Email really is old school. It has reached the limit of its use case. Too much of my communication is transactional and/or emotional – and email does not work well for those outcomes.
Email works for action and for details. OK. And that’s it.
Just now, I received the 7th email of a chain between me and two others trying to arrange a time to speak on the phone. Each interaction takes 20+ seconds of cognitive load time away from other work. Each email had to be dealt with – filed / deleted. Fail.
Also, one of the email interactions was just plain funny. It made me laugh and I immediately wanted to acknowledge that – thumbs up! But, no. Instead, a choice to add yet another email to the chain. I declined – and now they will never know how they made me feel! Weep!
A contact who I have met face-to-face, Kelli Carlson, whose business card I might have somewhere (with her email address on it), but with whom I interact lightly via LinkedIn and twitter only, wrote a post this week about email dying.
I commented that for pretty much every contact I have made in the last couple of years, I have never emailed, and indeed do not have an email address for. Think about that for a second – that is a profound difference. An intentional difference. Consequently, I get to interact in social channels, and I have many choices – as shown by the tabs in my browser above, all replicated on my mobile device.
There,I get to give my thumbs up. I like liking.
And frankly, I have had enough of the weaknesses of email. Unless it is directional, action oriented, I try to move it to a social space. I just wish more of my stakeholders knew they existed!!
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