I use GMail as my primary mail tool for pleasure and personal web design business. When GMail was briefly down today I thought about what I could use for sending messages and went back into the past to try and recall how we communicated in the past before mail tools (yes there was such a time!!)
The Inter-Office Memo: Still strong in some older companies I regularly in the late 80s and early 90s spent a half day slaving over a one page inter office memo, printed it, copied it and then walked from desk to desk handing it out. Now this may seem antiquated (it is a bit) but it had some advantages.
- I got to in most cases get face to face with the person to whom the message was for. For E-mail we get so much that people often only scan and don't process your message.
- It stopped me making too many copies as it meant I had to walk more so I focused on who the message was for. We don't always do this in e-mail.
- It allowed me to deliver a better message as with a memo you can add a diagram and it is seen and understood straight away - proff of its success was when people pined it up on their wall for information purposes. How many people of this for your e-mails.
- I got some needed exercise !!
The Phone Call: An e-mail is often a cop out to a conversation. A lot of people send a one line e-mail to eliminate the need to have a conversation, Do you? Practice picking up the phone and speaking with someone -
momentary pause I just did this and had a nice sociable Project chat with a colleauge in the US -Drop By and Tell: As it says Tom Peters spoke at length in many of his books of MBWA Management By Walking Around. When you walk around and speak to people it makes all the difference. Do it regularly and e-mails will actually reduce as you should also encourage people to drop by and update you.
Notice Board(s): As an add on to the Inter Office Memo you can often communicste by a well written note and a visula and posting it outside youroiffice, on the work notice board or where people can see it and process it quickly. If you want to publicise status on an ongoing Project this technique works extremely well.
There is a time and a place for e-mails - I am a believer in it as a tool but it is not an absolute solution to everything. In a future blog I plan to share how I use e-mail effectively in both personal e-mails and work e-mails.
