While taking part in some workshops over the past 6 months I became aware that there’s teachers in TAFE who log in to their email once or twice a week just to delete all the unread email – without reading it! My initial reaction (as someone who loves technology) was “That’s crazy… irresponsible even??”. But when I thought about it from their perspective (as people who don’t use a lot of technology), I wondered if I’d do the same thing in their situation?

Working for a large organisation in the public sector, with lots of people who need to let lots of other people know about stuff, the sheer volume of email that people have to deal can be a huge barrier to effective communication. When you combine this with the fact that some teachers are only in the office for half-an-hour once a week (and don’t check email from home for various reasons), checking your inbox for relevant information becomes near impossible.

And here inlies the problem… a lot of information that ends up in our inboxes is irrelevant to many individuals.
Continue reading Drowning in Email?