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Europe's Largest IT Company To Ban Internal Email
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, Europe's Largest IT Company, wants a 'zero email' policy to be in place in 18 months, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees receive per day on average turn out to be useful, and that staff spend between 5-20 hours handling emails every week. 'The email is no longer the appropriate (communication) tool,' says Breton. 'The deluge of information will be one of the most important problems a company will have to face (in the future). It is time to think differently.' Instead Breton wants staff at Atos to use chat-type collaborative services inspired by social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter as surveys show that the younger generation have already all but scrapped email, with only 11 per cent of 11 to 19 year-olds using it. For his part Breton hasn't sent a work email in three years. 'If people want to talk to me, they can come and visit me, call or send me a text message. Emails cannot replace the spoken word.'"
And if - one day - there is a lawsuit about your work for the client, there is no proof what you did, what you told them or who authorized it...
At least always send a later email describing what has happened in skype calls...
It's still used a lot in some European countries and Russia. I'm not from US.
This is probably because of regulatory/legal issues. In many jurisdictions a FAXED document with signatures is a legal document, an EMAILED document with the same signatures (PDF) is NOT a legal document.
I have no kids of my own, but I have nephews. The oldest is in college at a good quality state university. I had a conversation with him not terribly long ago and it went something like this:
Me: I saw you wrote "prolly" on Facebook. You do know that that is not a real word, right?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: "Prolly" is text message speak. The real word is "probably".
Him: (look of puzzlement and confusion)
Me: I'm not joking. You've never heard of "probably"?
Him: I've only seen "prolly".
When you graduate from an American high school and you are a reasonably intelligent person (he's got a B average at college) and you think "prolly" is a real word and you don't know what "probably" is, the educational system may just be broke beyond fixing.