CEO Bans Email, Wins at PR

This smacks of a PR play, albeit a successful one.

CEO bans email, encourages social networking — Engadget

Even so, I wonder if the results of the experiment will ever see the same level of transparency. I’ve been among those who proclaim email dead, but over the years, email has become more pervasive, not less. I can’t help but think that complaints about too much email are not a function of the tool, but of the user. Hate the player, not the game.

Anyway, Jerry (@b3gl) made another key observation about this proclamation:

And don’t even get me started on the audit trail requirements and legal and statutory compliance.

This doesn’t mean that social (and other) channels are useless and can’t replace email. It just means they should work in concert with email, not against it.

Find the comments.

AboutJake

a.k.a.:jkuramot

2 comments

  1. I’m with the engadget comments about accountability. 

    Your post from 4 years ago was highly entertaining.  We do indeed see Facebook uber alles, but not replacing email, rather enhancing mass marketing. Dunno, I hope we can do a check in 3 years from now. So I can say “told you so”.  That crappy Linkedin went public.  Google proved that “business communication” is indeed advertising.  Justin Timberlake bought myspace…

    I have missed a couple of important emails in my home box, amid the thousands.  Oh well.  I still predict coming internet armageddon.

  2. Just read that again, and I’m ready to say I’m mostly correct. Adoption has been faster on the consumer side, and enterprises are slow to adopt.

    Scrapping email entirely is a PR stunt. Email will die off slowly, just like voicemail has.

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