Email: friend or foe?

Just spent the past couple of days with a group of dedicated public servants giving a "teamnet" workshop - teamnet* meaning "network of teams" as there were five teams in this session together comprising a major governmental initiative to increase knowledge sharing. I know there are readers thinking "government" and "knowledge sharing" must surely be an oxymoron. But once again, I come away from a few days with government folks revering their commitment to a life that is not glamorous, that doesn't pay much, that is often frustrating, that perforce means working in a system that is unbearably slow but which offers rewards of a different kind. Service. Thanks to all involved.

We talked about email a lot. The complaints are familiar, the sheer volume, the endless cc:'s, the wonton use of attachments...but there was one voice, one strong voice for the power of email as an information sharing vehicle - rather than as a communication device. This fellow has been on listservs for a very long time; people in his network depend on them for conveying truly useful information. I agree. There are good uses for email. We just need good operating agreements that people need to do their best to adhere to.

What about you? Are you tapped out on email, wish it had never come into existence? Has your organization come up with some good guidelines regarding attachments, cc'ing, subject lines, and the like? Has anyone out there tried what Intel has, "Zero email Friday", which I mentioned here once before?

*We coined the word "teamnet" in our 1993 book, The TeamNet Factor (Wiley).