• by Masha Geller , June 8, 2001

Just moments after sending out yesterday's Minute about businesswomen preferring to communicate over email rather than face-to-face, I received an announcement (by email, of course) titled, "Email - Tool or Torment?" So, here's to contradictory research!

We all hear "experts" speak volumes about the incredible power of email and here comes this piece of research that tells us email is not a time-saver? Really?

Well, consider the following: according to a recent global study by Rogen International and Goldhaber Research Associates called "Balancing Email and Face-to-Face In Workplace Communication," each year some 4 trillion emails are sent worldwide from about 600 million e-mailboxes.

This is a dramatic increase over the use of email some years ago - email usage has jumped more than six fold since 1995, with employees now sending an average of 20 and receiving 30 emails each day.

Rogen's Global CEO Neil Flett, said, "This translates to businesspeople spending around two hours a day handling email." Interestingly, Flett said, "Executives prefer to both give and receive important good and bad news face-to-face." Despite popular myth, he said, email has not reduced the amount of face-to-face communication required at work.

So, while some have seen email as a timesaving device, in fact the survey shows that not to be true. Email appears to be adding to the time spent communicating in business, not reducing time.

I personally disagree, but that's because I get an average of 500 emails a day and without email I'd have to have a phone installed inside my head. Most of your target audience is in the 20-30 total daily email range, so the point of the story is: start seriously thinking about email clutter and making your ads stand out.

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