Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy

Sounds like somebody’s trying to cover their tails when it comes to legal documents! Huh. Can’t catch me if you don’t have any proof.

Did any of you critics even read the story and understand what the company’s e-mail service is being replaced with? Most likely this will be the start of a new trend, replacing e-mail with far more efficient web-based communication services that doesn’t come with all the spam. Why would anyone want to see a company cling to an out-dated, inefficient form of electronic communication when there are far better ones available? Some of you just like to complain and criticize without fully understanding what you are complaining about. They are ending “internal” email between employees – customers are “external” and will still be able to communicate via email if they choose.

I wonder if a case study of sorts will be published. I’m curious how much they end up with the same number of messages but via instant message, etc. instead of email. There is a good need to send someone a message expecting non-instant reply because you want them to give the topic good thought before responding. I suspect any method could be used poorly and have spam so is the answer really a different tool or just better training?

Google Wave was a drop in solution that could largely eliminate internal email. Too bad it died before it’s time.

IT is Moron’s like this CEO that whose unknowledgeable decision eventually tanks the company. They want to replace email with Social Networking like Facebook Style messaging. Are they stupid. Facebook style networking is for Kids who wants to have fun communicating. This CEO needs to be taken out if he is making these kind of decisions

They’ll spend more time taking notes of every interfaced conversation.

They’re doing something seriously wrong, which is shocking for an IT company: only 10% of email is deemed useful, and 18% is spam… an this is *internal* email?!

Almost every other company treats information-overload/inefficiency as a process problem. To treat their issues as a tool problem is incredibly.. strange. Not exactly a confidence-building article.

He may have the basic right idea, but he does not know the IT world pretty obviously. Email is still the most efficient way to process information and share it with the company, organization, group, section, project, and so on. Messaging, chat, and video conferencing does not replace the physical document that gives a concrete basis for information that is being delivered and shared amongst any specific team. The CEO is out of touch and behind the times, but then so are all the people out there doing texting from their cell phones when we now have VOICE, ever heard of it? You talk about going backwards.

The company can set up an internal domain with account and email that can only be used internally, which IBM has done for about a hundred years and it works and guess what there is no SPAM amongst that email. For those employees that need to communicate with customers, suppliers and the outside world, can be provided with the same email name, but with a an external domain only and the IT department can do a MUCH better job of filtering SPAM from the allowed emails into the system. One of the rules for an email to be accepted the contact must be in the address file of the user and that will also help elminiate all of the SPAM unless someones account is compromised and of course they can also disallow any domain from a FREE account like Hotmail, Msn, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and so on. The CEO knows what he wants to accomplish, but his lack of knowledge is not the way to go about it and i know if i had control of an IT department i would definitely cut out the SPAM like right NOW, and of course limit the use of how external email can be used. The solutions are there, they are just not implemented.

Randy Van Heusden

Is this really news? I use chat more than I use emails.

Bet his Executive Assistant (who he probably calls his secretary) has not sent an email on his behalf in 3 years either. I guess his customers won’t use email either. Maybe he can drive up his travel costs by meeting face to face. I’m sure he is available to Skype all day and that wouldn’t generate any spam. Wouldn’t be distracting either.

You spell “moron” R-A-L-P-H-F. Read the article; it clearly states that they’ll still use email to communicate with customers.

For those of you clinging to email get with the times and move on. Most internal email is rubbish and is of no use what’s so ever. It’s even more annoying when people continuously cc you on emails that are of no relevance what’s so ever and you also get all the endless replies.

Most of my internal communication now days is via Office Communicator (including all conference calls), Wiki’s, SharePoint and Yammer. The main times I use email are if we need approval for something that isn’t tracked via a system already, but even this is often replaced by minutes from meetings.

I agree with @eranos. Email is linear communication that is already inefficient in collaborative settings, which is the emerging trend in the workplace. Searching for information, reports, updated figures, etc., would be better using a collaborative platform where meta-data searches like Twitter’s hashtag are being used. This is the start of a paradigmatic shift in looking at the way we work together and communicate. ABC news should email everyone a transcript of these responses in five years and you’ll see how foolish all you sound. Email is already obscolete amongst younger generations: Boston College did away with assigning domain names to incoming freshman starting in 2009. When was the last time you shared anything with everyone on your entire email list?

supposedly most of email is spam and garbage but when you think of it on the home personal computer level who’s time is who’s now under some things that are listed under the better buisness bureau as legit work as a homeworker time sorta overlaps now on surveys that i personally do is to possibly mold business ideas before they come on market and try to decide if something is worth the time to do so money is not wasted on unmarketable things

Great idea and he’s bang on. I implemented a wiki for collaboration on CAD drawings at my company back in 2007 – worked way better than collaborating through e-mail – which is a time-wasting, inefficient disatser (what version, who edited it, I didn’t ge THAT e-mail, etc.). Great – get rid of e-mail. There are much better tools out there. I’ll just need to wait ten years until everyone else catches up. Sometimes it’s a drag being right long before anyone else sees the light. Oh well, bring it!