Staff to be banned from sending emails - Telegraph ⇢

Henry Samuel via The Telegraph

Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos and a former French finance minister, wants a “zero email” policy to be in place within as early as 18 months, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees receive per day on average turn out to be useful. Instead he wants them to use an instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.

[…]

“The email is no longer the appropriate (communication) tool.

“The deluge of information will be one of the most important problems a company will have to face (in the future). It is time to think differently.” Reading useless messages is terrible for concentration, as it takes 64 seconds to get back on the ball after doing so, according to a recent study by the social and business responsibility watchdog ORSE. “Poorly controlled, the email can become a devastating tool,” it warned.

“The email is a real problem,” Nicolas Moinet, information and communication professor at Poitiers University. “We have now reached crazy situations where employees go to a meeting, continue to send emails and then ask colleagues present to send them an email to know what was said during that meeting,” he told 20 Minutes news website.

The younger generation have already all but scrapped the email, with only 11 per cent of 11 to 19 year-olds using it, according to silicon.fr, and online social networking is now more popular than email and search.

“Companies must prepare for the new wave of usage and behaviour,” said Mr Breton.

He wants staff to use chat-type collaborative services inspired by social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

I predicted the death of email back in 2005, saying it would take 5-10 years and that something based on instant messaging style communication would replace it.

I was openly ridiculed at Supernova in 2005 for saying email sucks at what we want to use it for, generally — communicating with people that are known to us — and it is really good at what we hate about email — the ease of emailing to people who aren’t known to us.

Amy Wohl asked if I was unaware that email was the killer app of the internet, for example. Esther Dyson shook her head. Some unnamed fellow in the back was furious, furious that in a session called ‘The Future of Email’ I suggested that the future of email was its eventual demise.

But it is all becoming apparent that email will soon join fax and telegrams on the dust heap of obsolete media.

A large number of readers might hasten to make some gradualist arguments — its going to be around in some form forever, it has its uses, etc. — but trust me, it’s almost dead, and you merely have to look at the kids to see that it’s near.

30 November 2011 72
emailemail delenda estemail suckssupernovathe death of emailzero email

Notes

  1. testsieger-2013 reblogged this from stoweboyd
  2. layficsuare reblogged this from stoweboyd
  3. ast3v3nson reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:
    Very interesting
  4. caradinley reblogged this from emergentfutures
  5. micktriathlon reblogged this from emergentfutures
  6. williamjohngardner reblogged this from emergentfutures
  7. bigpicturecommunication reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:
    The future of email is no email!
  8. kevanboyles reblogged this from emergentfutures
  9. blueginjava reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:
    I could not agree more!
  10. jeffkart reblogged this from emergentfutures
  11. thecontentcurators reblogged this from emergentfutures
  12. rossbreadmore reblogged this from emergentfutures
  13. emergentfutures reblogged this from stoweboyd
  14. sallysspecialservices reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    I agree completely. I hate email! It is not secure, and most of the security breaches come through emails and their...
  15. borismann reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    Stowe. I have long said...“
  16. steph reblogged this from stoweboyd
  17. timedesk reblogged this from stoweboyd
  18. blogishthing reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    my 2 cents that most people probably won’t care about… I’m glad to hear that someone is actually capable of taking a...
  19. dakedesu reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    I agree email sucks. Not going to disagree on that front. I am going to say it does not suck for any of the reasons...
  20. sahrawi reblogged this from stoweboyd
  21. ahandsomestark reblogged this from stoweboyd
  22. davesparks reblogged this from jeanphony and added:
    Just one open IRC channel should take care of everything.
  23. jeanphony reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    this (somewhat radical) position,...taken this long for someone
  24. This was featured in #Tech
  25. mercurialblonde reblogged this from stoweboyd
  26. stoweboyd posted this

← Previous Post Next Post →

About

Web anthropologist, futurist, author. My focus is the future, and the tectonic forces pushing business, media, and society into an unclear and accelerating future. more.

Working on longer format projects, Sign up for the newsletter.

GigaOM Research analyst and curator.

Also writing beaconstreets.com.

Contact me. or ask me a question.



My Vizify profile.

Socialogy

  • John Hagel | John offers up some great insights, like the fact that passion is lower the larger that businesses get.

  • Euan Semple | A chat with my old pal, and the author of Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do

  • Will McInnes | The author of Culture Shock and managing director of Nixon/McInnes

  • Jennifer Magnolfi | An interview with the woman who said, 'Work is not a place you go, it's a thing you do'.

    • Hot Now

  • What Drives Us? | A draft chapter of my book, discussing motivations, Maslow's hierarchy, and fluidarity.

  • Socialogy: Interview With John Hagel | I Speak with Joh Hagel about the innovation at the edge.

  • Complex organisation arises from webs of interaction among causal factors | So, it turns out that DNA is, in fact, a great metaphor for business culture, but only after you realize that DNA is not a few hundred off-on switches, but instead a universe of unknowable complexities, that we can interact with, and understand at some abstract cartoonish level, but not control, and never fully comprehend.

  • Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven | Paul Ford

  • Innovators Get Better With Age | Companies make a mistake by relying too much on the innoations of the young, because Nobel laureats don't come into their prime until their 50s.

    • Oldie

  • Infodemics | 2009 | Passing incomplete or inaccurate information about some risk event can make people take actions that increase the damage of the event itself.

    • Lynx theme created by Andrew Stichbury for Tumblr.