[Design] High End Email

[Cory Preus]

On Sunday, March 9, 2003, at 07:30  AM, petite_abeille wrote:

> On Saturday, Mar 8, 2003, at 21:59 Europe/Zurich, Cory Preus wrote:
>
>> + More: "If manage my email faster, all it does is let me manage more 
>> emails."
>
> Ummm... right... what about:
>
> "If I get a better car, all it does is let me drive more."
>
> Which I would presume is a bad thing.

On the outset, yes, I am guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc. I should 
have qualified it by stating that I believe email to be a great 
communication medium and a poor _conversation_ medium...yet this is 
what it has become. I tried to allude to the fact that we becoming 
increasingly dependent on email.

Ultimately, it is my biased view that a better email client is really 
only a better way of managing inefficiencies and ineffectiveness within 
email. So yes, "If I manage my inefficiencies (email) faster, all it 
does is let me manage more inefficiencies (email, etc.)."

It still appears to suffer from the very same fallacy...but I believe 
that we get stuck in this cycle of faster is better, so we spend time 
trying to save time. We go over the speed limit just to get somewhere 
sooner, when we could've taken a moment to reflect and ask "what does 
this email mean?"

I said Zoe can breed saving data -- for better or worse. I must give it 
credence, however, in that does a very good job giving as much meaning 
to the email and its interrelationships with other emails as it can 
which is a Beautiful Thing.

My view is a smidge pessimistic, yet I find immense joy improving the 
process along the way. So here I am. ;)

>  So I doubt that the fact that there is _potentially_ a lot more data 
> available has anything to do with information overload. I will venture 
> that the difference is how much data one has to deal with at any given 
> time (e.g. the relevance of the information).
>
>> Deletion is something we are uncomfortable with...like anything else 
>> that has "finality".

> Perhaps... or simply because "deletion" requires making a irrevocable 
> decision now: should I, or shouldn't I.

Exactly. The benefit of taking a moment to make that irrevocable 
decision is that I determine whether it is or isn't relevant.

> And why should your software bother you with such trivial questions 
> all the time?

It shouldn't. It should, however, give you opportunity to qualify 
relevancy without having to worry about the mechanics of doing so. 
Filing an email is in all probability a meaningful email since you 
consciously handled it. The email software didn't ask you any 
questions, you made that choice.

> All of this bring up an interesting option: the "out of sight, out of 
> mind" inbox filter.

When did you last go through those boxes in your closet? Maybe this 
would be a good thing. I'd then realize how useless most of my emails 
are. ;)

Cory
--
http://www.wrote.org/