FTFA wrote:
You heard right.
Eighteen months from now Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos—one of the largest information technology companies in the world, plans to have eliminated email as a communication and collaboration medium within his company. “If people want to talk to me, call or send me a text message,†said Breton. “Emails cannot replace the spoken word.â€
According to an article written by Peter Allen in the Daily Mail, Atos’ nearly 80,000 employees in 42 countries will have stopped using email eighteen months from now and will have replaced it with social media tools, the telephone and face-to-face conversations. Should you read this and assume that Breton is a 30-something young maverick trying to make a statement, you’d be wrong. The 56-year old chief executive is the former French finance minister who believes that only 20 out of every 200 emails received by his staff every day turn out to be important.
“[E]mail is no longer the appropriate tool,†said Breton. “It is time to think differently.â€
Breton cites a number of examples of how email wastes time including:
1.The “deluge†of information that plagues organizations
2.The need to review “useless†emails and the time it takes to get focused again on important tasks
3.The “pile†of email that employees end up sorting through after hours and the associated drain on employees’ personal time
What’s more “Mr. Breton pointed to a recent study by the business watchdog ORSE, which reads: Reading useless messages is terrible for concentration, as it takes 64 seconds to get back on the ball after doing so,†writes Allen. “Poorly controlled, the e-mail can become a devastating tool.â€
Eighteen months from now Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos—one of the largest information technology companies in the world, plans to have eliminated email as a communication and collaboration medium within his company. “If people want to talk to me, call or send me a text message,†said Breton. “Emails cannot replace the spoken word.â€
According to an article written by Peter Allen in the Daily Mail, Atos’ nearly 80,000 employees in 42 countries will have stopped using email eighteen months from now and will have replaced it with social media tools, the telephone and face-to-face conversations. Should you read this and assume that Breton is a 30-something young maverick trying to make a statement, you’d be wrong. The 56-year old chief executive is the former French finance minister who believes that only 20 out of every 200 emails received by his staff every day turn out to be important.
“[E]mail is no longer the appropriate tool,†said Breton. “It is time to think differently.â€
Breton cites a number of examples of how email wastes time including:
1.The “deluge†of information that plagues organizations
2.The need to review “useless†emails and the time it takes to get focused again on important tasks
3.The “pile†of email that employees end up sorting through after hours and the associated drain on employees’ personal time
What’s more “Mr. Breton pointed to a recent study by the business watchdog ORSE, which reads: Reading useless messages is terrible for concentration, as it takes 64 seconds to get back on the ball after doing so,†writes Allen. “Poorly controlled, the e-mail can become a devastating tool.â€
I saw this article a while back, and found the concept a little facinating. I've often said there's too much waste in email, particularly the way some people use it. I know that roughly 3/4 of email I get, if not more, has no direct impact in communicating anything worthwhile to me in my job. If I were to eliminate all that traffic, it would save me at least some time and productivity (as I sit here with the Asylum on one tab and Facebook on the other).
How about you? Would you Shit a brick if you had to go without email at work? Would IM, texting, phone, and face to face be enough?