Effective Communication:
Is E-mail It?
E-mail
is being used more and more in place of other methods of communication. It is
replacing face-to-face meetings when there is just a brief matter to discuss. It is
replacing fax for sending informal or urgent messages.
You might
choose E-mail as an alternative to placing a telephone call when the other
person is not available, or when you want more time to compose and review your
thoughts—not easy to do in a direct conversation. And you can E-mail at any time of the
day or night. You can write in your spare time. On the road, you can compose
messages while off-line using a laptop or palm-top computer, then send them when you
get access to a telephone or other communication link.
E-mail
is a step toward the paperless office, replacing some of the work of the fax
machine, which requires paper-in and paper-out. Up-to- date electronic fax solutions
hook directly into computers, but many people have stayed with the paper fax machine
because they are more comfortable with that technology. E-mail systems now allow us
to send to both fax and E-mail recipients at the same time, paper-free (yet many people
print out their E-mail messages).
Warning! I have been predicting that email will be abandoned as a
business tool unless organizations can make better use of it in less time
consuming ways. I have much more to say on this subject so stay tuned.
1. Formatting E-mail messages
