OK, I will not compare email to Internet Explorer 6 (the title of this blog post is actually based on the famous motto of web developers crying for years after IE6). But truth is that the situation isn’t that far. In the vast majority of many of organizations (including ours), email is

a/ not correctly used

b/ not appropriate

At the age of multimedia and social collaboration, our old email system (the first email has been sent in the middle of the 60’s) seems a bit behind … Between mobile web, social networks, web applications and rich media on the web, email seems kind of old fashion at some point. Not because it’s cool to use new tools … but simply because it’s not (or badly) appropriate to new usage.

So, next time you think about writing a long email, make sure to read this first : http://brettkelly.org/2010/02/23/writing-another-long-email-read-this/

A popular idea exists among software developers that we call the DRY principle, which stands for Don’t Repeat Yourself. When we’re implementing a piece of functionality in one place and then find that we need the same piece of functionality in another place within the code we’re writing, the best practice is to write the code once and make it accessible to the entire application/website/whatever. There are several reasons this is a good idea, but the big two are that the more times you type some thing, the more likely you are to make a mistake and typing the same thing twice is a waste of time and effort. Same is true with email. I can’t count the number of occasions I’ve described the difference between client- and server-side scripting to coworkers and curious barroom chums. My brother has been asked how badly tattoos hurt many, many times. Part of being an “expert” is sharing that knowledge with other people, right?

Of course, I don’t really want email to die … And I really think it will take another bunch of years before new experimentations such as google wave or global social networks will finally emerge ..

But if, as social media specialist, can use it in a more efficient way, it could just make our life easier 🙂

PS : apparently, the use of email is declining in new generations(51% only of people between 18-25 years in the UK regulary uses email – 98% among the 65 years old) sorry, the article is in French : http://ecrans.fr/Le-courrier-electronique,9140.html