How do I love email? Let me count the ways
by Tom Arneberg,
Community Columnist
At work, I am sandwiched between the offices of Tony Laundrie
and Vern Swanson. I like those guys a lot -- they're both sharp
engineers and interesting guys to spend time with. So it might
surprise you that, despite our proximity, I communicate with
them much more by email than by walking into their offices!
Sure, there is sometimes a need for RTIVC (Real-Time
Interactive Voice Communications, or "talking"), especially
while brainstorming a new idea or trying to explain some complex
subject. Indeed, one of Seymour Cray's legacies is a white board
in every office -- stroll down the halls of SGI or Cray, and
you'll see boards crammed with hastily drawn equations, tables,
schematics, and flow charts. (Some of the white boards also
feature children's art in the lower 12 inches; these are found
in the offices of overly sentimental engineer-dads who can't
bear to erase these impromptu dry-erase masterpieces.) (Guilty
as charged.)
But for every live interaction needed, there are ten other times
when a simple exchange of information suffices. And for that,
email rules.
Why is email such a great way to communicate, even with the
guy in the next office? Let me count the ways:
- Including others -- You can include many others in the
conversation. The majority of email I send is to
"mailing aliases,"
where email sent to one address gets forwarded to
many people. This results in over-communication in a lot of
cases, but that is always preferable to leaving someone in the
dark. You can pay attention to a "thread" (email discussion
on a given topic) or not, as you have need or interest.
I can't count the number of times when someone "listening in"
on an email alias jumps into the discussion with a solution
or crucial insight from their past experience.
- Searching archives -- You can easily search through archives
of past discussions. If someone sent me some fact by email
last month or last year, I can go back into my archives to dig
up that info again. This is better than bothering that person
with something he already told me. (Besides, he might not even
remember.)
- Including facts -- You can include lots of supporting facts
and figures in an email message. For example, you would never
read off a long list of numbers, let alone try to describe
a table of data verbally. But your eyes can quickly make
sense of written material that your ears would struggle with
interpreting.
- Avoiding phone tag -- Don't you hate it when you're caught
in an infinite loop with someone, leaving short phone messages
for each other? Email communication, by definition, is received
(read) only when the other person is there, so you don't have to worry
about coordinating schedules.
- Forwarding to others -- You can forward the exact
email message to others, preventing the "telephone game"
effect. Rather than telling Tony what I remember of what I
think Vern told me, with a couple keystrokes I can simply
forward Vern's exact message to Tony. Nothing is lost in
the translation.
- Preserving flow -- In
"Peopleware,"
their excellent book on managing high tech workers,
authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister talk about the importance
of uninterrupted thought time for anyone whose job requires
periods of mental concentration, such as programming, writing,
designing. "Flow" is "a condition of
deep, nearly meditative involvement, where one is largely
unaware of the passage of time." Unfortunately, you can't turn
it on instantly; it requires a time of re-immersion. When flow
is interrupted by a phone call or a visit, the lost productivity
is far longer than the time of the actual interruption.
When the authors wrote that book in 1987, they didn't have a
good solution to preserve flow other than to shut your door
and not answer your phone. (Seymour Cray was known to unplug his phone
for days at a time.) It's clear now, though, that email
is the answer! You can easily ignore incoming email messages
while you're in the flow, and when you get interrupted or
need a break, then you can go and answer ten emails in a few
minutes. That's much better than fielding ten phone calls in
real-time, a jarring few minutes apart.
These are just a few of the reasons I've loved using email
at work for the past 15 years. And since the explosion of the
Internet to home users in the mid-1990s, these same advantages
now also apply to churches, hobby groups, sports clubs, and even
extended-family communications.
I'd love to write more, but I have to go now -- my wife just
sent me an email from the other room to tell me that dinner
is ready.
You can reach Tom by phone at 726-...er, by email at
toma@arneberg.com.
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