

Video for Merlin's "Inbox Zero" talk at Google - gibsonf1
http://www.43folders.com/2007/07/25/merlins-inbox-zero-talk/

======
gibsonf1
This is an exceptionally good talk.

What is especially interesting is in the QA session, we hear about how
dysfunctional team communication is at Google. The current practice is an
email question is sent to the entire team on a project of 20+ people. Then
people play the waiting game to see who will reply first to the question, etc.
The result is that googlers get hundreds to 500+ emails internally that they
have to cope with - a productivity nightmare. Also one questioner pointed out,
in spite of the email information firehose, critical information is not
distributed. She mentions the example of a random encounter with someone at
lunch, and finding out that a person in NY is working on a very similar
project to hers and she having no clue about it.

Also interesting is that Google hosts a seminar series by David Allen on
"Getting Things Done" for their staff on a regular basis. I guess they are
trying to start solving the problem.

