Reducing Traffic Jams on the Information Highway

Today 1.4 billion email users worldwide send a staggering 247 billion messages. By 2013 about 1.9 billion users will crowd the Information Highway. Business users receive an average of 108 messages a day and spend 77 minutes or twenty percent of their work day on email, reports Symantec in "Email Archiving: Top 10 Myths & Challenges." Here are steps you can take to reduce the traffic jam on the Information Highway:

Know when to telephone and when to email. Use the telephone to ask people to take action. Over the phone it is harder for people to say "No." Use email to create a record or to disseminate complex information.

Use the "Reply All" function sparingly. The original sender of the email is generally the only one who is interested in your reply. No one in your group wants to receive fourteen duplicate messages about the same subject.

Consider using free meeting-scheduler software, such as MeetingWizard.com to stream line scheduling. If you use email to schedule meetings, urge the attendees to reply just to the organizer of the meeting, not the entire group.

Resist forwarding clever cartoons and YouTube snippets. What you consider to be amusing, someone else may consider to be in bad taste or simply a waste of time. Think twice before sending each email message. If the message is not of value to the recipient, to your organization, or to you, do not send it.

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