Charity campaigner Bob Geldof has condemned emails as unproductive and potentially damaging to business.
The man behind Live Aid and Live 8 told a conference in London on Tuesday that he thought emails prevented any real progress being made at work and could actually damage commercial deals, according to a report on the BBC Web site.
The social activist and businessman said the amount of work that gets done is proportionate to the amount of emails that are ignored. "Emails get in the way of serious consideration of what you want to do," Geldof said.
At the conference, Geldof revealed he dreads seeing lots of emails in his inbox, as they impose an agenda on him and disrupt his own plans for the day.
Disruption to the working day is not the only problem, Geldof stated. He added that a badly-worded email can actually be damaging to potential business deals.
Gary Andersen-Jones, vice-president of mobile conferencing vendor Mobix, said an over-reliance on email could become a problem for many businesses.
"Bob Geldof is spot on," said Andersen-Jones in a statement. "There is an over-reliance on email and too many people hide behind it. Email is a great application when used intelligently but email management, particularly with mobile email, can be counter-productive," he said.
Geldof is not alone in his condemnation of electronic mail. Entrepreneur John Caudwell banned his staff from using email in 2003, claiming it was eating into productivity.
Talkback
Geldof is about as web savvy as Jeremy Clarkson. I have as much faith for his comments here as his promises on making Fair Trade a reality.
People who complain about emails getting in the way of work have either never worked in the business world before email was introduced, or they have short (selective) memories. Remember going to voicemail every time you used to try to get in touch? Waiting 4 days for the mail to get back?
I had an MD who complained about email overload. He said he had 400 emails in his inbox. I investigated; he had. Going back three months, unanswered, mainly from customers.
Emotional emailing is dangeraous but factual emailing is incredibly valuable.
The problem is many people mix the two and get their fingers burned as a result.
Hands up all those who sent emails in haste and repented at leisure !.
Suggestion rate traffic light your emails by colour in terms of emotional content:
Red write but dont send
Orange: write sleep on it then call the person and talk it through. The re-write it and send it.
Green OK to send immediately.
Bob Geldof is a PR baron. He sits on the board of TEN ALPS, whose client base includes the UK Foreign Office, BP, FORD, VOLVO, EMI, DISNEY and JP MORGAN and many others ....
The net effect of Geldofs activities has been to distract attention in the media, away from the reality that it is Western Bankers who set up the deals that are stripping Africa of it's resources, it is Western Bankers who are profiting from thes loans and it is Western Companies who are trying to get their hands on Africa's utilities.
Bob is a waste of time, so I re-wote "i don't like mondays", and called it "i don't like geldof". It's on my website, www.corneilius.net, on the news page ....