Information overload saps productivity through a tool that was supposed to do just the opposite. Increased productivity has always been the mantra for IT, but with every incremental increase in productivity, there always seems to be a price to pay. Take e-mail, which was supposed to enhance business communications and reduce the need for faxing, mailing letters and phone calls. It did just that in the beginning.
But in today’s business world, e-mail has become too much of a good thing. Users are overloaded with information—some of it is pertinent, some not—and countless hours are wasted trying to figure out what is important. Add to that spam, instant messaging, group mailings, multiparty discussions and file attachments, and it’s easy to see why e-mail saps productivity.
It’s a problem in need of a solution, and VARs the world over provide it—for a fee, of course. The biggest focus has been on minimizing incoming spam so that in-boxes become a little more efficient. But it will take much more than canning spam to make e-mail more productive.
Some solution providers believe the answer lies with unified messaging technologies, where the very nature of associating all forms of communication into a universal in-box will speed information consolidation and organization.
While that may seem logical, the truth is that unified messaging adds to information overload.
In 2007, the average corporate e-mail user received 126 messages a day, up 55 percent from 2003, according to market research company Radicati Group. By 2009, workers are expected to spend 41 percent of their time managing e-mail.
While that may be OK for people who depend on e-mail to get the bulk of their work done, for others it will constitute a real impediment to doing their jobs.
The real problem is how most systems organize in-boxes and present the information to users. Of course, users could make some changes to increase the effectiveness of e-mail, such as making sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of a message and by using the reply-all option sparingly.
But solving the problem will take much more than education; it will take a rethinking of how e-mail is used, and that is where the big opportunities for VARs will present themselves.
Luckily, VARs don’t have to operate in a vacuum because a handful of new companies are springing up to deal with the e-mail overload problem and help sort the deluge.
One of those companies is San Francisco-based Xobni. (Yes, that is “in-box” spelled backward.) Its primary product, aptly named Xobni, aims to help people better organize and search the e-mail and personal-contact load they already have.
Xobni (the product)—currently in beta, so no pricing is available—is expected to be released by this spring. It works as an add-in to Microsoft Outlook (versions 2003 and 2007). VARs will find that Xobni takes e-mail to a new level and restores Outlook’s usefulness.
Xobni simply installs into Outlook and then analyzes a user’s e-mail environment. A new window pane is added to Outlook that includes a fully indexed high-speed search and organizes e-mail based on “conversations.”
A user can quickly see the history of an e-mail exchange by simply highlighting the most recent e-mail received, and the program’s analytics capability creates a threaded history, displays a list of the parties involved and provides critical information about the sender.
An added benefit is Xobni’s social networking analytics. Users can determine their top communicators, what contacts are shared and drill down through multiple threaded conversations. Xobni also adds a tab to Outlook’s interface, which enables users to generate on-screen reports about e-mail, ranging from frequency to response times to actions taken.
Xobni’s information pane also presents scheduling information, task lists and to-do items, all of which can be associated with the respective e-mail triggers.
Xobni may very well be the answer to many users’ prayers, but it is not the only product on the market that can help stem the deluge of e-mail. Other Silicon Valley startups, including ClearContext, of San Francisco, and Seriosity, of Palo Alto, Calif., are tackling internal e-mail overload.
ClearContext, founded in 2003, charges $90 for IMS (Information Management System) 4, an Outlook add-on that uses algorithms to analyze a user’s e-mail to determine the importance of contacts and messages. Incoming messages are color-coded to reflect importance. For example, a message from a sender who is already in a user’s Outlook contact list, and to whom a user usually responds very quickly (think boss, co-worker or spouse), is deemed critical and might be marked red.
But messages from others, such as those from a mailing list and those to whom the user doesn’t respond often, might be marked blue or black. The color-coding helps people quickly see which messages they should respond to first.
What’s more, users can also have certain e-mails automatically redirected away from the in-box.
Seriosity, founded in 2004, takes a completely different approach to managing internal e-mail overload. The company’s primary product, Attent, uses the concept of electronic credits to give value to an e-mail message.
Simply put, corporate e-mail users have a daily bank of credits (in Seriosity’s case, a currency called Serios) that is used to send a message.
Senders who want your attention may be willing to spend 15 Serios to deliver an e-mail to you, while less important e-mails may have a value of zero.
Since senders have a limited amount of Serios available, they must wisely choose what is important to send via e-mail.
Over time, Attent users can gain not only Serios but also badges of excellence, which are similar to a feedback rating. Others in the company can see the badges and presumably tap those people for help when they need it.
Pricing for Attent varies depending on hosting, the number of mail servers and users, and other factors.
Although the three products may handle e-mail overload differently, one thing is certain: There is a huge opportunity for VARs to move from just selling software to services such as productivity consulting or business communications streamlining.
While the big technology problem of 2008 may be information overload, it’s clear the channel has the tools to solve the problem to everyone’s benefit.
