Thoughts on appropriate Email Usage

Recently, I got an email that inquired if I could be at a meeting in five minutes. The good news was that I planned to attend the meeting, had it in my calendar, and made the meeting. I also realize the sender of the email reminder was good-intentioned. Still, the mail made me initially angry and then sad - it was dumb luck that I actually got the message prior to the meeting start, and it showed how people have adopted the medium of email as a crutch, and use the medium without consideration of the purpose of the communication. Since part of my organization's (The Open Group) business is facilitation and email is still the primary communication tool of the consortia we deal with, it is incumbent on us to understand the tools of our trade and use them effectively.

Email is not instant messaging. Reasonable expectations on delivery time are between 10 minutes and one hour. Possibly longer  - mail retry intervals generally default to four hours. If you need to send an instant message use Skype or SMS. (Note Skype can also send SMS so it's a good choice for this.)

Email is not a calendaring system. It is OK to have text on meeting logistics in the text of a message but emails scheduling meetings should contain a calendar event in ICS format with all the meeting logistics embedded in the event. This will ensure meetings actually show up in people's calendars, increasing the chance that people will show up, not be double-booked, have necessary call-in info, etc. Almost all calendar programs or services that schedule events (e.g., iCal, Sunbird, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Kavi, WebEx, TripIt...) can generate these easily. If a group has a shared calendar available, this should be the first recourse for event scheduling.

Email is not a good tool for holding ongoing discussions - conversations fragment easily, and it is nearly impossible to reconstruct the threads of discussion across multiple messages, insertions, etc. after even a short amount of time has passed. A Wiki or blog with comments is the right approach for these kinds of discussions.

Email is not either a file transfer utility or a file management tool. Many email servers impose limits on the size or content of attachments for either security or performance reasons. Many email systems put email with large attachments at the end of the sending queue to ensure fair service, so large attachments will slow your message down (assuming it gets through at all.) Posting to your organization's collaboration site of record (Plato, Kavi, Connection, an intranet exchange site, etc.) and sending a link to the file is a far better approach.

On a related note, keep in mind that not all mail clients can read all attachment formats. Our increasingly mobile members, customers and staff are increasing using Blackberries, iPhones, and other smartphones. These have varying capabilities of displaying attachments - some but all not can display Word and Excel, almost none display Powerpoint. It's best to stick with more open formats such as plain text or HTML. Graphics-intensive documents should be posted as above so they can be accessed by viewing them online.

Email is not a collaborative document creation/editing tool. If you need multiple parties to review, comment on, and edit a document, it is best to use a collaborative document editing tool e.g., Google docs or a Wiki. The one reason not to do this would be if you are working on a customer-originated document and need to keep in a specific format.

Similarly, email is not a version control tool. Relying on an asynchronous and delay-prone mechanism to merge edits and keep multiple people in sync is sure to end in tears - use CVS, Subversion, or a collaboration website for this purpose.

Norm Abrams, the master carpenter from the public TV series "This Old House", once was asked what kind of multipurpose utility tool he used. He replied that "In a good workshop, the right tool for the job is always near at hand." This applies to the art of collaboration and facilitation as well - we need to all be proficient with the variety of tools we have available so we can match the right tool to the communication job at hand.