E-Mail: the Most Used and Least Effective Communications Tool

[svanels]

A lot of discussions have been held about, the quality of e-mail, spam, CYAP (Cover Your A. Politics) etc.
Bottom line, many of the information routing through e-mail does not arrive at the target audience. I came across an article that describes this phenomenom as I encounter almost daily.

http://www.maintenanceworld.com/Articles/williamsonr/emailthe.html

How do you as an IT professinal handle this?

Regards

Steven

 

[mattKnight]

How do you as an IT professinal handle this?

In short, I don't see this as an IT problem as such. It is a problem that relates to usage of an IT tool. I think that you could probaby expand this criticism of "email" to many other forms of business communication.

I think that the idea of forumulating emails in a certain way has merits, but doesn't neccessarily resolve the problem. I would certainly add that people need to think about the target of their email; it is all too easy to just send your message to the evryone global group. The result, most people have to wade through piles of irrelavant messages to get to one that may be important.

To resolve, extra training (and an interesting point about literacy too) on the appropriate use of messaging systems. lIkewise, a strong lead from managment (many who are the worst offenders). I suppose that an element of that training must come from the IT dept, but I still hold that the problem is a mangement one.



Take Care

Matt
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

 

[svanels]

I agree that it is not a mere IT problem, in fact it is a management problem. I saw just an analogy with the implementation of ERP systems.

Steven

 

[Thadeus]

I think the title is a little deceptive.

Of course e-mail can't be effective if 70% of the employees don't have access to it...
***NEWSFLASH***
A phone is the least effective communications tool if only one party has a phone.

Now, add to this the next tidbit the article feeds us -
"about 30 percent of the workforce could not read or write above the 7th grade level"

Is this the norm in corporate America? I haven't seen it in my corner of the world, but I'm sure it may be true... However, if 30 percent can't read above seventh grade level then they can't write above 7th level either... E-mail amidst this group would be fine. E-mail to this group, I concede as a problem...

And then of the remaining 70% "few had sufficient computer skills... [beyond those] ...related to games on a home computer"
??? Who were the few? The President? The CFO? HR? IT? Sales? Account managers? Accounting? What companies use e-mail as their primary communications tool when only a few people in the entire company have sufficient computer skills to do more than play Quake?

I don't see it. Call me blind, but I have worked in the telemarketing, pharmaceutical, financial and communications industries. In fact, I have been working for 20 years now and I have never come across a company in this situation.
I have never worked more than a temp position in (non-pharma) manufacturing or retail, so I grant that this is definitely possible, just not as prevalent as the article would put forth.

Also, I do see e-mail as a communications problem, but it has more to do with people being so tied into conversations that they are unable to perform their primary function. e.g. The manager that has no time to be a manager, because they spend 50% of their time in meetings and 25% answering e-mail.

~Thadeus

 

[svanels]

Thadeus, I was refering to the manufacturing, processing, utilities area, shortly the industrial world.
The people building cars, working in mills, the average John Joe who don't sit behind a computer and works with his hands and tools (and of course also his head).
Or has Corporate America more computers then people? If so, how the money is generated? Enron deals?

Steven

 

[Thadeus]

Steve,
I didn't mean to disagree with you so much as the premise of the article. However, you seem to indicate that the average worker still builds material things (unless I completely misunderstood)

Employment stats:
14,321,000 in Manufacturing
110,807,000 in Service (includes Govt)
source: Feb 2005 employment numbers, US Bureau of Labor Statistics

I submit that the "average John Joe" is not in the manufacturing world.

Or has Corporate America more computers then people? If so, how the money is generated? Enron deals?

I'm not sure what you mean by this... I'll be happy to respond if you could clarify.

~Thadeus

 

[langleymass]

Without a doubt, the most annoying thing about e-mail as a communication tool is PWDSOA (people who don't spell out anything). I'm really getting sick and tired of having to e-mail PWDSOA just to ask them what their freaking abbreviations mean.

 

[svanels]

United states population 295,734,134 population

Lets say that one half not belongs to the active workforce (Children, students, retired, in prison etc.).
That makes roughly 150,000,000

Manufacturing 14,321,000

Services including (government 110,807,000)
The services we could expand to:
Medical (doctors, nurses and all supporting occupations)
Agriculture?
Utilities (construction, power generation etc..)
Police, Military
street cleaners, supermarkets, you name it, and many others

It is not likely that the gross workload sit behind a computer terminal for its day-to-day activity. The upper class in the food chain maybe, but the bottom side of the pyramide certainly not.
I once heard the statement that computer skills is inverse proportional to height (management)
Sometimes i am inclined to believe that this is true. Maybe we don't put ourselves not enough in the shoes of the other person to check what are his abilities an weaknesses.

This is real story:

Equipment inventory, small boss hands a disk with a word tempate containing all relevant fields for registration to Joe. He also shows Joe how to save the form etc.. (he shows , Joe only looks).
Two weeks later still nothing, and I heard the excuse that he is waiting on Joe. I never have seen Joe behind a computer, and start asking further . Then he sees the light...

Steven

 

[dBjason]

On this post (and sorry to not follow the thread) I have to agree with literacy theory. Top-rated television shows (to include late-night TV) broadcast with content designed for an 8th to 9th grade mind. This includes CNN, Science Channel, Discovery, etc...

Newspapers and weekly magazines are geared for an even lesser 7th to 8th grade mind. Saddening. I thought I was so cool reading the Times.

I beleive our problem lies in education (or lack thereof). What's worse is that considering the gap between the the two (not three) socioeconomic classes is widening; and without an educated populace for us to retire on an entire generation of mindless cattle will be attempting to support our decrepid buttocks when we all reach that all-too-familiar age.

Now how do I relate this to e-mail? I think the age of information really is a beautiful thing, that is, until the economic engine decided to take over it. Yes, there are monetary benefits and conveniences involved; however the low overhead for companies and at-home convenience for Joe Blow come at a price. Service workers are ruled out of yet another automated position (being replaced by one of us at much less than a 1:1 ratio), coorporate America makes an increasing amount of $$$, therefore dividing the classes even further. This new technology may be an economic cancer for those who are not at the top (and I mean THE top) of the pile.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[svanels]

dBjason did you see Modern Times from Charlie Chaplin? you comments reminded me of that film

Steven

 

[philote]

I work for a smallish distribution company and have seen this as well. Though our users are pretty good at getting information in e-mails to those without e-mail access, they lack some basic skills. The president has someone print his e-mails out for him and write and send them as well. The VP 'hunts-and-pecks' on the keyboard, which takes a while so he abbreviates often, creating unclear messages. Others just see e-mail as a nuisance that they have to check in case something important from management comes along.

My biggest problem is that everyone wants to tell me verbally their problems/needs but don't e-mail me about it as well. Therefore we both have no record of what was said and one or both of us will often forget or remember incorrectly.

Overall it is frustrating but I've seen it getting better with some training. And since management does send important e-mail, forcing users to check for them, those users who fear computers are spending more time on them and therefore getting a bit more comfortable.

And as I said, I'm in a smaller environment, so I can see where a larger company would have a bigger problem with e-mail.

 

[kmcginn]

I work in an office where practically everyone has e-mail and it is the communication media of choice. It works well most of the time and provides a paper trail for tracking purposes.

What bugs me most is the people who type an e-mail and don't re-read it before they send it. It's very hard to convey the right emotional message in an e-mail rather than face-to-face. You can't see facial or body expressions. People can often times come accross much more (or less) forceful than they intended. Or, an e-mail can sound very rude and harsh when that wasn't the intent at all.

As a good rule of thumb, all e-mails should be read by the sender before pressing the SEND button when it's then too late to do anything about it!

 

[DPlank]

I'd agree with kmcginn's sentiments, and add one of my own.

CHECK YOUR FLAMING SPELLING!

Nothing gets my goat more than emails written by intelligent people with stupidly misspelled words.

feel better now..

Cheers,
Dave

Probably the only Test Analyst on Tek-Tips...therefore whatever it was that went wrong, I'm to blame...

animadverto vos in Abyssus!

Take a look at Forum1393 & sign up if you'd like

 

[langleymass]

Many e-mail clients have spellcheckers.

 

[jonsi]

Many e-mail clients have spellcheckers

...and the ones who spell badly are, most likely, the ones who switch it off.

I got an email this morning, from the Engineer down the corridor asking me to phone him. I walked the 10 yards to his office instead.

He said "I was going to come and see you but thought I'd check that you were there first"

10 yards!!! Doh!

 

[langleymass]

Back in 1998, I worked for a psycho supervisor, Nicole. I got a call, and the person actually needed to speak to Debra. Debra's cube was about 15 feet away. I said to the caller: "Let me check to see if Debra's here." I walked over to see if Debra was there. She was, and I told her I would be transferring a call to her.

After I transferred the call, Psycho Nicole called me and told me that I should have called Debra instead of walking over her to her cube.