Propono (Latin): to put or set forth, to set or lay out, to offer, to place before, expose to view, display, point out, declare, represent, report, say, relate, set forth, publish, etc.



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Propono, ergo sum?

Monday, April 02, 2007

Stop the e-mail madness!

Amen.

From today's free WSJ online (click title above for full text):

Do me a favor and look through your inbox. (Or your Deleted Items, depending on your email habits.) Never mind spam or personal email -- just focus on the portion coming from within your own organization. How much of it did you really need to read? How many of those emails are pointless paper-trailing and butt-covering, conversations going on long after you stopped having something to contribute (if you did in the first place), arguments you're trapped witnessing, recurring status notes that no longer concern you or haven't registered in years, or never-to-be-read corporate rah-rah? (My own unscientific survey of a week's worth of my email yielded 195 legitimate messages and 184 ones that were delete-finger exercises.)

By making communicating so easy, email enables lazy communication. By giving us a way to exchange messages that aren't important enough to require a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, it breeds unimportant communications. This isn't bad for our social lives -- periodic low-level chatter between friends and loved ones lets us stay in touch and eases the stresses of the working day. But it's horrible for our professional lives, allowing and even encouraging our inner bureaucrat to come out and play.

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