Why most company emails are worthless
(MoneyWatch) It might look like I spend a lot of time criticizing email, but the truth is that I do it out of love. I could not function without email, and sincerely believe modern business could not succeed without it (despite some occasionally crazy CEOs who challenge the status email quo).
That said, there's always room for more efficiency, which is why I found a recent study by email management firm mimecast so fascinating. The study found that on average only one in four emails have essential business value. Digging down, the company says that about 11 percent of email is personal (non-work-related) and 7 percent is spam.
If so much email isn't related to doing business, what are all those messages about? That's where a second study comes in, this one from Georgia Tech. As reported in WebWorkerDaily, the university's School for Interactive Computing read hundreds of thousands of messages and found that about 15 percent of them essentially amounted to gossip -- emails in which the sender and recipient discussed thirds parties in ways that had no business impact.
Does your office misuse or abuse email? Tell your story in the comments.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Hollywood_PR
