Could You Do It? IBM Employee Cuts Email Use by 98 Percent
- Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:17pm by
Liz Klimas
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It’s Monday and for many — those working on Martin Luther King Day — the emails have been flooding in. One IBM employee who knew all to well the feeling of dread when he opened his full inbox, decided to cut the cord four years ago.*
According to Wired, before Luis Suarez began been using a technique that he says cut his inbox levels by 98 percent, he was getting at least 40 emails per day that required response and would often result in email back-and-forth.
Luis Suarez (Photo: Luis Suarez via Wired)
Wired reports that Suarez didn’t get rid of his inbox all together and that he still gets emails. Although, now checking email only takes up two minutes of his day and most of them, Wired states, are meeting notifications. Here’s how he does it:
[...] for the most part, when people write him, he answers via social media and suggests that they’d be better off chatting via Twitter, Google+, or on Connections, IBM’s internal social network. The idea is that if more of his communication is in the open, he’ll spend less time communicating.
Luis Suarez is an extreme case. But he nicely represents the tech world’s gradual migration away from e-mail and onto social networks and other services. For many, services such as Facebook and Twitter have replaced e-mail, at least in part. Facebook has introduced e-mail addresses to encourage its more than 800 million users to keep their communication on its site, and even an old school tech giant like IBM is moving in this same direction.
Suarez may be the most famous IBMer to drop off the e-mail treadmill, but he isn’t the only one. He reckons that there are still several dozen colleagues who have done the same thing.
Wired reports Suarez as saying that he has felt more productive with his new method of communication in the last four years and that its “more public, a lot more open and a lot more transparent.”
Wired reports Molly Graham with Facebook’s mobile group as saying 80 percent of subject lines for email are “hey”, “hi” or nothing at all. She said, “The truth is, email is outdated.”
IBM colleagues are not the only ones stepping out of email though. Wired reports that Atos, a technology services firm, hopes to do away with email by 2014 and Volkswagen is going to turn off BlackBerry email to some workers in off hours.
*Author’s note: Here’s an inside example from The Blaze of how bad email back-and-forth can get. Last week, The Blaze writers located in DC decided to come out of their home offices and Starbucks holes and meet up, since most of us work from home. You would think that such people who are glued to their computer for many hours a day, and communicate with other Blaze staff via G-chat, could have coordinated their meeting in a similar efficient fashion. Instead, the four involved took 20+ emails to work out a time, place, etc. Sound familiar?
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panick
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 10:41pmI am not the Borg and my resistance will never be futile
Report Post »truthseekerusa
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 7:36pmI used to be a news junkie with dozens of e-mails coming in every day. Too many just reported AP news (which is now an unreliable source) so since I prefer to read The Blaze, just unsubscribed from 15 sites and put those who would not unsubscribe my address on spam. Try it, you’ll like it.:-)
Report Post »kcares
Posted on January 17, 2012 at 6:57amTruthseekerusa: I did too. I think, if the media would leave us alone, we would figure out how to live our lives without their constant interference. “Unsubscribe”
Report Post »lionshield
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 7:16pmthe problem with me is social networking is to public for me.
Report Post »i like my private life to stay private.
Pontiac
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 8:02pmI think the story implied doing away with email for tech support. That’s something the poll does not take into account.
Report Post »Falconsteph
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 7:05pmStop “replying to all” and make a phone call to arrange your coffee date.
Report Post »MrObvious
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 10:34pmReply to all can be a good starting point. Just don‘t send until you’ve pruned the recipient list.
Report Post »obxned
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 6:19pmE-mail is a whole lot less disruptive of the other work I am doing.
Report Post »K Chad Roberts
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 6:19pmThere’s no way I could us social media for my work. An Intranet email system is absolutely necessary for its inherent security, and reliability.
Report Post »Dinkiecb
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 5:33pmMEMO: Take your social media and email it to me I’ll get around to a response later.
Report Post »bestillandknow
Posted on January 17, 2012 at 8:40amHilarious : )
Let’s be honest people. This paragraph is the dead give away in the article:
“Wired reports Molly Graham with Facebook’s mobile group as saying 80 percent of subject lines for email are “hey”, “hi” or nothing at all. She said, “The truth is, email is outdated.””
True this person is from facebook where the subject lines would commonly be that and if you look at countrywide email as a whole the number could be true but in the context of business communications … You are socializing too much at WORK if 80% of your emails have “hey” as the subject line. Let’s go talk to the upper level management in IBM or any other major corporation, see how many of their emails are “hey” or “hi”. Probably almost none, they’re too busy trying to lead a company.
Claiming you would rather use social media to communicate during the day is simply an excuse to be tied into said social space all day long. (note: I have been at a company that had an internal “chat” system. It was GREAT for it’s business purpose but abused excessively every second of the day.)
The Blaze is distracting enough for me … I would be interested to see the person who could be logged onto facebook all day and remain equally as effective at work.
Report Post »Touchy Touchy Touchy
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 4:46pmVery Stupid – traded one social network for 2 or 3 other ones. This is newsworthy why?
Report Post »Brents Torts
Posted on January 17, 2012 at 12:13pmPMS today?
Report Post »JRook
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 4:46pmOverall I’d say that the productivity impact is almost a wash unless you have done a good job at setting up rules and filters on BS emails. I receive somewhere on the order of 130 a day. 25% are useful, 25% are email chains related to these with few adding anything worthy of reading. 15% are HR and company policy related stuff….boring so ignore them. 25% are meeting confirmations or meeting minutes….again a waste. 10% are jokes and funny stuff…. rarely have time to read them. In today’s world we get the same message at least 3 times. Land line, cell phone, email. As in the past key is to eliminate the tedious comments from the non-doers and focus on the 15% of people who get things done.
Report Post »Dabldo
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 9:03pmSo the 80/20 rule has slipped to 85/15? Must be i missed the e-mail on that……. My guess is the 5% became OWSers. What you think?
Report Post »Forward this in 10 minutes 20 OWSers and your sure to have bad luck! (In the form of chanting OWSers in front of your house and a burning paper bag of poop on your door step!)
qpwillie
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 4:29pmI’m still trying to figure out how texting is an advantage over emailing.
Report Post »MrObvious
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 10:36pmsms is faster between cell phones. Also, it encourages short and simple mini messages, as opposed to long dissertations.
Report Post »Robert-CA
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 4:06pmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Report Post »oh & one more thing ……………
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
txjb
Posted on January 17, 2012 at 12:14amtoo funny !
Report Post »RightThinking1
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:47pmHey!
Report Post »skipmontesjr
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:42pmDumb story Blaze…Slow news cycle? This guy migrated they way he communicates but didn’t actually cut anything…. I can drink from the milk carton or I can pour it into a glass either way I’m gonna drink the same amount of milk….lol..
Report Post »mike o
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:40pmthis seems like a paid facebook ad masquerading as a story.
Report Post »mcmeador
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:26pmMaybe I’m just dense, but I don’t get it. Yeah, email doesn’t take up that much of his time anymore, but my understanding is that he has just moved communication from email to social media. Does he really spend any less time communicating with customers and other employees? And now he has to keep up with both email and social media, rather than having everything in one place.
Report Post »CloudNine
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:19pmWhatever!
Report Post »Lee_in_PA
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:19pmHe’s just moved from one THING to another. Besides that, he’s till going to need hard copy somewhere along the way.. That’s life baby. CYA. usually with paper.
Report Post »THXll38
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:12pmJust another method of communication. How is he saving time exactly? Many work environments do not allow you to use social media services.
Report Post »neillwd
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:58pmHow do they comply with Sarbanes–Oxley archive requirement on the public social network services?
Report Post »@leftfighter
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:18pmThat would be mu first question.
The second would be, how to I keep my personal life seperated from my job, with none of my co-workers seeing my tweets?
It’s awful hard to keep my politically charged tweeting (and corresponding *ahem* “Beck U” to lefty trolls) HR-friendly.
Report Post »JLGunner
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 3:26pmS&O more governmental intrusion.
Report Post »JLGunner
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:52pmEmail has manifested itself into nothing but a tool to CYA. As soon as one person missed any type of change in agenda, deadline or meeting. The first question is (in a smug manner) “Didn’t you get the email? I sent it to you this morning. Meanwhile you get caught up in this volley of emails where everyone chimes in to appear to be “on the ball” or takes the opportunity to Monday morning quarterback or grandstand on an issue. People have developed this into an artform. They avoid responsibility and accountablility until it’s time to join the email circle.
Report Post »gmoneytx
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:40pmAnd this is a big deal why?
Report Post »CatB
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:58pmI agree… he has cut NOTHING .. except the WAY he communicates .. he isn’t saving anything …
Report Post »Grasshopper42
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 2:36pmWho cares . . .
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