Email is going away. Sounds absurd - I only get 200 emails a day. But over the next five years some IT experts suggest that the email centric world of today will go the way of the fax machine. This trend is based in part on the limited amount of time all of us have, but also on the continued pressure to reduce costs in IT organizations.
Many of you are probably thinking, "I wish my email would go away!" But that is just the reason that email will decline in importance. Fifteen years ago email was an innovative new way to communicate. But today many of us get more email than we can possibly respond to, so we have developed ways to deal with the volume. You filter your email to delete everything that is not immediately relevant. You look at who sent the email, placing a priority on a few key team members, managers and clients and moving the rest to the back burner. You only open email addressed directly to you - if you are cc'd as one of many no action is required. So in effect, you have found a way to eliminate all but the most important mail.
Now look at companies today. Rather than having an IT organization focusing on email, the group has been renamed Electronic Communications. Web tools like like Sharepoint have been established to reduce or eliminate emailing documents. Web conferencing tools are frequently used to share materials during conference calls. Some companies are restrictiing access to social networking websites while others (sometimes in the same company) embrace those same sites as critical information channels.
One of the best approaches to reduce email traffic is the shift to subscription based communications. Services like RSS are used to subscribe to relevant information rather than communicating by email - updates are automatically delivered to those that subscribe. While primarily used for blogs today, the framework lends itself to messaging in general.
The other trend that will impact email is the shift from push communications to pull communications. With push communications I send informaiton to everyone and those that are interested will read it and respond. With pull communications my communications are in a place that can be readily accessed whenever content is needed. So instead of sending an email, I simply post the content and in some cases let people know there is an update.
From a cost standpoint email is expensive. You have costs related to storage of email messages, system bandwidth, security, document retention,software, training, maintenance and hardware. If you dramatically reduce those costs, you can put some of the savings into new tools. So IT departments are joining you in the desire to get rid of email.
Now that you have an idea of why email might go away, there is probably an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. All these products and terms are relatively unfamiliar. You don't currently use RSS or other subscription services. You avoid using Sharepoint. You would rather have your team meet face to face than via WebEx. We're all a little uncomfortable with change. But its coming and its time to get ready.