ClearContext Corporate Blog

In Top Five Email Policy Considerations we mentioned that email retention is becoming a serious issue for regulated industries.  As this CIO Magazine article points out, corporate email volume is expected to grow by 25 – 30 % annually through 2009, creating a massive problem for corporations who must be able to manage and search user email:

"Consider that over the next seven years, a company with 20,000 employees will have to save approximately 4.5 billion e-mails, and it must be able to search through them all to find messages relevant to a request for information in a matter of days or hours."

This is clearly going to be a huge challenge for IT departments worldwide.

What’s the second biggest contributor to email volume behind spam?  Carbon Copy Bloat.  The concept of copying everyone who might be remotely interested in the contents of a message has taken hold in the business world in a big way.  This can be a particularly huge problem for a manager who is CC:d on every communication between team members.

If you suffer from this problem, ClearContext can be customized to minimize the impact of copied messages.  Under Tools > Options > ClearContext > Scoring Options are four sliders that control the weighting of individual messages.  Adjust the "Message Directness" slider to the left to place less importance on messages where you are CC:’d or BCC:’d.   These messages will appear lower in your  prioritized inbox.  To counter this effect, adjust the "Thread Participation" slider to the right to ensure that conversations you are actively involved in (i.e. you responded to a message you were previously CC:d on) will be scored higher than those you are simply copied on.

Here’s a quote from Bill Gates regarding email and office productivity:

"We, with our Office franchise, are committed to making workers far, far more productive than they are today. And believe me, we’re not running out of ideas. The phone is inefficient today with phone tag and busy signals. E-mail is inefficient today with seeing stuff that’s less relevant and how you organize it–bringing in the blog-type capabilities is very important there."

Taken from this CNET interview.  Obviously we think he’s right.  It’s interesting that he sees blog integration as a key part of office productivity enhancement.

Heinz Tschabitscher at email.about.com has pulled together am excellent site full of information about everything email, including a number of reviews and usage tips for various Outlook add-ins.  Recently he posted a comprehesive review of ClearContext Inbox Manager and several excellent tips for daily usage. 

To protect from potential lawsuits, businesses are finding it increasingly important to outline a comprehensive email corporate policy governing fair use of the company’s email system. Recently there have been several high profile legal cases demonstrating the impact of misuse of corporate email. When crafting an email policy for any company, be sure to address the areas below.

1. Content
    Outline acceptable email content in the workplace. Specifically, creation or distribution of offensive material (i.e. due to gender bias, racial bias, sexual content, etc.) should be prohibited.

2. Confidentiality & Privacy
    Specifically define corporate information that is acceptable for distribution via email within and outside the company. The policy should also outline privacy expectations for email passed through and stored on company mail servers. In particular, if corporate email is subjected to monitoring, this should be made clear.

3. Retention
    Email is a permanent record of business conversations. Define retention requirements and storage methods for corporate messages. In a highly publicized case, one company was required to search for email on 20,000 backup tapes at a cost of $1,000/tape. Finance, Healthcare, and other regulated industries have very well defined information retention requirements. Everyone else should have specific email deletion requirements.

4. Personal Use
    Several studies have shown that employees spend a significant amount of time using corporate email for personal reasons. Clearly define acceptable personal use of the company’s email system.

5. Abuse
    Outline the impact of ignoring the corporate email policy. Not only describe the effect email misuse could have on the corporation; also define the action that will be taken against employees who violate the policy.

An additional note: Corporate policy is worthless if it is not communicated and enforced. Put procedures in place that document an employee’s understanding of the policy. Provide regular training to remind employees of proper use. Finally, ensure that disciplinary action is taken swiftly if an employee is abusing company email privilege.

Consult with a lawyer versed in electronic communication before finalizing any policy.

The New York Times published an interesting article (requires free registration) on the avalanche of email workers must get through as they return from vacation.  We’re biased, but we think that ClearContext Inbox Manager is an excellent tool for alleviating this problem.

A number of ClearContext users use the product to perform "triage" on their inbox when it gets too big to manage. Here are the three most popular ClearContext features people take advantage of to rapidly clear out messages:

1. Inbox Manager AutoAssign rules file incoming newsletters, mailing lists, etc. into separate folders for future viewing. Create these rules and use the "Apply rule to existing Inbox messages now" checkbox to file messages that you have already received.
2. ClearContext groups all emails in a conversation together in the inbox. This lets you quickly look at the most recent message in the thread and file/delete the entire set of messages.
3. ClearContext’s core message prioritization functionality automatically identifies your most important email and places it right at the top of the inbox. This lets you quickly deal with all of your personal and important correspondence and then rapidly file all the remaining stuff like bulk email that has been moved to the bottom of your inbox.

Ed Bott went through a similar process when he first installed our software.  Read his post on how he used ClearContext to clear out his 4500 message inbox in just one day.

As email replaces the phone as the primary method of business communication, it becomes increasingly important to craft messages that accurately communicate the idea while promoting a professional image. Below are some basic email etiquette rules that will make messages more effective.

1.    Ensure that the message is well thought out, short, and to the point.
Business email should address a single issue and get directly to the subject. Don’t waste time with flowery words and long stories unless crucial to the message. Answer the sender’s issues at the top of the note and provide supporting documentation (including the original letter) at the end of the message. Anticipate questions that may arise and provide the answers in advance. Craft subject lines that accurately portray what the email is about.

2.    Always use proper grammar and spelling.
Given today’s automated tools, there is no excuse for misspellings and bad grammar. You should re-read every message before hitting “send” and always use spell check functionality. This will help to avoid future clarifying letters.

3.    Cut out liberal use of the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields.
Next to spam, wanton use of the address field is the biggest cause of inbox overflow. Only copy those who need to respond to or review the message. Be wary of the Bcc: field; many blind copied recipients will unknowingly hit Reply To All. Never send email to a distribution list by putting the recipients’ email addresses in the To: field; use Bcc: or mail merge instead.

4.    Monitor tone and be wary of email that seems to convey emotion.
It is difficult to communicate subtle emotion in email, and it is often misinterpreted. Remove emotionally charged statements and stick to the facts. If an inflammatory email is received, take time to reflect and clarify the content with the author before responding in kind. If unsure of tone while composing an email, ask a co-worker to proofread before sending.

5.    Don’t send confidential information.
It is very easy to forward email and consequently very easy to break confidentiality expectations. Don’t send anything that couldn’t be published in a newspaper or posted by the water cooler.

Additional Tips: Always state any action required of the reader as well as the date they must act by. Summarize long email at the beginning of the message. Pick a response time (say 8 hours) for email and try to stick to it. Provide context to your request where needed (i.e. “your boss thought you could help me with this question.”)

Email traffic has increased dramatically over the last few years, largely due to the proliferation of unsolicited email, or spam. According to a Ferris Research study released at the beginning of 2003, unwanted email will cost U.S. companies more than $10 Billion in lost revenue this year alone. This is, in part, due to Spammers’ increasingly creative methods for harvesting live email addresses. Use the email traffic reduction tips below to combat these methods and secure the sanctity of the inbox.

1. Maintain multiple email addresses.
    Set up personal and public email account(s) in addition to work email. Use the personal account for friends and family and the public account for online shopping, newsletters, etc.. Never give out the work address for non-work related reasons.

2. Don’t post an email address in public places.
    Marketing companies harvest email from public places on the net. Refrain from posting an address on websites, in newsletters, or in email groups to avoid identification by these companies. When posting is inevitable, use the public email address.

3. Avoid signing up for marketing material, newsletters, and email lists.
    Opt out of online retail marketing newsletters. Don’t sign up for email lists or newsletters that will sit in the inbox unread. Time wasted deleting these notes is time lost on more important work. All that said, be wary of clicking “unsubscribe” on unsolicited email; spammers use this to identify a live address.

4. Don’t be part of the problem.
    The more email sent out, the more received. Don’t forward email jokes, chain letters, and news on the latest virus hoax. Don’t address an email to multiple recipients unless they need to read the content. Don’t hit Reply To All if the only person who requires the information is the sender. Finally, don’t be afraid to (politely) ask people to refrain from this behavior if they are violating these rules.

5. Utilize technology to reduce the impact of spam.
    ISP’s and/or IT administrators can provide information on server based spam elimination. Install client side software to provide further protection. Use automated processes to prioritize the inbox to minimize the impact of unsolicited messages. See Top Five Ways to Manage Your Inbox Effectively for more detail.

Shawn Morrissey is testing Inbox Manager along with Franklin Covey’s PlanPlus and David Allen’s Getting Things Done plugin for Outlook.  Like Shawn, we find that ClearContext is complentary to these add-ins; allowing users to further increase the effectiveness of these methodologies by addressing their most important email and tasks first.  We are anxious to hear more about Shawn’s results as he continues to use these products.

Email overload is becoming an increasing fact of life in today’s corporate world. The average user spends two hours a day in email, but is becoming increasingly less effective as the inbox overflows with spam, unopened messages, and overdue action items. Utilize the inbox management tips below to help manage this flood of information.

1. Prioritize messages to insure that important email is addressed first.
Use automated tools to order by priority. Identify important people or key words and use rules to organize messages.

2. Respond in a timely fashion.
Don’t let important emails fester in the inbox. Attempt to respond to email within a set time frame (say, 8 hours). Send a short note with estimated response time if a delay is anticipated. Send automated replies if out of the office or overwhelmed on a project.

3. Use the inbox as a “to do” list.
Try to touch an email message one time only. Where possible, respond on first read and file away in an appropriate folder. If the message requires further attention, validate assigned priority (point #1). Flag messages for future response and/or convert to a calendar event for a future appointment.

4. Read the entire thread before responding.
There are often several responses to an email thread during the course of a day. Read all items in the thread before crafting a response. Sort the inbox by title when addressing a message with a lot of responses.

5. Don’t become a slave to email.
Set aside times to manage email (say, 9 AM, Noon, and 4 PM) and stay away the rest of the day. Using the email management principles above, you will get through your inbox quicker, address all issues within a given thread and your colleagues will still be impressed with your response time.