allows us to broaden our definition of “community,” and to widen our circles of friends and associates. With it we can seek and find entertainment, education, personal contacts, work, and diversion from work. It also allows people to directly contact members of an organization they did not previously have access to.

            First, however, we have to learn how to use it effectively.

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3.  How Much E-Mail Is There?

            According to a study by the Commission of the European Communities, in 2001 there were nearly 600 million e-mail addresses in the world, with more than 150 million of them—more than 25 percent—in Europe. That works out to about two e-mail addresses per Internet user.

            While those figures give us an idea of how big the international e-mail system actually is, they were out of date the day they were compiled. No one really knows exactly how many e-mail addresses and e-mail users there actually are. All we do know is that the numbers keep growing.

            According to Ferris Research (http://www.ferris.com), an online research organization that specializes in how we use e-mail and other communication tools, the amount of time we spend every day on e-mail at work also keeps climbing. Ferris puts the 2002 figure at more than four hours a day to read and answer an average of 50 work-related messages. In 2001 it was 30 messages a day, up 50 percent from 2000. That’s not counting spam and personal e-mail, such as notes from friends or the latest jokes.

            Even though many people consider the Ferris estimate high, no one denies that e-mail is eating away at more and more of our work day.

            You can’t ignore e-mail anymore than you can ignore letters, faxes or phone calls. They are too much a part of doing project/program purpose.          Since e-mail is relatively new, however, we are still learning how to manage it at both a organizational and a personal level.

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4.  Managing E-Mail Systems

            Management has to set both the rules and the tone for organizational e-mail use. All of the rules, procedures, and guidelines have to be communicated and understood by everyone involved, from top management on down. Before that can be done, however, certain key decisions have to be made:

·        Should it be a closed system, which can only be accessed internally, or should employees be able to receive messages from—and send them to—the outside world?

·        If it is a “closed” system, is there a way for employees to have necessary e-mails forwarded to them, or to allow them to access the system when they are away from the office?

·        Who is responsible for maintaining and monitoring the system?

·        What sort of security or monitoring system should be in place to prevent improper use, maintain privacy, and deal with unauthorized use?

·        Do managers have the “right” to access the e-mail of their subordinates?

·        Will the system accept attachments? After all, that is how most e-mail viruses are spread.

·        Will it be a text-only system, or will it allow HTML, audio and video clips to be sent and received?

• How are e-mail messages kept—even the ones employees think they have deleted—and what is the organization policy about archiving and retrieving them?

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5.  Using E-Mail

            The daily stream of e-mail can often be intimidating and overwhelming. At times it can seem as if you are spending more time on your e-mail than you are on you job. In numerous cases e-mail actually creates busy-ness while getting in the way of actually doing project/program purpose.

            Some people actually do need to responds to e-mail immediately. This can include those in sales, security, shipping, transportation, media relations, and such. If you are not one of them, you might want to set limits on the amount of time you spend accessing it.

            Perhaps you could start your day handling e-mail, and then not look at it again for three hours, or one hour, or two…whatever works for you.

            If you get an automatic “You’ve got mail!” type of notification—either a computer chime, alarm, or any other sound, noise, or voice message—every time a letter pops into your in-box, ask yourself if you really need it? Does it break your concentration while you are focusing on other tasks? Can you or should you shut it off?

            If you know that there will be e-mail in the box every time you look for it, do you really need that constant reminder?

            You can, however, learn how to streamline and simplify the way you handle messages. Here are a dozen tips for doing it.

1.      Make sure that your system automatically sorts and stacks your e-mail by date and time with the newest mail on top.

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2.      Develop a filing system and create folders relating to the project or person sending it. The categories will depend upon your needs, but here are some you might want to include:

·        “Urgent” for the ones you have to act on immediately—if not sooner.

·        “Aging,” for messages more than 30 days old.

·        “CC” for the copies of other people’s e-mail you get that you do not have to act on.

·        “Background” for information about the person, personnel, or project that you might want to have easy access to.

3.      Respond to e-mail as quickly as possible to avoid having to put them in the “Aging” file.

4.      Always fill in the “subject line” on the message to tell the recipient what it is about. When you hit the reply button on a message the subject line stays the same, so if it is on a new topic, change the subject line.

5.      Make sure you know whom your message is going to. Most e-mail programs have a “reply to all” and a “reply” button. If you hit reply to all, your message goes to everyone who got the original message you are replying to. Some list servers have a default that sends you reply to all members even if you think you are replying only to the person who sent the message. Be sure to check before you hit the send button. Depending upon the nature of the message—and reply—this could be rude, inconvenient, embarrassing, or all three.