email is dead - well its dead for some

We're thinking ... monitise the web

The death of email [1], seems on the surface to be a similar topic to the paperless office [2][3][4]. However, i think the two are more like self-fulfilling prophecies. Those in the business will know that the paperless office is still some way off, however for at least one french company we know exactly when the email will stop.

You've got email .... not!

Employess of the French company Atos, know exactly when they will no longer being checking their email inbox. That date has been set by their CEO Thierry Breton [5][6]. Breton, the French finance minister from 2005 to 2007, and SEO of Atos since November 2008. In a Wall Street Journal article (28th Nov 2011) he re stated his intention to eradicate internal email in 18 months, this will affect all 74,000 of the company employees. They will instead switch to using collaborateive and social emdia tools (nb. was lotus notes before it's time?). Mr Breton said:

We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives. At Atos Origin we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.

A spokes person for Altos, Caroline Crouch confimed that the goal is focused on internal email, and not external emails.

Interestingly if you look at recently published information on the used of web based email in the US you see that younger people are already switching off from email [7], and not in small numbers. 

If you consider that emails are really out of context messages ... where as social message streams are always in context. This more than any other factor make the new types of messaging/conversations far more efficient. No wonder why its taken an ex finance minster to do the obvious. Those people who critised the Altos CEO post the WSJ article might want to reconsider.

If needed further suppor for the down grade of emails importance comes from a presentation in 2010 by Mark Zuckerberg. However this argument was more about people using Facebook to combing messages in one stream, than ditching their current vendors to use Facebook email [7]. He said:"This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it". He continued to say that if in the future the use of Facebook fundementaly change the way people communication to the detrement of email then ... that would be ok too.

But in the light of Thierry Breton comments Zuckerberg's argument takes on a whole new meaning. Maybe we are watching a self-fulfilling prophecy? We can actually see the number, people are switching to use more appropriate and easier, and critically, context sencitive  messaging systems.

Please let me know what you think.

1. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=death+of+email - 
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperless_office - An early prediction of the paperless office was made in a 1975 Bueiness Week article
3. http://www.businessweek.com/
 - The office of the future, an in-depth analysis of how word pressing with reshape the corporate office. Reprint, originally appeared 30th June 1975, BusinessWeek. Well worth a read.

4. http://articles.businessinsider.com/ - BOMBSHELL: Huge Company Bans Internal Email, Switches Totally To Facebook-Type-Stuff And Instant Messaging
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Breton - Profile of Thierry Breton
6. http://atos.net/ - Atos Origin sets out its ambition to be a zero email company within three years, 7th Feburary 2011
7. http://articles.businessinsider.com/ - BOMBSHELL: Huge company bans internal email ... also chart of the day "US Web-based email usage: Y/Y change in time spent by age
8. http://blog.creamglobal.com/ - Facebook adn the death of email, 16th Nov 2010
9. http://econsultancy.com/ - Email is dying, again. If you didn't know this, you must have been waiting for the email, 9th Feb 2011