My Email Travails

siddhesh@iitb.ernet.in... that was my first email address. I read emails through a cute little email application called something I cannot recollect. I felt proud every time I got an email.

That was 1996.

Today, like everyone else in this "connected" world, I have a love hate relationship with email. I use it to get most of my work done, and I also waste most of my time awake on it.

But it's not all been downhill. I have tried various approaches to email management, with some measure of success. This longish blog post is an attempt to share some of those learnings and experiences with you in the hope that it helps you too!

Shift to Outlook. My first real email client on the job was Netscape. It allowed me seamless access to our newsgroups (which Outlook didn't do), and since all the email folders were treated just like file folders on disk, taking backups, moving folders around and so on was fast, easy and intuitive.

But after fighting the move to Outlook for a couple of years, I succumbed and migrated to Outlook as my email client. Reason: a better integration with tasks, contacts and calendar.

For you, dear reader, this is irrelevant - and I am assuming you are already on Outlook and Exchange. If not, well, time to get there :) If you still insist on continuing with whatever else you use, well, feel free to drop off at this point.

Set up your folders. Creating a good folder structure can be deceptively tricky! Many of us lesser mortals succumb to the lure of the email filter, setting up dozens of them - for every friend, for every project, for every team mate. What could be simpler and easier than mails that obediently sort themselves out and sit in fodlers waiting for you to discover them?

Unless you have the IQ of a potted plant, you would have already figured this out yourself. Instead of processing an inbox, you now end up with dozens of them. Mails intended to go into a project folder go into your team mate friend's personal folder. You miss the important stuff from your boss because it gets auto-filtered into one of those dozen folders you are trying to track. And you process mails completely out of order in which they arrived, answering to older mails in a conversation long after newer ones have arrived! Not exactly the best way, right?

Keep the processing disciplined. I follow a very simple, but extremely effective mail processing workflow. All mails stay, unfiltered, in my inbox. Sorted on time of arrival. Only rarely, very rarely, a filter is employed to segregate mails, like for example, those that need no or very, very specific processing... mails from MIS, for example. All mails stay "unread" until I have processed them - giving me an easy way to figure out how much mail is sitting unread.

When I get down to processing mails, a quick first level processing takes place... based on the subject, or the content, if I realise a mail is of no consequence or need for the future, it gets deleted - never to be seen again. This "glance" typically takes 1-2 seconds per mail. No keeping around mails simply because I have disk space. If the mail needs a quick reply, or is urgent and can be processed immediately, I do it. Mostly a dozen words or less per mail. In the rare case that a mail is a call for action and needs more work, it stays right there - in the inbox, until I get down to processing it. Again, no missing a mail because I read it and lost it in one of the "folders". After a mail has thus been deleted, processed or delayed processed, it then goes into one of the "Saved" folders, or gets deleted never to be seen again.

Now you are free to set up the "Saved" hierarchy any way you want,s but I recommend that office stuff be classified into projects (NOT people), and only personal stuff be sorted by people. If you are in the habit of forwarding jokes and other stuff, keep separate folders for them and don't let them get mixed with other "personal" mails by people. The last thing you really need is to have a dinner invite, an adult joke and a project status report all sitting in the same folder!

A quick word the PSTs. Having different folders is one thing, having multiple PSTs quite another. A PST can support hundreds of folders, but again, I recommend you maintain multiple PSTs. When a large project ends, for example, move the mails into a separate PST, close it and banish it to your archives. A bloated PST slows down Outlook. The tighter you can keep it, the better.

Keep it minimal. It is easy to get carried away and end up with Gigs of mail very quickly. Use some simple rules to control the size of your inbox. Save only the last mail in a long conversation. You have the whole thread and the redundant mails can be safely deleted. As far as possible, avoid saving mails with large attachments, stuff like screenshots and documents sent to you for review.

Make the best use of your Exchange Server quota. Unless you work for Google, you probably have a limited disk quota on the mail server. It becomes critical, therefore, that you "pop" mails on your desktop/laptop and not leave copies on the server, using the "local email folder" setup in Outlook. But with today's smartphones making email processing much easier and faster on the move, how do you ensure you fulfil the conflicting requirements of popping mails with leaving them on the server for your mobile to get access to? I struggled with this for quite some time. On the move, I had access to email on the phone from the server. But, as soon I went online with my laptop, all mails popped into my laptop's local inbox, removing them from the server. The problem arose when I had a large stack of emails to be processed, and ended up going online inadvertently, thus making it impossible for me to access them on the road.

Worse, managing calendars became a major headache. Once you pop invites, appointments get onto your local calendar. If you accept invites on the server, the appointments get into the server calendar. I ended up having two separate calenders, and managing them became a nightmare. Accepting a meeting reschedule on the server, when the original meeting had found its way into my local calendar, for example, ended up creating a new meeting on the server, leaving the older meeting on the local calendar! There's no easy way to sync up both calendars automatically.

Then one day, it hit me. And it was so simple, it was no surprise I had completely missed it!

Inbox on server, archive locally. Now, my default email folder is the server folder, not a local folder on my laptop. My inbox stays on the server. When I send or delete mails, they stay on the server, and hence, are accessible on the phone at all times. Only my "Saved" folders are local. Yes, the Gigs of mail I save are NOT available on the phone, but that's perfectly fine. All my latest, unprocessed email is there, and that's all I need 99.99% of the time. The 0.01% can be done when I am on my laptop anyway. The only inconvenience is having to clean the server trash can and the sent box more often than I would need to when these mails accumulated in the local folders.

Even better, calendar management is now a breeze. Since all the invites get processed only on the server, there is now a single calendar, always available and synced up with my cell. So are all my contacts and tasks.

Did I mention that Windows Mango does a phenomenal job of syncing your email, contacts, appointments and everything else between your Exchange Server and your phone? If you are a serious business user, you got to try it! That device will simplify life to a large extent!

If you have read until here, there's a good chance you have suffered heavily from email deluge, and I hope my tips help you take back control. Do write in with your experiences!

Unplanning

3-4 years ago, as part of the business climate evaluation and 5 year planning exercise for the company, we came up with scenarios on how to tackle the situation where the rupee would hit 34 against the USD.

Today, the rupee is at 52.

How can the world's best economists and planners and financial wizards have got it so wrong?

And indeed, if things are so difficult to forecast after all algorithms, ideas and efforts put into it, why and how can we afford to do so much planning and execution based on it?

In the software development world, more and more companies and customers are realising the benefits of keeping it simple, agile and responsive. We do not buidl software for the future any more, we keep it live, we design it to be agile and easy to adapt to changing requirements, and focus on what today's user wants today!

Shouldn't we do the same in business planning? Isn't it better to focus more on the situation, see how it impacts business, and be prepared for frequent course corrections, instead of spending efforts on looking into a future that is guaranteed to keep changing?

Unplan. Get agile. Get ready to move. Fast. Survive and prosper.

Gamification

Gamification is the process of using game-based mechanics to make ordinary business process and data visualizations more interesting, fun, and effective at the same time. Most "gamifications" today involve giving badges and points for tasks completed, and some basic social networking. I believe this is an early trend that will quickly outlive its usefulness and attraction. However, the process of gamification itself is here to stay, and more and more Enterprises and application developers will begin to see the huge value in learning from Angry Birds and Farmville, and applying it to everyday problems.

User Experiences

User experiences on tablets, especially from a point of view of input gestures, are every different compared to the desktop/laptop experience. It is a big mistake to believe that users will be happy as long as the application runs in a browser, or can be easily ported to the OS/platform supported by the tablet. On tablets, users use completely different gestures like swipe and multi-touch, not double click and right click! It is necessary to keep this in mind when you port your application to a tablet, and engineer/design your application to support these new gestures.

NASSCOM LaunchPAD

Off to Bangalore tonight for the NASSCOM LaunchPAD event tomorrow at the Taj Gateway, where we will be launching eMee - one of the 10 products selected for this prestigious event out of 60+ aspirants! Watch out for updates....

Criminal Minds

You can learn a lot about what makes great teams from watching my favourite crime series, Criminal Minds...

Standing up for your team members, and standing by your leader
Allowing each team member to focus on what they do best, building on individual strengths...
And yet, being able to move on when one team member goes away
Allowing team members to maintain their individuality
Unquestioned loyalty and respect to the team lead - but that doesn't mean you cannot question
And as a leader, heeding the advice and suggestions from your team members...
... but taking complete ownership for the results when things go wrong
Being there for each other in their moments of weakness, but giving them their space when they need it
Revelling in each other's success, sharing losses
One Minute Management - clear goal setting, clear recognition of good work, one min reprimands
No tolerance for indiscipline, yet complete tolerance for individuality

Needless to say, it's one of the best crime series too!

Lighthouse Insights

My interview on Enterprise Social Networking and eMee in Lighthouse Insights.

Reproduced here...

Apart from being a blogger, I work in a software firm like most Indians do. The company provides me with a decent salary, a nice place to work and also a bunch of good colleagues. However, I have always dwelt on why employees are not allowed to access personal sites such as mails or social network sites. One reason being security but then visit any employee in a day and you will find that they browse Facebook on a regular basis. There is one more reason that has been never thought of or never cared about is the boring Intranet. Software companies now use it to just post information without giving a thought to employees views. This can’t carry on for long as the Facebook generation joining the race will need it. So businesses in India are slowly preparing themselves to find ways to keep the security thing intact and also provide a way to engage with employees. Persistent Systems on eyeing this opportunity, has developed eMee that promises to redefine employee engagement.

eMee, a product that has been developed for SMEs and large scale enterprises is an employee centric approach and it pitches with an idea of higher level of engagement results with less attrition. The product has interesting modules such as visualization of performance notes as virtual gifts, continuous performance monitoring, feedback and mentoring, professional and personal social networks, corporate portal, animated reports and so on. These features definitely are worth trying as they not only try to build a community but they also showcase the employee achievement and appreciate them.

We are working on doing a review of the product, but until then, we thought of getting in touch with Siddhesh Bhobe, Chief Architect and Product Manager of eMee. The email interview that we did with Siddhesh is shared below:

1. eMee, redefining employee engagement is a product that really excites us. Siddhesh, we would love to know a bit about you and how have you been associated with eMee?

I was keen on using my experiences during 13 year old long association with Persistent in tackling some of the key HR issues facing the software industry today – need for better employee engagement, attrition control, knowledge management and transparency in performance appraisals and compensation. As Chief Architect and Product Manager for eMee, I am exploring the use of enterprise social networking and gamification in converting mundane but critical management functions into highly effective and enjoyable activities for line managers. I believe this innovative approach can fundamentally change the way companies engage with their employees.

2. What has been the objective and can you list some of the key features that should motivate SMEs and large enterprises to buy it?

We are a “Like Me” generation. Social networks have imbibed in us the need to be constantly appreciated and applauded. We have dozens of choices in our personal life, but things change drastically when it comes to our work environments. Most businesses do not allow social networking for their employees while at work, and of course, they have valid reasons –exposing the corporate Intranet to hacking, bandwidth clogging, and undesired disclosures of information through “Innocent” posts. However, this results in employees feeling disconnected, craving for recognition by managers and more importantly, peers. Today, it is unimaginable that a growing organization with global aspirations will not have a website and an Intranet. A couple of years from now, it will be the same with an Enterprise Social Network.

eMee brings social networking and gaming into your corporate Intranet environment in a safe and secure manner, enabling employees to connect and bond, bring transparency into performance and appraisals, allowing enterprises to discover assets and be more productive, and motivating employees into a high performance work force. All this, while leveraging existing investments in IT and MIS. And eMee’s pay per use pricing model ensures HR gets all the benefits at a fraction of their total employee-centric budgets.

3. The product has features such as Performances reviews, Progress Graphs, etc. Looks good but are they visible to my network. If so then don’t you think it will create unnecessary employee problems?

eMee is completely configurable for role-based access control, allowing organizations to align access to data and workflows within eMee to their HR policies and guidelines. For example, performance notes can be configured in such a way that the gifts are visible to all, but details visible only to direct managers in the hierarchy. Negative performance notes can be visible only to managers. The entire appraisal module and associated reports can similarly be configured to be accessible only to managers. Personal choices can be exposed only to “friends”.

4. Security has always been a debatable issue whenever we have spoken about social networking sites. How have you handled it in eMee?

eMee differs from other social networks in that it is a closed network, ensuring all information is local and restricted to the company’s Intranet. Access control and security is a fundamental cornerstone of the eMee infrastructure, ensuring data is accessible and visible only to authorized entities. All the data belongs solely to the organization, and is not shared or used by eMee in any way for deriving other benefits.

5. Finally, B2B social media engagement is thought to be bit difficult but this will also need companies to create a social media policy too. Do you think every company should have a social media policy and why?

As more and more users get connected to the Internet, they are basing their decisions on products and services offered by searching and comparing online. For employees too, the network will be the primary medium to connect to their company. As I mentioned earlier, it will soon be inconceivable to be a globally aspiring organization without an Enterprise Social Network. The smartphone revolution is hastening the pace to a whole new level. Without a social media policy, companies will flounder and do mistakes which can cost heavily in terms of reputation, customer satisfaction and employee retention. It is imperative for organizations to realize this and get social media savvy as soon as possible!

Thanks Siddhesh for talking to us and sharing your thoughts on eMee. It is no more a need but slowly becoming imperative that businesses accept the fact that being social will allow them to grow. eMee with some of its attractive features does stand a chance to engage employees in real time.

What do you think about such industry specific products that promise to give higher level of engagement by creating communities? Do you think this could be one of the ways of holding employees in future?

P.S. We will be doing a product review of eMee as soon as we are able to get hold of the trial version.

CII Conclave

Pitching the Social Web as a tool for employee engagement at the CII HR & IR Conclave in Pune...

.. and of course, offering eMee as the solution :)