Email is Dead! Long Live Email!

I am firmly in the camp that sees email as an outdated technology, and one for which the utility for current day business processes is waning at best.  I have seen commentary from the Web 2.0 community saying similar things, but I decided to send an unsolicited query out into cyberspace to see how broadly this position is held. 

 

A few weeks ago, I posted a question asking if email is an endangered species in the technology jungle.  I received a lot of responses.  While the number of responses is not large enough to represent a statistically authoritative sample set, I found the feedback very interesting.  In summary, here’s how it played out:

 

Group 1:  “Blasphemer!… Are you nuts?”

 

This group of people took the time (which I appreciate) to write back to tell me they could hardly believe I’d ask such a silly question.  Along with the responses came explanations for the position that email is great and is here to stay.  Among those reasons were the fact that you can use it to send attachments (email as a file transfer mechanism), everybody uses it (ubiquity), and it allows one to thoughtfully pause to recompose drafts before sending (I’ll tag this as temporally distant).  The group that thought I was crazy for asking the question accounted for over 40% of the responses.

 

Group 2:  “Yes it’s probably dead, but until the current generation of users die off we’re probably stuck with it”

 

This group agreed with the premise that email is at least broken, or has in some way become flawed in its usefulness for current day needs.  However, these people feel that we’re resigned to live with it for better or worse because of a mature critical mass of users that are dragging it along into the (near) future.  This group accounted for roughly 30% of the responses.

 

Group 3:  “Yah, you bet-cha it’s broken.”

 

These people seemed relieved to blow off steam to complain about the numerous ills of email.  Among them are the high degree of overhead and infrastructure resources (costs) that are associated with the simple task of sending a message, the delivery mechanism for rapid proliferation of malware, the lack of temporal immediacy, poorly suited to facilitate collaboration, and of course the great white elephant- Spam.

 

On the Spam subject, some users volunteered some very interesting quantitative data.  Ian Eiloart, who manages the email system at University of Sussex, said that 95% of incoming email is rejected as Spam.  Of the remaining 5%, approximately 5% of that accepted email is also Spam. 

 

Dennis Stevenson (http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/cio/original-thinking/archives/whats-in-my-inbox-21285) shared some interesting personal research and says that while he still uses email out of necessity, he’s shifted much of his communication to other Web 2.0 technologies that are more appropriate for exchange with users with whom he has some type of working relationship.

 

By the way, the Group 3 responses represented approximately 20% of my informal study.

 

Group 4:  No strong opinion one way or another.

 

The last group of respondents did not have a strong opinion on whether email is a broken or dieing technology.  I greatly appreciate these people taking the time to respond to my question, and they offered their perspective on the ways they use email for their daily jobs and personal correspondence.

 

So, what is there to say about all this?  First of all, it came as a surprise to me that so many of the users who replied to my query strongly feel that email serves them well.  I wouldn’t have guessed this, which again shows the value in asking dumb questions.  I also have to say that I do recognize the value statements that group of users has raised.  Yes indeed, we use email for all those things (sending messages, including file attachments, documenting (richly) dialogue, and so on.  It’s also true that it’s unavoidable in business today.  Everyone uses it, and pretty much has to.  In fact, email communication is likely the most widely used written medium in business.  My point is though, that this comes at a cost.

 

In my opinion, the utility of email (“Utility” in this case meaning, fit for purpose) is not well suited for business communication processes today.  Yes, it’s a mechanism that is a component of many (maybe most) business communications processes, but that doesn’t mean it’s well suited for those purposes.  When I say this, most of what I’m thinking about is the temporal immediacy of the conversational dialogue, and the opportunity to facilitate collaboration between business colleagues.  Email isn’t a communication technology that is immediate, and the degree of overhead, redundancy, and delay associated with the technology does not bode well for collaborative processes. 

 

For the other knocks against email, it’s difficult to separate the features of the technology itself (it’s architecture, standards, operational aspects) from the way we use email.  For example, one can say that email is a very expensive way to send a message or transfer a file.  There’s a whole lot of overhead in sending an email message in terms of the protocol and format of the message itself as well as demands on the enterprise infrastructure to process, store, deliver, and archive messages.  Some of those costs though, have to do with the way we choose to use and operate email services.  When someone copies me on a message in which they’ve said “thank you” to a co-worker for example (one of my email pet peeves), there is lots of data overhead associated with this nine-character message (the message header, the 50k legal disclaimer that gets tacked to the nine-character message, the storage it will occupy forever on several hard disks on our servers, et. al.), not to mention that there’s probably very little business value in me knowing that Scott told Bill “thank you.”

 

I believe it’s true, as  Group 2 points out, that the presence of email in our business communications processes is likely here for a while, and will be transitioned by Web 2.0 (or Web 3.0?) technologies based on the momentum brought by younger users.  I think there’s an opportunity too, though, for this transition to be accelerated by increased availability of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.  If you’re keeping up with the trade literature, there are hints that this is a movement that is gaining momentum.

 

As always, I’ll greatly appreciate your views.

 

Chickens and Eggs

I lead into this discussion using the well known adage that says, “Which came first- The chicken or the egg?”  Granted, it’s a bit trite, but many a glass of wine has been tossed back over discussions about cause, effect, cause.

Recent developments in physics are re-confirming what has been told by ancient metaphysics for millennia.  One such point in this regard is the notion that we create our own reality by manipulating the energy around us.  While this is a notion that is deserving of focused discussions in its own right, I will leverage this notion as an analogy for a quick comment on the development of technology. 

Let’s take communication technology for example.  Many of us can remember the emergence of Email as an application, and as a communication technology.  It really wasn’t that long ago.  It could be said that Email was the killer app of the ARPANET (remember that name?), and when we talk about ARPANET we’re covering ground in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.  I believe it was 1971 when Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked email, and within just a couple of years Email accounted for more than 75% of traffic on ARPANET.  ‘Sound familiar?  It would seem that Email has been the cocaine that drove us to accelerated consumption of content and messaging which now consumes such a large part of our day.

For anyone reading this BLOG, it’s surely the case that for most everyone you know, Email is a fundamental part of daily life.  Not only does Business depend upon it, but we depend upon it for our personal lives as well.  With the fact that Email is securely rooted in our daily personal and professional lives, I will say too that I’m one of those people who are firmly in the camp that says Email is a technology that is struggling to be “Fit for Purpose” (to use an ITIL term) given the nature of contemporary communication processes.

So what does any of this have to do with chickens and eggs, or with creating our own realities?  To me, this is a good analogy to describe the fact that we create technologies that we need to facilitate our desired business behaviors.  That is, we are not addicted to increasing amounts and urgency of communication because Email and IM enabled it.  Rather, we need to communicate with more urgency, and collectively we’ve enabled the emergence of technologies that accommodate the state that our business behavior demands.

In a future post, I’ll share the results of my query of a number of users with the question of whether email is dead.  I was surprised by the feedback and perhaps you’ll find it interesting as well.

 

Cartoon credit: Joel Coughlin

Skills for Success in the (early) 21st Century

A very good friend of mine, Vaughan Merlyn, operates a blog called IT Organization Circa 2017. If you’ve not had the chance to visit it, I suggest you take the time to do so. Vaughan is a very insightful and clear thinker. In addition, he is a rock musician extraordinaire. In one of his blog entries, Vaughan talks about his experience at a Rock n Roll fantasy camp, and his observation that so many of these accomplished artists have another side of them that might not be as well recognized but still is very accomplished never the less. John Entwistle of The Who (who’s cartoons have been widely acclaimed) is one of several examples mentioned in that post. Vaughan uses this observation to ask about the balance of skills necessary for professional success in the coming years.

While far from an accomplished musician, I have several parallel careers as well. One of those is my 25+ year career as a technologist, consultant, IT leader. Another parallel profile of mine is as a visual artist (painting and sculpture). Those that know me first as either one or the other are surprised to learn of the other side of myself, and often remark at how distinctly different these to pursuits are. I would counter though, that they’re not different at all but rather very much the same. Reflecting on my own thought process, I realize that whether approaching an engineering assignment or creating a painting, my process of thinking and perceiving is exactly the same. It’s a process of conceptualizing, recognizing, processing, and progressively bringing into focus. I will bet that this is the case for more and more people you know and come to recognize in this way.

I think that the ability to blend analytical and abstract thinking is something very necessary for successful management of business today. Further, I think that this ability is becoming more common rather than less so, contrary to intuitive reasoning. If I can burden you with a bit of rumination, let me share with you why I think this is so.

Since the 1800’s there’s been talk about the distinct strengths of the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the human brain (referred to in pop-psychology as Lateralization). We’ve come to understand that (in general) the left side of the brain is very adept at analytical thought and the right side is very adept at abstract thought. That is, a person in the engineering, scientific, or financial fields was stereotypically recognized as being very left-brained, while a musician, artist, or someone in a very creative role was said to be very right-brained. Those that showed a “balance” in their thinking, those able to dance on both sides of the fence, those that draw from both sides of the brain were often called your “Renaissance Persons” (‘like that PC term?). This may indeed have been the trend in the population at large, but I will posit for your consideration that this is changing very fast. Call it an evolutionary step, an adaptation, or a defensive coping mechanism, human beings are changing in fundamental ways that impact the way we work, play, create, and socialize.

You’re no doubt familiar with works such as “The Age of Speed” and other writings that shine a light on the exponential pace of the times we occupy. Time is indeed accelerating. We are both pushing it as well as being swept by it. With a little reflection, I think one can recognize distinct changes within ourselves that support my claim of change within us.

I can remember in 1981 (not at all long ago, and The Who were already well along in their career) when I was asked to evaluate a group of PC’s from a variety of manufacturers for use in the company I then worked for. These were the first commercially available PCs, and the beginning of that emerging product market. I can recall thinking to myself, “there is no use for one of these either on my desk or in my home.” Yes, this was one of thousands of my predictions to fall off target but just think of where we are today in this regard. It’s barely imaginable to consider writing a document, doing analysis, or most anything else without a computer of some type. What day goes by without email?… and it’s easily argued that we are now in the twilight of the usefulness of email as more immediate forms of communication proliferate (just ask any 9-16 year old). Our circles of dialogue 25 years ago consisted of our immediate group of co-workers. That is, the group directly in physical proximity to us in our place of work, and who were basically thinking the same thoughts as we were at the time. Today, our thoughts are influenced by an enormous and simultaneous multiplicity of media channels. Our circle of dialogue is far beyond our group of co-workers. It’s common now to have an intimate dialogue with numerous people one is “connected with” even though you may never have laid eyes on them in physical proximity. The fact is (my postulation) that our thought processes are more complex both in terms of the degree of connectedness and the immediacy of those connections than ever before. This is somewhat enabled by communication and media technologies available to us, but also driven by communication and media technologies created out of necessity because of the demands of our brains. It is my opinion that this change and degree of connectedness,… the degree of co-creation,… the degree of co-thinking is not only accelerating but is becoming a part of our collective DNA, if you will. For evidence, have a look at the way our children navigate work, play, art, athletics, and social life. For them, it’s all connected and naturally navigated in a way other generations can barely understand.

At the risk of losing the train of thought (because while our brains are certainly evolving, mine is still very very small) I’ll bring this around to your point about necessary talents for professional success. All dimensions of Business thought (those streams of consciousness that contribute to the collective forward progress of the firm) are certainly merging. This has been given more buzzword definitions than one can shake a stick at. Successful businesses adapt to this simultaneous processing of hard and soft information and demonstrate speed and agility in the delivery of product to meet the (also increasingly dynamic) demand. The “consummate professional” will need the same morphing of synaptic connections to creatively and skillfully navigate the business climate where all dimensions must be simultaneously solved. This requires, to use trite terms, a well rounded and multi-dimensional individual.

In other words, we all will have to use our left, right, and middle brains to be successful through the years ahead. Luckily, the emerging generation is good at it (and thankfully they still listen to The Who).

I love the work I do for my Customers

I am passionate about the work that I do for my Customers. I work as an IT/Business consultant, for medium to large companies across a variety of vertical markets. Though each of my Customers has unique businesses and unique concerns, in all cases there is a need to progressively and opportunistically close the alignment gap between the business and IT.

We live at a time in which the underpinnings of IT services are, or are on the path to be, commodities. Thank goodness for open standards and mature governance frameworks. The Business has options now. IT organizations that have embraced these opportunities can count themselves as accelerators and enablers for the Business they serve.

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Across the board, my Customers are very smart. They understand the business that they serve. They understand the new technologies, and are beyond the “hype” phase of the technology adoption curves. They recognize and face the challenges before them and they show a strong sense of urgency in their desire to improve the levels of IT services in their firm.

As a consultant, I serve my Customers in the areas of IT Governance, IT-Business Alignment, IT Strategy and Planning, Data Center consolidations, BC/DR, IS Security, and strategic roadmaps for specific infrastructure technologies.

This is truly exciting work. This work has a direct and positive impact on the value of IT to the Business. I can’t think of a time in my career when the work I do is as impactful to the Business and its Customers. These are exciting times.