

A Theory on Recreating Email - aorshan
https://bethkolko.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/recreating-email/

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quanticle
_At first there would no doubt be piles of email in everyone’s account at the
start of each day. But gradually that will decrease. Just think — all the
email that gets generated because of back and forths outside of work hours
will gradually ease. And since you know you can only reach people during the
workday, people might actually start walking over to someone else’s
office/desk. Or picking up the phone. Remember the phone? I loved the phone.
So quick and easy to resolve a tricky question over the phone, a little back
and forth dialog, you can quickly clarify misunderstandings. Ahh….the phone._

This brings up a fundamental impedance mismatch between "digital outsiders",
who have to learn how to use computerized systems and "digital natives", who
grow up with these systems and integrate them into their daily lives.

The author thinks of e-mail as a synchronous protocol - something like the
phone, but minus the social protocol and human contact. E-mail, however, isn't
synchronous. Its asynchronous. The fact that someone sends e-mail at 1 a.m.
doesn't mean that you have to reply by 1:30 a.m. It doesn't even mean that you
have to send e-mail at 1 a.m. yourself.

The entire point of e-mail is that you don't have to respond right away. You
respond whenever you want.

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tzs
Another blog fucked by OnSwipe.

