The Email Problem
I’ve been thinking a lot about the “email problem” lately.
What do I mean problem, you ask? The problem we all encounter every day of our lives right now. Some more than others. But, predominantly I think we all have a level of email in our inboxes that is beginning to be unmanageable.
I remember back to a day when Prodigy and Compuserve were the only ways out there to send email to each other. It was the cool, hip, thing to do. The mass hadn’t adopted it. The internet hadn’t, really, been born yet. And, getting email was fun. Using it to do your work was fun too. We didn’t need bike messengers anymore, the portable document format (PDF) was born. All of a sudden, things seemed much easier.
Then the standard didn’t evolve.
Now, we are stuck in an infinite abyss of utilizing email to solve all kinds of problems. The to-do list problem. The top-of-mind problem. The getting ahold of anyone and trying to shift time across boarders and geographies problem. Our inboxes are full, and we can’t keep up.
We’ve got blackberries, and treos, and project management softwares, and companies in India that you can hire to manage your email for you. There are plugins for all kinds of email clients. There are clients that suck, and ones that don’t. We’ve all got our way of trying to fight through the haze.
At the end of our days, though, our inboxes keep filling.
Now, we’ve got sophisticated online communities helping us connect to each other in even more simplified ways. Pulling us together by common interest, photos, geography, and myriad other pieces of personal data.
Why don’t we evolve the email problem? Evolve the standard?
I see a world where my email client connects the social and professional dots for me. A client that watches who I send to, from what address, and who sends to me. The client will take those connections and map them out for me. Showing me how I connect to each person I send to, and who they connect to. It will also show me where they live, who their friends are, and give us all opportunities to interact with each other. It will also look at these connections and help me filter and file things accordingly. Simple keystrokes will help me intuitively navigate. The client will display things that are the most important to me, and my current working world, using an algorithm that takes an in-depth look at all of my connections.
This client will help the world be more productive. Help people find each other. And, help us all get more done.
Is it a plugin? An entirely new client? Maybe it already exists? Thoughts?
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