Bacn Management - e-mail infoglut management strategies
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Radicati Group reports that "the average corporate e-mail user received 126 messages a day, up 55% from 2003". This infoglut is the result not only of continuing problems with spam, but with the growth of what is now being called "bacn" or "e-mail you want, but not right now". While spam filters, white lists, black lists, trusted senders and other tools have been and continue to make inroads against spam; "bacn" both from external and internal sources is clogging e-mail inboxes. This infoglut is creating major headaches for recipients and corporations alike. The importance of this problem is clear with The Wall Street Journal article stating "Email overload is now considered a much bigger workplace problem than traditional email spam."
Companies are approaching the "bacn" growth with a number of strategies. According to a recent article in Computerworld, one strategy being pursued is the introduction of enterprise RSS feeds. These RSS feeds, much like those consumers are latching on to, allow workers to subscribe or be subscribed to content feeds that are relevant or critical to their work. This narrowcasting can reduce the infoglut of e-mail. I know that when given a choice between e-mail and RSS, I'll subscribe to an RSS feed, however if it is what I call "crispy bacn" (mmmm, my favorite) or messages that I really want to see, I like to receive these via e-mail. The reason for this is that I subscribe to so many feeds (I know a glutton for punishment) that it can often be weeks or days to get to the feeds that I'm less interested in. Among the enterprise RSS feed companies that are referenced in the article are Attensa, KnowNow and NewsGator,
In a different strategy for e-mail infoglut management, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on the growth of start-ups that are helping users manage their e-mail by tagging, sorting or re-directing it to different users. The sorting takes place based on algorithms rather than user supplied factors. For ClearContext, one of the companies cited in the article they reportedly look at your inbox and the speed in which you normally respond to that sender to determine how to tag the e-mail content. Other companies that are referenced in this article are Seriosity and Xobni (inbox spelled backwards - cute!).
As a professional with a background in corporate and marketing communications, efforts to improve internal communications like these will prove popular and useful in improving team productivity.
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Need help with your internal communications strategies?
Drop me an e-mail or give me a call (608) 255 4092, I'd be happy to work with you to develop strategies for your Intranet, RSS feeds, internal e-mail, wikis or other tools that could be of use for improving worker productivity.
Paul Gibler
the Web Chef
