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Email is dead: long live instant messaging
Email is dead: long live instant messaging
May 17, 2012
When I tell people that email won’t be around in five years’ time, they look at me like I’m mad. It’s true though – email hasn’t changed for 20 years, and we all know what happens to technology that doesn’t change. It dies.
Email is as secret as Twitter
At a presentation I did recently, I told people email wasn’t secure. To illustrate this point, I explained that information sent by email is as open as your Twitter stream, as long as you know where to look for it.
Some members of the audience looked at me in shock, admitting to sending all sorts of sensitive data via good old Microsoft Outlook.
I went on to explain that instant messaging is the future for corporate communications. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. It’s true and now I’ll explain why.
Twenty years ago people did business over the phone. When you needed something from someone, you picked the phone up or went to their desk, had a conversation and got what you needed.
Email changed all that. We became accustomed to sending a request for information, waiting for a reply, replying to the reply, waiting for another reply … and so on. A conversation that could have taken a few minutes turns into a four-hour email trail.
The only positive aspect is that email gives us an audit trail. I’m not sure about you but to me that feels like a backwards step. Of course, we didn’t see it like that at the time.
Real-time communication is changing
Well, the world of real time communication is changing and instant messaging is the new black, if you’ll excuse the cliché. Now when I want to discuss a subject I can go into my copy of Outlook and click ‘reply with IM’:
This instantly opens a text, voice or even video conversation with recipient. You can discuss the subject and get an outcome - and best of all the entire chat is recorded in Outlook so you can check what you actually said. You can even share data directly from Microsoft Word or Excel using the share button in the review tab.
Of course, these functions aren’t only available in Microsoft Outlook. There are plenty of other services that do similar things, including free ones like Skype. So, next time you’re tempted to hit ‘reply all’, why not try instant messaging instead?
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- Ten ways to use email effectively
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Lee Wrall is founder and MD of Everything Tech, an IT support and service provider based in Manchester.
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Comments
I get what you're saying, but I think email has come a long way. Perhaps not in terms of technical standards but in terms of rich content and and most importantly in terms of marketing analytics and tracking, which I believe will be one of the major drivers in keeping alive for many years.
Likewise mobile email has enabled major changes to the corporate world and I think many companies will stop short of moving away from email as they have greater control over it than IM - systems like MS Exchange/Lotus Notes server platforms with various smart phones give near instant messaging speed but with every email trackable and stored for backup on the corporate server.
But, I agree that more instance technologies will be used more and features like the Google+ hangout open up some great opportunities.
Good points and discussion, thanks for the post Lee.
Blog post was submitted via carrier pigeon J
Good point, we're not there yet but I'm sure that's where we are going.
Hi Frances,
You're right changing the corporate world will be difficult but it's already starting to happen, Atos being the big news example.
The other important thing to remember is that email is broken, it always has been. It’s one of the least secure methods of communication and yet the most popular. In a world where we are all security crazy it seems to get overlooked just because it’s convenient.
Lee
I'd be surprised if email died out in 5 years time. I don't use my personal email very much these days, as social media and real-time forms of communication have somewhat supplanted it. However, email is certainly my 'go-to' form of communication in the workplace. It may not have changed much over the past twenty years, but I think that's because it's already pretty effective - and if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Just out of interest, was this blog post submitted via IM?
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