Archive for the ‘Email Overload’ Category

Make Way Fmail, Gmail. All hail Hmail!

Most of us get entangled in the frenzy of the moment, the immediate bickering in our environment.

But the discerning ones amongst us can take a step back, and see clarity in the chaos, a method in the madness, a sublime logic in a torrent of haphazard information, if you will.

What will you make of the mountain of coverage surrounding the recent launch of Fmail (Facebook Messages)? “This spells the death of email!” some say, “Fmail will kill Gmail!” others pitch in, “Apocalypse!!” What are you supposed to make of it all??

Look closely…

Email, Fmail, Gmail……

Can you see it yet? The pattern?

Yes! Evolution, development, progress are what you see! And the logical next step is the series is, you got it, Hmail!

The Evolution of Email

HyperOffice Mail or Hmail brings the next level of what businesses want from email – Email deeply integrated with all the essential productivity tools in the organization. Pundits for years have waited on the death of email (like vultures hovering over a weak animal?). But rather than growing weak with age, becoming passe’, email keeps going from strength to strength.

Yet, the weaknesses of email are widely recognized as well. Email overload is one of the biggest bottlenecks in information worker productivity today. Some of us feel like we spent our entire work lives sifting through our inbox, which fills out faster than we can ever hope to empty it. We are all Sisyphuses trapped for eternity in our inboxes.

Email is evidently ill suited for some purposes – document collaboration, schedule coordination, task tracking and group discussions. Better “collaboration tools” have been invented for a few years now, to best handle each of the above areas – document management, shared calendars, project management and discussion forums respectively. No wonder collaboration tools have become almost universally adopted across businesses.

But such creatures of habit we are, almost Sirenlike, email uses false promises of simplicity to tempt us to use it “just this once”, to delegate a task, share a document, or coordinate a meeting. The torrent of mails that follow has only us to bear!

But what if the other collaboration tools were integrated in the same system as email? What if using the right tool for the right purpose was as simple as using email, since they are in the same system anyway? What if with a single click, you could push information from email into the right system – a task, a document?

That is the promise of Hmail. Collaboration software tools integrated with email, in a single seamless web based system.

Read the following article for detailed benefits of integrated email and collaboration software.

What’s the Buzz? Enter Collaboration Software, Exit Email

brand-logosAs our dear readers must already know, last month Shahab co authored a white paper with tech whiz James Gaskin on the subject of “managing the email overload“. Email overload is a problem almost everyone faces, and many novel strategies have been suggested to deal with it. Our white paper was our humble take on managing the email torrent.

To rewind, we had suggested that much of the problem of email overload comes not from spam, or even pesky online salesmen, or even journals we subscribed for before the beginning of time. The problem arises from internal corporate communications, or using email for the wrong things within the corporate boundaries, namely, coordination of schedules, collaborating on documents, delegating tasks, making group decisions. We had further gone on to say that the solution was to move to online collaboration software for the above stated purposes. This would achieve the dual purpose of drastically reducing the email deluge, as well as improve business productivity.

We seem to have struck a chord. The whitepaper lead to a new torrent, albeit a welcome one. The whitepaper got wide coverage, both by niche blogs, as well as some of the most well known blogs in the tech industry. Some flattering coverage is as follows:-

ZDNet – Take the Email Test – Can collaboration tools save time and money?

CMS Wire – Working Smarter – 4 Potential Ways to Avoid Email Chaos

Smallbiztechnology.com – Get Rid of Email In Favor of Proper Tools: Boost Productivity & Reduce Your InBox

TMCNet – Email Overload or Bankruptcy?

Collabo – Collaboration Software & Email: Designing Tools for the Problem at Hand

Mac tech – HyperOffice kicks off new webinar series for SMBs

Thanks a lot guys! We hope we were able to bring value to your readership!

Email Overload solved by Online Collaboration

Email overload is starting to become recognized as the biggest culprit of lost productivity. I began researching this topic a couple weeks ago and found that just in the last 3 months alone there have been articles written by the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, segments on TV news stations, and dozens of blog entries trying to wrestle with this problem. A very recent Basex Research study has found that information overload, including email interruptions, cost businesses $900 billion annually in terms of productivity. I found that there are a few distinct approaches to this problem.

The first group of solutions involves best practices. For example, filing emails into folders, signing a truce with your co-workers to not always reply to all and use subject lines more effectively, don’t read email in the morning, and the list goes on. The second, is managing spam. Buying the latest spam filter, or going with a business email service that will do this for you…well, and how to avoid getting on these lists. The third approach assumes that if you are getting too many emails you have some broken internal business process that needs to be streamlined and email should not be used in ways it was not intended. For example, using email to collaborate on documents, scheduling meetings, getting updates on projects, etc.  Moving to online workspaces is where I think the biggest improvements can be made. I speak with so many businesses each day who have to collaborate but are using email to share information with their team.

To better understand the causes of email overload and how to improve productivity while cutting back on email is what we discuss in a white paper published today at http://www.hyperoffice.com/business-email-overload Please review this study and join us for a live webinar where our special guest speaker, James Gaskin, a well respected columnist who writes on technology topics for SMBs at NetworkWorld and IT World will discuss this topic in detail. This online seminar is open to the public and we expect a lively discussion about how to solve email overload at your organization. Read more and register for the May 28th webinar here