Getting stressed out by e-mail

Unified Communications This newsletter is sponsored by PlateSpin Where To Find Affordable Disaster Recovery Virtualization is expanding across the enterprise, allowing companies to get more out of their networks without busting their budget. Now you can leverage virtualization to provide affordable disaster recovery and safeguard the under-protected servers in your network. Click here to download and learn how. Network World's Unified Communications Newsletter, 08/23/07 Getting stressed out by e-mail By Michael Osterman A study that was published in early August by researchers from Glasgow University and Paisley University discovered that many people are stressed by having to view and respond to e-mails. The study found that one-half of people check their e-mail more than once every hour and one third are stressed by the volume of e-mail they receive and the perception that they must respond to e-mails in a timely fashion. The study also found that many e-mail users work in a fragmented way, switching frequently from what they’re doing to check for new e-mail. A study that we conducted recently found similar results: many people check e-mail almost constantly. Plus, the problem will get worse as the volume of e-mail continues to grow and as more users acquire mobile e-mail devices, enabling them to receive more e-mail more frequently. Network World Security Buyer's Guide Find the right security products for your enterprise - fast. From anti-spam to wireless LAN security, our Buyer's Guides have detailed information on hundreds of products in more than 20 categories. With the side-by-side comparison tool you can evaluate product features to make the best decision for your enterprise. Click here to go to the Security Buyer's Guide now. Some people suggest reducing e-mail overload by establishing personal policies for how frequently e-mail is checked, ignoring e-mail on which they are merely copied along with other individuals, etc. While those approaches may be good for some individuals, they essentially work by limiting the amount of information that is received, not by making information transfer more efficient. I believe that the key lessening to e-mail overload and user stress is simply to use basic tools like wikis and RSS feeds. That’s obviously not a new idea, but these tools are underused as a substitute for e-mail in most corporate environments. A wiki, for example, can aggregate comments about a project into a single Web page that allows users to scan for changes, news and other important information without having to read one e-mail after another that provides this information in a less efficient way. RSS feeds can be used for similar aggregation purposes. Using wikis and RSS feeds represents a win-win situation for everyone: users can access information more efficiently and IT spends less on storage and bandwidth to process e-mail.   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 PlateSpin Where To Find Affordable Disaster Recovery Virtualization is expanding across the enterprise, allowing companies to get more out of their networks without busting their budget. Now you can leverage virtualization to provide affordable disaster recovery and safeguard the under-protected servers in your network. Click here to download and learn how. 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