Forum - June 2008

INTOPRACTICE
E-mail Management: What You Need
to Know Today

BY CHRIS BONNEY

According to the independent market research firm The Radicati Group, association professionals spend nearly 30 percent of their workday managing e-mails. That number is expected to grow to more than 40 percent by 2009. Executive directors send and receive approximately 133 e-mails a day, with that number anticipated to rise to 166 within the year. Surprised? Probably not. Most of us are no strangers to e-mail overload. What is surprising, though, is fewer than 10 percent of organizations provide e-mail training to their staff, leaving individuals to devise their own methods of inbox management. This not only poses long-term productivity issues for many organizations, but also leaves the future of e-mail management up for grabs.

WHY CARE?

With new channels of communication like blogs, wikis and RSS vying for your members’ attention, how your organization throttles its e-mail usage during the next few years could determine whether you sink or swim in the deepening seas of information delivery. Cohesive Knowledge, an e-mail usage consulting firm, reports each year more than $308 billion is wasted managing low-value or irrelevant e-mail. Clearly, the controlled chaos method of e-mail management currently employed by most people is not working.

THE CULPRITS

So, what about our inboxes is so difficult to rein in? There are many culprits, some more familiar than others. Spam, inbox enemy No. 1, continues to proliferate. Some studies estimate that spam, unsolicited bulk e-mail, accounted for more than 90 percent of all e-mail sent in November and December 2007. And with spammers’ ability to perpetually outwit filters, that number is not expected to decrease in the future.

Worse yet, we’ve become passive spammers ourselves. The e-mails we send our “friends” asking them to sign up for the hottest new social media site and “ colleague spam,” which happens when we

blanket a group of unsuspecting associates’ inboxes with a simple click of the “reply to all” button, are ways we are inadvertently contributing to the inbox quandary.

Return Path, a leading technology research firm, has estimated that Internet Service Providers mark more than 25 percent of legitimate e-mail as spam in their attempt to thwart the enemy. This means a large percentage of e-mails that are part of everyday business are landing in junk folders right next to the most flagrant pushers of mail-order drugs. Not a prescription for success.

There is a silver lining, though. Some organizations, like the Chicago Association of REALTORS, have seemingly tamed the spam beast. They’ve done it by being conscientious of how and where they use their personal e-mail addresses and by employing top-notch technology. “Spam is not a culprit for us at all,” says Warren Frank, CPA, chief operations and financial officer of the organization. “What little makes it through our filters is easily deleted.”

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

In search of a quick fix for the burden of e-mail, some professionals have resorted to “e-mail bankruptcy,” deleting their entire inbox hoping to find salvation by starting over. For-profit companies like U.S. Cellular have even tried e-mail-free Fridays with mixed results. Edward Salek, CAE, executive director of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, acknowledges the significance of e-mail to

his organization and the challenges within: “We consider e-mail a business tool and it’s very valuable in our international communications, but e-mail is inherently such an informal communication tool that we sometimes have difficulty determining what is best for e-mail and what is best for in-person meetings.”

Here are a few quick tips on how to manage your inbox and make sure you are not an e-mail nuisance to someone else:

1.Quality Subject Lines: Be sure to have one and make it succinct and relevant.

2.Avoid “Reply to All:” Ensure your e-mail replies are pertinent to all recipients.

3.Ditch the Emoticons: Keep your messages professional and on topic. Avoid using smiley faces and keep commentary to a minimum.

4.Re adable Formatting: Try using bullets and numbering when applicable. Keep large blocks of text to a minimum. Some even suggest that an e-mail reply should be no more than five sentences.

5.Co nsider Your Electronic Legacy: Every e-mail you send is archived somewhere. Think about what you’re saying and how it could affect your personal brand and your career.

6.Ma ke a Date With Yourself: Schedule a meeting with yourself each week to attend to your inbox. Avoid an ad hoc approach to e-mail management.

WHAT’S NEXT?

While software companies like Seriosity, ClearContext and Xobni, and handheld devices like Blackberry and Treo, guide us into the future of electronic messaging, there is still one non-digital wild card that always will play a factor in effective communication: the human touch. Frank sums it up nicely: “We are always trying to encourage our staff to address important issues in person. As great as e-mail is for some things, there are circumstances where meeting face-to-face is the only answer.”