Tech Co. Explores Possible Solution to 'Email Pollution,' Goal Is Zero Internal Emails by 2013
Is is really possible to live without internal email at work? And, if it was, would you want to?
Addressing an issue that affects employees in most workplaces, officials of a 75,000-employee international technology company based in France say the answer to both questions is yes, according to the Los Angeles Times’ Technology blog.
Atos Origin has a goal of eliminating “email pollution” and reducing internal email to zero by 2013. Although the details are still being worked out, company officials are looking at accomplishing this near-miracle by establishing one set of centralized collaborative documents to discuss and list ideas and appropriate use of social media tools. Among them are an Atos Wiki and videoconferencing and file-sharing tools.
“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching on our personal lives,” said company chairman and chief executive Thierry Breton in a statement posted on the company’s Zero Email page.
“At Atos Origin, we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution,” Breton states.
An Atos press release talks about the history of the zero-email concept.
A Stanford University expert consulted by the Technology blog agreed that needless chat is interfering with business operations but wondered whether Atos is focusing on the best solution.
“There is no question that the amount of information that is being pressed upon people is more than they can handle,” Clifford Nass told the newspaper. He serves as director of the school’s Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab and is the author of The Man Who Lied to His Laptop.
