Will e-mail overload get worse?

Unified Communications This newsletter is sponsored by Quantum Whitepaper: Solve Storage's Catch-22 Regulations require increasing data storage, but your budget and staff aren't unlimited. Discover how data de-duplication maximizes storage efficiency and capacity while minimizing tape backups, eliminating common data center problems, ensuring reliable and quick recovery, and much more. Network World's Unified Communications Newsletter, 06/26/07 Will e-mail overload get worse? By Michael Osterman We recently conducted a study among e-mail end users and found that nearly 50% of users report that they suffer from e-mail overload at least ‘fairly often’ – 6% of users experience e-mail overload ‘all the time.’ The situation is likely to get worse as unified communications systems become more common. Instead of being overloaded by just e-mail in your inbox, you’ll now have voice mails, instant messages popping up based on your presence information, greater use of rich media and other content that will demand your attention. A recent article claimed that many people are declaring ‘e-mail bankruptcy’ and simply starting over by dumping the contents of their inbox, although the term ‘e-mail bankruptcy’ was actually coined several years ago. I believe that this notion points out the dichotomy in the way that e-mail is viewed: * Some view e-mail solely as a communications medium designed to transmit information from person A to person B, with the expectation that person B will act on the information and then move on. Manage Skyrocketing Storage The data on your network is growing at a rapid pace thats only going to increase. Download Network Worlds latest Executive Guide and get the practical, real-world advice and insider information you need to best manage and meet your storage demands and industry regulations. Click here to download. * Others, myself included, consider e-mail much more holistically, viewing it as both a communications tool and as a repository of useful information that can be accessed at a later date. For example, as an analyst, I receive lots of e-mail about product announcements and related types of content. While I don’t respond to every announcement, I save all of it, since I can search for what I need at a later date. In this ‘worldview’ of e-mail, an inbox is a huge database of content that you can add to at will, and that I can search whenever I need to do so. I believe that we need to view e-mail and unified communications systems as more akin to databases than communications tools. An e-mail system, coupled with very good search tools and robust archival technologies, can be an extraordinarily powerful tool that simply doesn’t need to cause the overload that many claim it does. I’d like to get your thoughts on this – please send me an e-mail with your views.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: For webinars or research on messaging, or to join the Osterman Research market research survey panel, go here. Osterman Research helps organizations understand the markets for messaging and directory related offerings. To e-mail Michael, click here. This newsletter is sponsored by Quantum Whitepaper: Solve Storage's Catch-22 Regulations require increasing data storage, but your budget and staff aren't unlimited. Discover how data de-duplication maximizes storage efficiency and capacity while minimizing tape backups, eliminating common data center problems, ensuring reliable and quick recovery, and much more. ARCHIVE Archive of the Unified Communications Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007