Introduction to a series of essays on messaging and collaboration: E-mail is Still King.
Category None
Could anything be duller than discussing e-mail? I'd like
to think not and avoid that peril, because e-mail is, arguably, the
single most efficient social and business communication protocol of
our society. But it is also equally mis-used, misunderstood, and
deeply maligned. As someone who manages a messaging infrastructure
for a large media and education firm, I get a lot of headaches
working with people and systems that don't really know how to work
their e-mail. Why is e-mail so simple and yet, so maddening?
I'll start by recognizing that it's impossible to disassociate
e-mail's apparent simplicity from the complex consequences of its
use. To the end-user, e-mail appears as simple as its metaphorical
namesake: postal mail. Pick up the message from one mail box and
drop it into another one. After spending 15 years with a wide range
of e-mail systems, I can tell you that what appears to be the
electronic pony-express is more like the switch yard of a large
train station.
Hidden from view, e-mail requires an elaborate and intricate
system. Actually, e-mail runs through a complex chain of events
that disassembles the content, packages it into a standard format
(MIME), changes to a network protocol (SMTP), routes it through the
Internet by using e-mail specific domain accounts (MX), deliveries
it into a specific mail file and reassembles it into a form that the
user can read. There is an entire alphabet soup of acronyms that
describe aspects of e-mail functions (IMAP4, LDAP, POP3, x.400,
x.500, S/MIME, MUA, MTA, etc.). And, I'm not even examining the
proprietary enterprise mail systems of Microsoft Exchange, Novell's
Groupwise, or IBM/Lotus Domino and Notes. E-mail's simplicity is not
it's architecture, but the immediate appeal of transferring a
message from one identity to another, creating what many consider to
be the first “killer app” of the Internet.
E-mail
is being leveraged with more and more capabilities. It's been
plopped into 21st century technology and the rippling
splash is creating waves that are difficult to predict but has
raised e-mail to the level of a ubiquitous standard. It's
everywhere, and the average Internet citizen has a least one work
and one personal mail account. But, the same momentum which has
propelled e-mail into success is careening out of control. The
onslaught of disinformation, false advertising, viral dispersion,
chain letters and e-mail's burgeoning storage demands have
discharged a backlash to loosen its dominance.
“I
hate e-mail” is becoming a chic aphorism of the technorati,
instead of just a Luddite's curse. Too bad. I wish good luck to the
e-mail freedom fighters because, love-it-or-hate-it, I can't
envision our culture without e-mail. Which brings me to a business
doctrine: to mismanage e-mail is to lose opportunities, drown in
data, and decrease productivity. We need to get a handle on working
with e-mail, because I don't see any next generation solution to
e-mail's woes.
Blogs, wikis, and social networks can integrate with e-mail,
but they aren't going to usurp its authority. In my mind, I
imagine the likelihood to transcend e-mail to be as successful as
the Dick Tracy video phone, calculator watches, the personal
helicopter or even the paperless office. I'm serious. These are all
examples of version-two design enhancements. Some people are still
hoping that these technical marvels will reach large scale
acceptance. Never mind that I can barely keep my own image centered
on my computer videocam, and I don't want to add and subtract with
the assistance of a toothpick stylus, or think about a one-ton
autogyro falling out of the sky. Is it cheap rhetoric to agree that
the paperless office is as probable as the paperless restroom?
These futuristic wonders are banned from adoption by an economic
rule of complexity. Increasing complexity creates a hockey-stick
increase in costs. Adding ten cooks into my kitchen isn't going to
give a ten-fold decrease in the time to create spaghetti. But, my
increase in labor is going to jump up my operating costs beyond any
useful return. Trying to morph e-mail into a new technology strategy
is not going to reduce its complexity.
Let me state myself as clearly as I can: I have come to
appreciate that (1) e-mail is here to stay, and (2) it is a mess to
control. In other words, it has personal and strategic value. And,
unfortunately, extracting any utility from e-mail is also
tremendously onerous and challenging.
Is e-mail worth all of our attention? Is there an effective way
to employ e-mail which increases productivity? That'll be the
next topic.
E-mail
is being leveraged with more and more capabilities. It's been
plopped into 21st century technology and the rippling
splash is creating waves that are difficult to predict but has
raised e-mail to the level of a ubiquitous standard. It's
everywhere, and the average Internet citizen has a least one work
and one personal mail account. But, the same momentum which has
propelled e-mail into success is careening out of control. The
onslaught of disinformation, false advertising, viral dispersion,
chain letters and e-mail's burgeoning storage demands have
discharged a backlash to loosen its dominance.
“I
hate e-mail” is becoming a chic aphorism of the technorati,
instead of just a Luddite's curse. Too bad. I wish good luck to the
e-mail freedom fighters because, love-it-or-hate-it, I can't
envision our culture without e-mail. Which brings me to a business
doctrine: to mismanage e-mail is to lose opportunities, drown in
data, and decrease productivity. We need to get a handle on working
with e-mail, because I don't see any next generation solution to
e-mail's woes. 
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