Is it just me, or do other CEO’s out there see a huge devil rearing its ugly electronic head in the form of each seemingly innocent email that pops up?
I think email is killing productivity, or at the very least putting a choke hold on our corporate systems and making it hard to breath.
And I’m not just talking about spam, although that is a problem. Recently we had to increase our security against spam because it was clogging our system. Now we have to put this message at the bottom of the page: “Because of the high volume of spam we receive, legitimate e-mail is sometimes mistakenly filtered. If you send a message and don’t receive a reply, please try the telephone.” How annoying, and how ridiculous! Spam is forcing us to tell people to call us, that email isn’t working. That’s what I call toxic technology.
But that’s not the biggest problem; the evil is more insidious. What I’ve noticed is that people are hiding behind email to communicate; and they are becoming slaves to the interruption each little email notice makes.
Recently I was talking to some of our creative people and they said many times they no longer get content documents handed to them by an individual. Instead they get emails from different people, including clients, who shoot them emails at random times from random places. People are using email as a way to replace face-to-face conversations. I’m encouraging everyone in this organization to not hide behind email.
The most heinous plague on productivity posed by email is its ability to distract us and fill time. Gone are the days when someone finishes a job and looks immediately for someone to help. We all go right to our emails. It makes everyone look really busy even when all they’re doing is catching up on notes from Mom, or their friends.
And now with email marketing we can be alerted, interrupted actually, anytime for any reason and directed to the Web for more tempting and delicious diversion. We can be seduced to check out sales from various e-commerce sites, drawn into various games, micro-sites, videos, and various other time-consuming treats. I’ve even read that the major television networks are talking about making all the soap operas available on broadband. Major League Baseball and other professional sports are already “broadcasting” games over the Web and letting people know about it through email.
So when you see someone with their iPod on working behind their computer screen, they might not even be playing with their email, they may be playing an interactive web game with someone in South Korea, watching an afternoon ball game or bidding on a boneless chicken breast shaped like Paris Hilton on eBay.
There is some evidence starting to come out that misusing email and other communication technology can be harmful. A recent article in GuardianUnlimited suggests “the distractions of constant emails, text and phone messages are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis," according to a survey of befuddled volunteers. The most damage was done, according to the survey, by the almost complete lack of discipline in handling emails”.
Technology is something we must master or it will master us. It’s always been that way. As an agency, we’re leading clients to the newest emerging media; as a CEO I’m wondering what you think it’s doing to your company’s internal productivity.
Gotta go. My email is calling.
That’s it, from the edge of the world.
Bob Noble
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