Recent questions about information security have honed in on President Barack Obama’s BlackBerry. Obama, who is self-admittedly attached to his PDA (personal digital assistant), recently told reporters that the Secret Service would have to pry his BlackBerry out of his hands.
After some negotiating and the implementation of additional security measures, President Obama was allowed to keep his device to stay in touch with close associates and a few select friends.
Although it is a small issue, especially stacked against wars and an afflicted economy, many empathized with Obama’s BlackBerry plea. PDAs, e-mail and other information technology can turn us into amnesiacs; once plugged in through technologies, it becomes almost impossible to imagine how we functioned before such things.
This access to information, however, has an all-too-familiar price: Information overload. The term doesn’t need defining because almost everyone who works for a living occasionally experiences the head-spinning anxiety that accompanies the onslaught of personal, professional and promotional e-mails. It’s all too common to hear people say that they never take a vacation from their e-mail because it’s not worth the daunting amount of “catch up” that must be done upon return.
It’s also a safe bet that most people won’t be able to make it through this article without fielding several e-mail interruptions.
What’s worse is that these constant distractions are adding up to big dollars lost for even the smallest businesses.
“Generally speaking, information overload costs companies by lower concentration levels, making it difficult for people to follow complicated trains of thought, lowering innovation levels, creating the likelihood of reinventing the wheel because information cannot be found, quickly propagating mistakes and leaving workers to wonder how they will know if they got the ‘right’ information from the ‘right’ place,” according to Jonathan Spira, chief analyst, and David Goldes, senior analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm serving IT vendors and buyers with knowledge worker management and productivity issues. Their paper “Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us,” explores the cost of information mismanagement in the electronic age.
“In general [information overload] creates a man versus machine atmosphere. Sometimes the machine wins,” they write. According to a 2005 study conducted by Basex, interruptions now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day, which translates into 28 billion lost man-hours per year to U.S. companies.
Take a deep breath. No matter what, most people still occasionally will suffer episodes of information overload, but by taking a few simple steps to rethink your e-mail management strategy, you can contain these spells, and train information to work for you, not against your sanity.
PRIORITIZING AND PARCELING
A solid first step in coping with information overload is to practice information segregation, both in terms of setting e-mail apart from other work you need to do and by filing e-mail into manageable (electronic) piles.
You might be a worker who stops what he or she is doing the second a new message notification sounds or your PDA vibrates. You have plenty of company, but for most people, this is an ineffective way to manage your work. Designating chunks of time as “no e-mail zones” can improve concentration and creativity when completing tasks.
Similarly, setting aside time devoted specifically to reading and sorting e-mail instead of reading them on the fly can help ensure that you fully process information and don’t miss important details.
The manufacturers of aftermarket parts and distributors have by and large turned to e-mail as the primary mode of communication. E-mail is great for many reasons, but like most good things, too much of it can amass into a huge problem. Developing an ability to quickly assess and classify e-mail into categories like “urgent,” “important” and “junk” can take you a long way toward a saner inbox.
One way to hone your ability to parse e-mail into different categories is to think about it from the sender’s point of view. Why is a manufacturer sending you this e-mail? How might it affect your customers? Quickly answering these questions should help you assign a level of importance and urgency to any e-mail – and information almost always arrives via e-mail these days.
“Technology helps with information overload if it is utilized effectively,” says John Bzeta, president of Fleet Brake Parts & Service Ltd. “However, the use of e-mail for product announcements or training is being used too often by manufacturers,” he adds. “This mode of communication and training almost is turning into spam. Manufacturers need to focus their customers on their message as most distributors are going in many directions at once.”
Some manufacturers hear this complaint loud and clear, recognizing that distributors are bombarded with information and use that consideration to shape their information distribution strategies.
“We try very hard to provide specific, targeted [pieces of information] that will be of value to the recipient,” says Travis Hopkey, director of marketing, Phillips Industries. “Instead of simply stating the features of a new product, we will state how the product provides a solution to a specific problem that the reader is experiencing.
“Unfortunately, research shows that most things don’t get read on the first pass. You need to hit the reader three or four times before it has an impact,” says Hopkey.
“Given today’s technology, Webb rarely does mailings of printed material to its distributors,” says Rick Kempski, vice president of marketing, Webb Wheel Products, aftermarket business unit.
“Webb communicates essential information to its distributors, such as price changes, new product offerings and service bulletins explaining a product change. Information also is sent as required to ensure that Webb distributors are aware of any potential counterfeit or patent infringement products that may be entering the North American markets. E-mailing directly to distributors ensures that information is received in a timely manner and by the appropriate personnel.”
Using Webb as an example, if you know that this manufacturer typically sends out either product information or safety alerts, you might create a “new product information” folder, as well as an “industry news and alerts” folder. Once you have these folders made, it is quick and easy to scan e-mail and either delete it or move it immediately into a folder, keeping your inbox reasonably clear.
“We have become far more proficient in generating information than we are in managing it,” writes Spira and Goldes. “We try to do our work, but information gets in the way.” As the heavy-duty aftermarket becomes increasingly electronic in processing and communicating information, distributors must ensure that they don’t prioritize information above their customers. It’s essential to identify when information just isn’t that important.
READ THE WORDS RIGHT
But don’t hit that delete key too readily. Just as people who hoard information aren’t using technology to their advantage, neither are chronic filers and deleters of information. If you scan e-mail too superficially, you run the risk of missing key details.
A source of frustration for many businesspeople is receiving a response to an e-mail that doesn’t adequately address all areas the person was asked to address – a sign that the e-mail recipient hasn’t given the message his or her full attention. This is a quick way to make your customers or suppliers think that you’re too busy for them, or that they don’t matter to you.
Another hazard to avoid when e-mailing is misreading tone. The ability to read between the lines carries people far in the business world, but it can be disastrous when overzealously applied to e-mail.
Often, a one-line e-mail response is simply that: A short response. It doesn’t necessarily imply a terseness or anger on the sender’s part. If you’re not sure how to understand the tone of an e-mail, follow it up with a polite and neutral-toned phone call before assuming the sender is angry.
When it comes to e-mail, many experts agree that you reap what you sow. By practicing good habits of responding in full, being clear and not bombarding customers with information that might not be important to them, you in turn should receive respectful and succinct e-mail correspondence.
If all else fails and your blood pressure starts to rise, take a step back from the screen. A five-minute break from e-mail is sometimes all you need to clear your head and reclaim your sanity. Remember that those messages will be there for you when you sign back in.
