Random Groupings of Words

The Problem

I’ve been examining several of the applications I use and how I use them. I use a lot of applications on a daily basis, and some of them I use more frequently than others. The problem for me is that everyone seems to be looking for a “catch-all” communications application, and then they overload the heck out of it.

The number one example of this is e-mail. Our Inboxes, Outboxes, and folder systems have gotten out of control. And now just about every e-mail application has Junk folders and rules.

Are you kidding me!?!? An automatically created folder for junk and then rules to automatically categorize your items? What other application has that? What other system in nature has that?

The Symptoms

So what has brought us to this foolish state? E-mail was the easiest thing to learn in the 90s when the information superhighway was just becoming prevalent. Everyone remembers to check it, and it could be misused as easily as it could be used with no real recourse.

So what the hell does it mean to misuse e-mail? Everybody knows about Reply-to-all syndrome (well, except for the people who are susceptible to it, I suppose), but there is more to it than that. This concept of Email Etiquette has been around for a while, but to be honest, it’s more than just etiquette.

It’s more a lack of structure in e-mail usage. We are using it for everything and we aren’t using it well. Tantek Celic wrote a fantastic article that summarizes several of the problems inherent in e-mail usage, and for the most part he is right! But he outright denounces the use of 1:1 based communication. I’m not sure if I agree with that. We need 1:1 communication, but we just need to put an ounce of thought into it in order to make it streamlined and effective. Also, he suggests that a Twitter account, a wiki and blog should be sufficient, but I have a couple more suggestions as well.

The Solution

Since I’m not into defining a problem and then not providing some sort of solution, here’s my take on an answer:

Step 1: Change your mindset about how you use e-mail. Limit your e-mail usage using a few keys:

• Treat the subject line like the title of a blog post. 
• Make sure everyone you send and reply to is directly involved with your e-mail. Use reply to all and CC correctly and responsibly.
• Use e-mails for conversation-based communications only. If you send an e-mail, it should either require a response, or be a response to another e-mail.
• If you ever find yourself sending an attachment that’s more than 500K, then you need to be using something besides e-mail. This one is HUGE.

Step 2: Learn about RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it’s really easy to learn. Lee Lefever posted a great video called RSS in Plain English that gives a good 101 about what it is and how to use it. You can use RSS to offload a lot of notification e-mails! Get those things out of your Inbox!

Step 3: Use other applications to offload e-mail. Define “buckets” for different types of communication, and limit those applications to that type of communication. It makes it really easy to segment different communications in your mind, and guess what: it gets all of those communications out of your Inbox!

Expounding on Step 3

Step 3 above requires more explanation. So let’s say you’ve started using Facebook. It’s a useful app, and nifty and fun as well. You are getting in touch with your friends from high school, college, social groups, and other acquaintances. Now imagine that you received all those posts, status updates, photos, videos, comments, etc in your Inbox and they weren’t stored in the repository that is Facebook. You would have to wade through so much crap, and imagine your folder structures! And how much of it would go to Junk mail? And how much time would it take? It’s nice to have an encompassing application that takes care of that and saves it for you.

That’s the spirit of Web 2.0 and social media, and we should embrace that. I have started using LinkedIn for professional and resume related contacts, Twitter for short thoughts and stream of conscious posts, Yammer for work related twitter-type comments for my co-workers, Evernote for bookmarking, RSS for notifications, Flickr for photos, Last.fm for music, and a blog for journaling. There are probably others that I use or can use, and if I need another bucket for something else, I probably will.

It sounds so complicated! How are you supposed to keep up with all of these? It’s actually much easier now that I’ve adopted this mentality! When I think photo, my mind automatically jumps to Flickr, and when I have an immediate thought it jumps to Twitter, and when I think of past friends and acquaintances, I open Facebook. Nothing is overloaded anymore! It’s sweet.

One Final Pitch and a Couple Notes

Back when I was listing steps for changing your e-mail usage, I mentioned sending large attachments and media via e-mail. If you need a bucket for that, I recommend a free web application that my company created called Schmownce. Schmownce is our re-representation of the now-defunct app Pownce, which we loved. It’s a great place to upload media and non-essential essential communication, once again the purpose being to get it out of your Inbox! I wrote another article on the edicts of using Pownce/Schmownce, and if you’re not already asleep, you should read that as well.

Also, some applications and websites don’t support RSS yet, so you’ll have to live with some notifications and excess communication still using e-mail. It’s okay. That will be natural.