The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that email is no longer the number one channel for communication. My first reaction was that of shock! I personally get on average, between my work and personal life, the following communications per day:* 400 emails: 350 work & 50 personal * 100 Web updates: Going to web sites and getting information * 50 IMs: All work--Can I call you now or did you see this? * 40 SMS text messages: 38 work & 2 personal--Damn system outages! * 25 Meetings: 10 scheduled and 15 impromptu meetings--mostly work * 20 voice messages: 15 work, 5 personal--mostly solicitations to be deleted * 15 Snail Mailings: Mostly junk mail * 15 Linked In updates--all work * 10 voice calls * 10 Face book updates: all personal * 10 Twitter updates: work and personal, and am still not a big Twitter guy
Am I no longer the majority, where email is the number one channel? After reading the article, I came to a few conclusions:
* I value the face to face meeting--Yes, I have a ton of audio, web, and video conferences, but the face to face meetings are the most productive. Emails are the next best thing for following up on the deliverables from the meeting and initiating the next one. Messaging is great for communicating facts, but when politics and sales are involved, face to face is best.
* My family, boss(es), & those who directly work with me are #1--Some weeks I am so busy that direct communication outside of the core circle of family, work, and friends is challenging, thus I use email. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook are secondary channels to stay updated on a regular basis, but not daily or weekly.
* Pages & SMS versus Email--Email is still the best way to contact me since I can forward my email everywhere. Overseas, off hours and sleeping. With email prioritization rules and archiving, email is still my preferred channel for real time, asynchronous, communication.
One of my first bosses that I worked for 20 years ago felt that all written communication must be done on paper. He had his secretary print out his emails, and then he would write a response, that his secretary would type in the reply. I thought he was way out dated. Or is it that the higher up the food chain one moves the less important the Web 2.0 communication is?
