There are two elements which will always pull against each other when it comes to email – technology and cultural response. There have already been dozens if not hundreds of email ’solutions’ on the marketplace – many of them brilliant at promoting collaboration and knowledge management both inside and outside of the firewall… Even Outlook has had the option to automatically reduce the size of the 10MB photo of the office party to something sensible for 7 years. Who ever uses it or even knows it exists?

Reducing email overload and increasing workplace productivity for me is all about the end-user than the technology. Technology is ‘easy’ – it’s people who are hard. The conferencing companies have a similar problme – they may sell a solution, but spend months training and persuading end-users to use what’s been sold or they won’t reap the revenue.

This exact topic has been dear to my heart of late. There’s a 7 minute video you can see on the trial of http://increasingworkplaceproductivity.the845club.com which gives a dozen tips on how to get better at ‘doing’ email. I’m told people change their habits after seeing it…

Best wishes,
Mark