Tech Columnists' Day Without Email 204
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "When a recent power outage disrupted email service at WSJ.com, our tech columnists were plunged backwards into a time before every meeting, every little task, came with an email-program reminder, and where checking the bottom right of the screen for a new-mail envelope was futile. "Some of us quickly got a reminder that email is the lingua franca of projects that bridge different departments and involve a lot of people," Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry write. "For all the talk of whiteboarding, it's email threads that we rely on to remember where we left certain questions and what our next moves are. Similarly, email has become our storage system for important documents and works in progress--how often do you email yourself? It's also replaced the telephone for lots of our routine touching base between colleagues, friends and families: Instant messaging is simultaneously too casual and too intrusive, and weekday phoning is reserved for more-substantive matters and emergencies. So a lot of that social lubrication went out the window.""
Interesting story, just one question: (Score:2)
Re:Interesting story, just one question: (Score:3, Informative)
It all started with a power outage... I guess you *need* the hardware to read the email...
Re:Interesting story, just one question: (Score:2)
Hardware failure. Caused the email to go down.
Re:Interesting story, just one question: (Score:2)
Ah, well that explains it (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, well that explains the recent tech rumor flurry then; the WSJ had simply been transported back in time to 1996, when Apple was dying
Don't Despair! (Score:2)
I know what you mean... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:2)
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:3, Interesting)
Durring the great belt tightening after the bubble burst, I saw this happen countless times at several jobs. Once you start restricting people's freedoms at work, geeks tend to just push back or leave.
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:2)
If I couldn't do that, I'd have to have a huge tech library, and some kind of dedicated Special Ops force that kept tabs on OSS developers, kept track of what their software did, then kicked down their doors and got copie
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:2)
I used to work at Ubisoft when they provided full internet access to employees... lately, to be coherent with the industry's concept of "let's piss our employees off as much as possible", they decided to completely cut off internet access. I'm not there anymore (left way before they cut), but I still have a couple of friends over there, and we used to MSN a whole lot on boring days (yes, they can have th
We tried using only telephones (Score:5, Funny)
Once he'd got the employees up and running with telephones we let them try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: The telephone system was a pretty good replacement for those shitty Eudora boxes we'd used before and the employees could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from our employees. Users could not do things they could before (like manage their contacts). The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when the PBX suddenly froze up, effectively destroying our communication infrastructure.
Needless to say, the community offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee destroy the telephone system and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
Re:We tried using only telephones (Score:2)
Re:We tried using only telephones (Score:2)
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:2)
I know of at least one company where consultants/contractors don't have a telephone on their desk... real life is sometimes more dilbert than dilbert.
ugh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ugh (Score:2)
Nor where they randomly hurl it out of windows.
Re:ugh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ugh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ugh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ugh (Score:2)
Re:ugh (Score:2)
On the job lubrication (Score:2)
e-mail... it's a natural evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me the advent of e-mail as a key role player in managing information is pretty natural evolution. In the face of all efforts to create information management systems, data mining systems, et. al., e-mail quietly assumes a central responsibility for more people than ever. And this has probably happened for a few reasons:
Probably a lesson learned from the article is the importance of some contigency plan, but losing e-mail for a day sounds like it turned into a positive experience for the authors. Regardless, it appears once you lose e-mail access (in power outage, system outage, etc.), you've lost essentially your context of IT anyway, and contingency is pretty much old school interaction (phone calls, paper trails, MBWA, etc.)... no biggy.
Re:e-mail... it's a natural evolution (Score:2)
Re:e-mail... it's a natural evolution (Score:2)
I hope that the natural evolution provides for changes to the email system. I'd agree with your points, but email is far from perfect for about a million reasons. Examples:
Re:e-mail... it's a natural evolution (Score:2)
Why not? I use it all the time for small to medium size files. It's the most convenient way for me to send someone one or more files. For example, I'll do some data analysis, plot the results to several PDF files, and send the PDF files as attachments to an explanatory e
Re:e-mail... it's a natural evolution (Score:2)
Ever tried using it for large files? It's not so much that you annoy your administrator if you do this, it's more that the actual software out there is just lousy at supporting these types of actions. It does work fine for small and medium files, but unless it works well for all files, it can't really be called a good file transfer mechanism.
It's the most convenient way for me to send someone one or more files
That's part of my point - ther
Get it in email (Score:5, Interesting)
Do not talk to someone on the phone. Do not talk to him face to face. Do not IM him (and hey, what IT department hasn't locked IM along with everything else down anyhow). Ask questions and expect answers in email, or do it in meetings with witnesses. Leave a paper trail and keep it documented.
This sounds like cynicism, I think it is, but it's not mine. This is how many corporations appear to "work". Email is the ultimate accountability tool.
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
Hell, companies have lost billions of dollars [slashdot.org] for not documenting their actions and lack of email accountability - so you're absolutely right.
However, this is also a bad thing, it takes away excuses.
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
People who make a job of being lazy tend to learn how to do it really well, there's a fierce Darwinian selection process to it. Those that can't evade work well, don't stick around. I woul
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
Re:Get it in email (Score:2, Insightful)
Because of emails well-known resistance to impersonation and spoofing, right?
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
As someone who admins e-mail servers, it baffles me that an e-mail is considered to be "proof" of anything in any high stakes situation.
As an example of just how ridiculous this is, I once printed a copy of the logs on my mail server that showed that a female co-worker had checked her e-mail at 6:30 PM, so that she could "prove" to her boyfriend that she really was working late. I of course, snipped the logs down enough that he wouldn't see that she checks her e-mail at precise 5 m
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
Seriously. I learned a long time ago to not use my position as IT guy to particpate in anything other than strictly business.
At first management might think it's useful, but the more clueful ones then figure out you could be a liability to them too...
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
As for the rest, I agree wholeheartedly, but this particular company was not the sort of place where there was a need to worry about such things. Extremely small company, and a very tight knit group. The typical corporate concerns just weren't an issue there.
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
Even beyond that, everything gets carboned to half the department, the person who gets the access, the person who requests the access, and that persons boss. It's certainly falsifiable, but I would say it's less so than a hardcopy paper trail or a phone message, and face to face just isn't practical.
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
The enlightened ones that've installed their own internal Jabber servers, for starters. Our company went from "IM is an interesting experiment" to "kill the email if you must, but keep that Jabber server running!" in a few short months.
IM doesn't have to mean AIM or ICQ anymore. Our internal IM system is every bit as secure as our email service, so sending sensitive data is perfectly acceptable and common.
Re:Get it in email (Score:2)
I think also different types of work have different rules. I'm mostly familiar with engineering R&D situations. Being "accountable" means schedule deadlines, not theft or funny business. People can get stuck being "accountable" for something they promised that i
Good old days (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly though, I've had a bit of an internet-outage at home once or twice. To my own surprise, I found it a bit refreshing to not have access for a short while.
Re:Good old days (Score:2)
No lube?! (Score:2)
So long as it was only the social lubrication and not the other kind. Non-lubed is definitely not a good thing.
The first step (Score:3, Funny)
Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2, Interesting)
(b) So it occurred to absolutely no one in all of the Wall Street Journal that you could have asked to save a copy of your previous e-mails and Calendar information onto your own computer? Not being able to send e-mails in the present is one thing (and the phone works fine for that), but to tel
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2)
A better question is, why didn't they have a backup power solution?
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2)
It depends on the nature of the conversation. Sometimes it's good to have a durable record -- for one thing, it makes it easier to bring other people into the conversation.
Of course, sometimes it's best to not have a durable record...
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2)
Am I the only one who gets annoyed when I'm trying to work and a coworker breaks my concentration to ask me a nonurgent and not necessarily time dependent question when they could have sent me an email?
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2)
Re:Social Lubrication is Good and All, But (Score:2)
Apparently all your co-workers come from the same generally area as you. However the guy who works in the cube next to me comes from Pakistan. He is a good developer, but his accent makes him hard to understand. It is often easier to use email than person to person communication with him, because I can read email. (I've had to work with some folks who I needed to read and re-read to understand, his grasp of English is good enough that I don't have to go that far)
When my co-workers all speak with a
What color is the sky on their planet? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What color is the sky on their planet? (Score:4, Interesting)
On my private address, I have a few friends that send infrequent correspondence, a few small mailing lists (no 300 messages a day crap) and a few writing projects I'm working on with some other people. None of these require me to look every day, and if I've got better things to do, email can wait.
How did they manage? (Score:2, Funny)
how often do you email yourself? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:how often do you email yourself? (Score:2, Informative)
It makes for an easy way to transport data from one locale to another without resorting to a USB pen drive, or other portable media. It also gives me a way to download a file once from a slow server, and store it on a faster one for when I need to retrieve it later.
Re:how often do you email yourself? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I do email my self once in a while. When I decide to run to a store on my lunch break I'm best off sending an email from my home account to my work account. (why make a special trip for something I don't need tonight when the store is right next to where I eat lunch) I could write a list, but if I don't put it in my pocket the next morning I won't know what I needed. (besides, it is easier for me to type list than to hand write it)
Email doesn't forget (barring a rare system crash) until I t
That explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That explains it! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That explains it! (Score:2)
Steve probably had to throw the idea together in the car on the way to the Keynote.
Phbt. Think what other rumors WSJ could publish about Apple if he got on their wrong side?
TinyURL.com (Score:5, Funny)
Re:TinyURL.com (Score:2)
Total avoidance? Yes, yes indeed.
Re:TinyURL.com (Score:2)
I've even had NSFW links off the main page here before, when people who were pissed off at being slashdotted changed their main page to a full screen of tubgirl or something.
it's been my fault even ;-) (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, my job was to keep those damn things from extinction - it was a near impossible task.
On a couple of occasions the email server would get completely full (how's a total of 16GB for a 200+ person International company grab ya?) and email would stop. I would have to jump through hoops to get space back - force users to
Re:it's been my fault even ;-) (Score:2)
No offense, but it sounds like you need to polish up your cost benefit presentation skills. You can't just bark out a nice round number like $20k and expect a signed PO for that amount. A fifteen minute powerpoint presentation with at least one three color bar graph on productivity lost versus to-the-penny costs of a new system should have gotte
person to person vs person to group (Score:2)
Asimov knew it (Score:5, Interesting)
In the Foundation trilogy (*), Isaac Asmimov portrayed a stilted society full of academic "scientists" who never ventured into a lab, but did their scientific work by critiquing the work of others.
While he was mostly lampooning the way academic scholarship can replace actual research, I think he would have smiled knowingly. A news organization whose workers are lost without the ability to have news delivered to them would have fit perfectly into the pre-Mule galaxy.
Or maybe I'm just reading more into the story than the WSJ folkd deserve. Maybe it's just a sign of the times that email has so thoroughly penetrated business operations.
---
(*) I haven't read Asimov in 20 years, so I apologize for my hazy memory and the arrogance to expound on it.
Re:Asimov knew it (Score:2)
Reminds me of many a meeting or sales call.
Same 20 year disclaimer applies here. I should probably reread it!
Re:Asimov knew it (Score:2)
Ever watch CSPAN when Alan Greenspan is testifying before the banking subcommittee? Nobody can say nothing that sounds like something like that guy!
Hehe (Score:2)
On the other hand if we were talking about the New York Times...ahem.
Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had a penny for each time I have repeated this to users frustrated with their email account quotas: "Our mail server does not exist to fulfill your file storage needs." The file server is where people can store their important.......wait for it........FILES!
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:3, Insightful)
And here is the fundamental problem with IT departments. IT departments do not exist for the sake of IT although they sure do act like it a whole lot. IT departments exist for the sake of users, you know the people that it's so fashionable to arro
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
Every new employee gets trained how to make efficient use of the services that are offered to them. They have access to email, small FTP quotas and larger Samba shares. They are shown how to archive any important emails or attachments and store them in the appropriate file shares. They are also notified that emails will be d
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:3, Informative)
2. Group emails get a copy of the attachment each in most mailservers
3. People don't usually delete old emails - if you're working on a file on a share, you usually might keep a couple of copies. With email, you'll usually keep every revision. (Usually once for each person in the email, plus the sender - see #2).
I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but I admin the mail server and we only have a dozen employees - almost all of whom use FTP and shares regularly.
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
Shouting "You're doing it wrong!" does not count as making it work.
You could say:
"I suggest that if a great number of your users are scheduling appointments by writing them on the wall clock with a big black magic marker rather than using their calendar book, that you as a diligent secretary should spend some time figurin
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
I know it takes up resources, but my email message contains a lot of context. I can search for any number of mental cues (who sent the email, part
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
But they'll never use the file server. They'll just set Outlook to download emails older than a couple weeks to local folders. And then they'll have a huge honking archive on the machine *most* likely to fail in the scheme of things. Most users are barely comfortable with email.
If the file shares aren't mounted on login, you should look into that. And then configure Outlook/whatever to download all mail and store it there on all new inst
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
The problem with this approach is that email is one of the most inefficient ways to transfer files. MIME encoding was just a hack on top of a text-based system. Sending files via email tends to add about 50% to the size of the file (i.e. if you send a 10MB file it will make a 15mb email). To use email in lieu of a file server you need 50% more sp
Re:Just the type of users who I like to avoid (Score:2)
Not all of that is inbound.. some organizations scan outbound email for spam/virii as well.
Novell's iFolders were supposed to help with this situation as well..
Email Considered Harmful (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Email Considered Harmful (Score:2, Insightful)
slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:slashdot (Score:2)
Re:slashdot (Score:2)
"weekday phoning.. (Score:2)
I think I missed this new trend: so basically you supposed to call people on weekly basis to summarize all the heart attacks and child births that happened?
;-)
Document storage? (Score:4, Insightful)
No yuo! E-mail should be used only for collaboration. Documents belong on a file server or some kind of a Web based document management system.
How big is your mail store? How long does it take to backup? How long would it take to restore in case of a failure? Half a day? I'm guessing that 95% of your mail store are file attachments that shouldn't even be there...
How do you share those documents with others? Forward them via e-mail of course. Thus compounding your document versioning problem, and increasing the mail store size. (Single instance storage can only do so much.)
Re:Document storage? (Score:2)
Storing your documents in the email system means you can access them from anywhere and any machine. I store three of my most important documents in encrypted form in email. This also provides a simple offsite backup method that also helps protect against loss and outages.
(and the encryption program I use and highly recommend is this one [sourceforge.net]...
Re:Document storage? (Score:2)
Perhaps, but this is a great a example of technology being bent to serve the needs of its users. It may be ultimately more productive to modify a mail server to more easily handle this form of folk file storage, than to force users to adapt themselves to the IT department. I expect that a huge market is waiting for the first group to elegantly merge file storage and mail accessibility in this way.
Good day (Score:2)
Bill & Ted's Email Adventure (Score:2)
Bill: Ted we are about to embark on a most
excellent journey through time!
Ted: Where are we going?
Bill: 1984 or so should do the trick!
Isn't it amazing... (Score:2)
I think many have become TOO dependent on being 'wired' for their own good, and it's not just adults. I've seen all too many kids walking with their parents at the mall, bus stop, or wherever, eyes and attention riveted solidly t
Ha! (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be cool if... (Score:2)
Maybe one of the big tech companies could come up with something like this!
There are better choices than Email (Score:2)
For one thing additional meta-data about the items can be stored in the CMS. Secondly, the built-in search capability beats the pants off what I have to deal with in MS Outlook (100 times faster). Finally, it has the flexibility for me to extend its functionality beyond what I find out-of-the-box (e.g. to manage appointments, and link related information to those appointments).
I get so much cruft in Email, and
Re:asdf (Score:3, Funny)
2000? (Score:2)
I found some evidence.... (Score:2)
To: urgh212@homonidcave.com
Date: Tue, Mar 18 160,000BC 14:36:14 PST
Subject: Urgh
Urgh Urgh Urgh Ugg.
Urgh Urgh Ug.
Urgh.
Re:I found some evidence.... (Score:2)
Haha...
Aaah, I see they had smileys back then too.
And they seemed to have bigger noses back then.
Re:One day it's "Everyone's addicted to email" (Score:2)