Overcoming Inbox Overload

Last week, I shared information from Jugglezine with observations on e-mail overload.

If you were troubled by that, take comfort in the fact that some of the world's leading technology companies and e-marketers are keenly aware of the problem. In fact, they are working feverishly to develop new technologies and solutions to improve, if not reinvent, the e-mail inbox. One of the companies that I frequently go to for information about the world of e-mail, electronic communications and online marketing is Silverpop. The following article from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey and his head development guy provides a good overview of what's out there, what's being evaluated and what is coming.

Contemplating the Future of the Inbox
I've been inviting my colleague, Scott Voigt, our head of product marketing, to put together some guest blogs over the last few months. I am pleased to include his first blog entry below...

From Scott:A few months ago, the Internet was abuzz with the meme of Inbox 2.0. A couple of articles in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) and a post in the Bits section of The New York Times, pointed to a future where the inbox would begin to take more proactive role in managing communications, acting as much like a social network as it does a hub for receiving good ol' SMTP messages. Leading the charge on this new frontier are a number of start-ups (Boxbe, ClearContext, and Xobni to name a few) that are, in essence, using technology to help consumers manage their overload of email. More recently, we've seen some of the big inbox providers indicate that changes were indeed on the horizon. To wit, at this year's CES, Yahoo's Chief, Jerry Yang demonstrated a future version of Yahoo! Mail that included a "simplify my inbox" button, which, once clicked, would reorder messages based on "people that are important to me."

Here's a link to the full text of the Silverpop blog post.

Frankly, I am looking forward to the next-generation inbox. From my perspective, it can't get here soon enough!

Too Much E-Mail?

If e-mail traffic continues to increase at its present rate, the average corporate e-mail user will spend 41 percent of the workday managing e-mail messages in 2009.

Whoa. That's disturbing. If you are anything like me, you sometimes feel like you're drowing in e-mail? In fact, I feel like e-mail has nearly reached the point of ineffectiveness in many respects.

Here's help, courtesy of a recent article in Jugglezine. [By the way, I have to give another well-deserved plug for Jugglezine. It is one of the best, most relevant and well designed e-communications that I receive.]

Seize control
In this age of e-mail gone wild, is it possible to escape its ever-widening reach? Sure, you can turn off the sound that signals the arrival of e-mail to prevent distraction, and you can set aside several time blocks each day to address e-mail instead of checking your inbox constantly.

But those practices alone won't cut down on the sheer volume that clogs up your inbox. The solution is to change the way you send, write, and file e-mail. Here are eight high-impact techniques--all recommended by experts and road-tested by employees--to help you manage e-mail more effectively and seize control of your workday.

Send fewer e-mails. A 20 percent reduction in e-mails sent correlates to a 10 percent reduction in e-mails received, according to Song's research. Before you write a message, ask yourself three questions: Is this information timely and relevant? Does the recipient really need it to do her job today? Is this message appropriate? If the answer to each question is yes, then send the message.

Get the full article here.