I have a post on my blog about what happened when I sent out a cyber-survey asking if email was dead (I happen to think it is, or at least should be euthanized).

The feedback I got was surprising to me. A large percentage of the respondents thought I must be crazy. These people could not imagine life without email. To me though, this is more a mindset locked into email as an application in spite of it’s limitations, rather than something that might facilitate a richer and more fluid communication (as many Web2.0 technologies do).

I’ve tried on several occasions to promote the use of IM, chat, et. al. instead of email. Some individuals are comfortable with the switch and lots of email messages were hence replaced by spontaneous chat dialogues. Others though, resisted even the idea of trying a different form of communication.

I will tell you that those in this latter category were concerned that without email as a written record of the conversation they would not be able to hold people accountable. These are the same people who sacrifice 500K of storage space for a one-word message (e.g., “thanks,” “ok”, “no” by email, copied to three or four people.

It’s interesting in my own efforts in this regard to observe management priorities when it comes to topics like this. If their is a dogmatic and controlling management mindset (e.g. verifying who did what and how much), then there’s probably less interest in the value of collaboration. This category of mindset is going to be a resistor of Web2.0 technologies. If the management style leverages trust and an assumption of very capable resources, then collaboration is likely recognized as an accelerator.

The other interesting point about your experience is that your audience felt that if they didn’t answer their emails then other people couldn’t do there job. This may make perfect sense if I knew the business and the situation you were involved in. However, one has to wonder if there are seriously impaired work flow processes in such an organization.

For the record, there are many emails I don’t bother to answer and even some that I don’t bother to read…. simply because they’re unnecessary due to their nature. I can’t afford to be a hostage to my inbox.

Bob