For me, it’s definitely the latter. Email no longer serves my needs. In fact, I find myself scrambling daily to keep up with the demands of an overflowing email inbox. And this sucks productive time away from me.

The simple fact is that I no longer can keep up with all the email I receive – unless I want to make reading and responding to email a full time job. And I can’t. So, what have I done? I’ve resolved to budget the time I spend looking at my inbox in the same way I budget the time I will allocate to meetings and other tasks. I do what I can in the available time. And then I move on to my next priority.

And the upshot of this approach? As I write this post, I have over a thousand unopened emails. That’s not email I’ve read and put aside. That’s email I haven’t even had the time to open.

Every email in my inbox draws on my time. Even to read enough of an email to decide that I can safely delete it without response or action takes time. Time away from more productive work.

So, where does that leave me? What am I doing to try to deal with this problem?

Well, more than anything else, I’m trying to move much of my communication back to face to face meetings or over to video: I encourage people I work with to divert issues that might be contentious or require discussion to face to face meetings or Skype video calls and Google+ hangouts. If something needs to be tossed back and forth or common understanding created, seeing the other person’s face, being able to read their emotions and converse face to face can’t be beat. This leaves email only for those issues that can be dealt with by a simple yes or no response. And it removes much of the back and forth of long email strings in which people try to argue complex issues. If it’s complex or contentious, take it face to face either in the real world or via video call.

Another huge email problem is email’s impact on work-life balance. Rarely does a colleague phone me outside of working hours. A phone call makes them work too hard. If I answer, then they have to work through the discussion with me in real time. And the telling thing is that most will leave this until the next day, during working hours. But that’s not the case with email. It’s all too easy to “dump and run,” to send an email with a problem or request to someone. At any hour or day of the week. Once you’ve done this, it has become someone else’s problem. You’ve offloaded it. And you’ve violated their private time. It doesn’t matter if they respond when they receive it. The very fact that you’ve sent them a work email outside of working hours has pushed work into their private time. And if it’s a problem or troubling news you’ve sent them, you can be sure they’ll worry about it. That’s just not good.  I try not to be part of this problem. I tell the people I work with to not initiate any emails outside of working hours. Yes, I work at all hours, evenings and weekends. But I routinely save emails I write outside of work hours in my draft folder. Then when I arrive at the office the next morning, I open the draft folder and send all the emails that are sitting there. They’ll be waiting for people when they arrive at work. When they can actually deal with them.

Does every email have to be responded to? In a word, no. We treat email like a phone call. We fell obligated to respond to every email just as we feel obligated to return phone calls. We must change that perception. In a world in which email flow has overmatched the time we have available to deal with it, we have to accept and become comfortable with the norm that many emails will not be responded to. And the sender must realize that if an email is important and unresponded to, they must reach out to the recipient via another medium. A phone call. A personal visit. An IM. A tweet. Whatever works. But simply sending an email saying, “Did you receive my earlier email?” is about the most ineffective thing you can do. Email has become a flow, just like Twitter or RSS feeds. And it’s up to the sender to be sure that they connect with me on the important material.

And that leads to the next rule I observe: Communicate in the medium the person you’re trying to reach prefers. We’ve all been conditioned to expect that email is the default business communications medium. Let’s change that. The best communications medium is the one that works best for the person I want to talk with. So, I should be sensitive to this. Find out what works for the other party and use that medium. Yes, you’ve spotted the contradiction here. Even though I have difficulty keeping up with email, if someone I want to reach prefers to hear from me that way, I’ll bow to their wishes and use email. It’s the other party’s wishes that count, not mine.

(Here’s an idea for a social media update service: A daily update that lets me tell people how I prefer to be communicated with. Something that I can easily change to match my circumstances. Something that is easily found and attached to my personal profile across social networks. If you build it, I’ll use it.)

One topic. One email. I just don’t understand why people believe that they should write emails that cover every possible topic – and then ask me to comment. I may find that I can easily agree with half of what they write. But I may need to give more consideration to one point. And so, I’ll put the email aside to be responded to later – which may be never. One topic. One email. That’s the best way to ensure you get a response.

Finally, I turn off push notifications from email - on my PC, on my handheld, on my tablet. Those constant niggling alerts are a good idea only for the people who design the email programs. But for the user, they kill productivity. Having them turned on is just like having a group of people sitting behind you, each tapping you on the shoulder at random times. Every time you’re interrupted, it takes time to get back in the flow of what you’re trying to do. So, I just eliminate those interruptions by turning off the darned alerts.

I’m not alone in struggling with this problem.

I know I’m not alone in struggling with email. Fred Wilson recently wrote about The Black Hole of Email and MG Siegler ranted that he Still F***ing Hate[s] Email.  And in this week’s Inside PR, Martin Waxman and Gini Dietrich share their frustrations with email and also what they do to try to manage it.  Gini also has written her own take on the ever-looming inbox.

Do you have email under control or does your email inbox control you? What practical strategies do you employ to make email work for you?

I’ve captured the highlights of the event through Storify. Enjoy.

Tony Clement is well-known as a politician who maintains an active Twitter presence, sharing what is on his mind and what he’s doing, and engaging in conversations with Canadians. Anyone who follows Tony Clement knows that his Twitter conversations are sometimes funny, sometimes serious, sometimes combative, but always genuine.

Tony Clement is also the President of the Treasury Board of Canada. That puts him in charge of Canada’s public service and makes him responsible for setting the standards and rules by which social media is being introduced into the Government of Canada.

As a Minister, Clement has pushed forward with initiatives to enable Canada’s public servants to use social media in the workplace and a broader initiative to introduce open government standards to the government of Canada.

In November, Mr. Clement

- unveiled the Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0, the reference document that will be used by Canadian Public Servants in determining whether and how they should use social media in the workplace.

- announced that completed access to information requests now will be posted online.

In December, Clement

- announced the addition of 4,000 data sets to the Open Data Portal.

- initiated a public consultation on Open Government. (The consultation closed in mid-January and the Treasury Board site promises that a final report on the findings will be posted in March 2012.)

- participated in a Twitter Chat on Open Government to give people a chance to raise issues, ask questions and engage with him online.

That’s a lot of action in a short period of time. But, what’s been happening now? How are the Web 2.0 Guidelines being applied by Canadian public servants? What did Canadians tell the Minister during the consultation? What’s on the agenda for 2012?

Third Tuesday participants will get a chance in February to ask these questions and talk directly to the Minister when he appears as our featured guest Third Tuesday Ottawa and Third Tuesday Toronto. Follow these links to find the details and sign up to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa or to attend Third Tuesday Toronto.

If you’re interested in open government and the use of social media by government, this session will be of real interest to you. I’m looking forward to a great evening of discussion with a man who has matched his actions to his convictions. I hope to see you there.

International Association of Business Communicators

Professional communicators who want to extend and deepen their knowledge of  social media will be interested in a new online social media workshop being offered for the first time this month by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

The course, Develop and implement an integrative approach to social media, will be delivered through online training modules that participants can review at a time convenient to themselves combined with live sessions with the instructors. The program material has been prepared by Shel Holtz and me – and we will be the live instructors for the first set of sessions.

We’ll start with an orientation session on January 9 during which Shel and I will outline the course content and answer questions from participants. Following this orientation, the first two of eight learning modules will be available to participants to review at their convenience. Then we begin the weekly live sessions on January 19 and they will run through February 23.

Each module will focus on a different aspect of social media:

• Module 1: Social media’s role in communications and PR
• Module 2: The key categories of social media
• Module 3: Monitoring social media
• Module 4: Strategizing and measuring social media
• Module 5: The core skills communicators need to acquire
• Module 6: Social media behind the firewall
• Module 7: Adapting corporate culture to embrace social media
• Module 8: Social media during a crisis

So, in just eight weeks, you will acquire up to date knowledge on how social media is being integrated into corporate communications and the best practices you can apply in your organization.

Does this sound like something you can use? If so, click over to the IABC site to register for the IABC’s social media online workshop.

This will be only my second experience offering online training. So, I’m very much looking forward to sharing what I know with the participants and learning from their feedback.

How do great jazz musicians create something coherent and fresh each and every time they step onstage? In a recent TedTalk, Jazz vibraphonist Stefon Harris illustrates how attentive listening by individual players can spark creativity in an ensemble.

Business can learn a great deal from the spontaneous improvisation of jazz. All too often, we pay lip service to listening. In fact, many apparently skilled managers have made a fine art of the seemingly sincere, but ultimately empty acknowledgment of  others’ ideas. Harris and his group drive home that actually acting on the new and different idea can lead to something remarkable.

I’d recommend showing Harris’ TEDTalk to your team at the beginning of a brainstorm. It’s a great message that will surely put an end to the “yes but” mentality that can stifle creativity.

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Also worth reading: Dannielle Blumenthal approaches the importance of being open to listen to different perspectives in her post, Are you secure enough to handle an engaged employee? Good advice for anyone leading an employee meeting.

TweetChat: Where and When

The English TweetChat will run from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m on December 15. The hashtag for the English session is #opengovchat. Because it is a moderated discussion, the host account will be @TBS_Canada, not @tonyclementcpc. The Minister will be providing answers, but they will be typed by staff members.

A French language chat will be conducted an hour earlier, from 4:00 to 4:45 p.m. EST. The hashtag for the French session is #parlonsgouvert and discussion will be hosted by @SCT_Canada.

Canada’s Open Government initiative

Canada’s Open Government initiative consists of three elements:

• open data, making data available in machine readable formats
• open information, proactive disclosure about the work of government; and
• open dialogue, providing citizens with greater opportunity to have a voice in government decisions. Web 2.0 technologies will be used in this initiative.

The Canadian government has been making steady progress on this initiative throughout 2011. In March, then-Treasury Board Minister Stockwell Day announced a twelve-month pilot project with the launch of an Open Data portal. In June, the newly re-elected government reaffirmed its intent to proceed with Open Government. On September 19, Foreign Minister John Baird signalled Canada’s intent to join the International Open Government Partnership. On November 16, current Treasury Board President Tony Clement announced that completed access to information requests now will be posted online. Then, a big announcement on November 22: Tony Clement unveiled the Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0, the reference document that will be used by Canadian Public Servants in deciding whether they should or shouldn’t. On December 2, Clement announced the addition of 4,000 data sets to the Open Data Portal.

Now, it’s our turn to have our say

Finally, on December 6, Clement initiated a public consultation on Open Government. The consultation runs from December 6 to January 16. You can see the questions they government is asking and offer your input online. During the consultation, the government is posting what they’ve heard so far. And they have promised a final report in March 2012.

The Minister’s TweetChat this week also is part of the consultation process. I plan to participate. If you care about achieving a more open government, I hope you too will participate.

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Interested in diving deeper into gov 2.0 and open government?

Alex Howard writes about Defining Gov 2.0 and Open Government

Australian Senator Kate Lundy’s keynote address The Path to Open Government: The Pillars of Gov 2.0

Jesse Brown interviews Tony Clement about Open Government in Canada.

As I plan for the New Year, I’m wondering if there’s a tool that I can use to help me manage my company team’s publishing program. Ideally, this tool sould be collabrative to enable all team members to review it, add to and edit our editorial plan. It also should allow us to view content plans over time and to integrate real world events that we might want to note or cover.

Currently, I use the WordPress Editorial Calendar to plan what I will write about on my blog, Twitter and Google+. But I’m looking for something more sophisticated that can be used by a team publishing across media.

Lisa Gerber described the Editorial Calendar spreadsheet that she created in Excel to manage the editorial calendar of Spin Sucks Pro. I’m thinking of setting up an Excel spreadsheet along the lines of what Lisa has suggested. But Excel is an all-purpose tool that requires a lot of care and maintenance of the tool itself. I’d still prefer to find a good tool which someone else has created so that I can concentrate on my top priority – planning and managing our content creation and publishing process.

Do you use a dedicated tool to plan and manage your organization’s editorial calendar? Would you recommend it for others to use?

UPDATE:

Thanks for Ali Symons (see her comment below), I’ve discovered DivvyHQ - which seems to be exactly the tool I’m looking for. I’ve set up a Beta account and I’m adding my team members now. We’ll test it over the next month and then I’ll report about our experience in a future post. (I’m adding an entry in DivvyHQ to remind myself to write that post on January 12.)

The PRSA recognizes that this definition may not be meaningful to many people. It is surely outdated even for those who subscribe to it.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about the PRSA’s initiative to develop a new definition of public relations on this week’s Inside PR.

I’m not sure that they PRSA’s “fill in the blanks” crowd-sourcing approach will yield the type of definition that truly reflects the enhanced role of PR in the era of social media. Sadly, I think it lends itself to a “we act on people” definition, not the “we are part of something” perspective that is more appropriate to the age of social media.

Hopefully, my fears are misplaced and the PRSA will come up with something much more sophisticated. To do so, they need look no farther than the definition developed by the Canadian Public Relations Society. The CPRS defines public relations as “the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics through the use of communication to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals and serve the public interest.” In my opinion that’s a much better definition.

Gini Dietrich suggests that whatever definition is adopted, it will only be useful if it can be readily understood by the general public. And she believes that right now most people believe that PR amounts to little more than media relations.

I agree. Seeing PR as media relations is too restricting. It puts the PR industry in a small box within marketing or communications. A more expansive definition is needed that captures PR’s full role in the era of social media and meaningful online relationships.

Martin argues that the public relations profession should define itself through the lense applied by Jeff Jarvis when he asserts that “In a world of publicness which allows us to connect to each other, to information to actions and to transactions, links, i.e. linking up, help us organize new societies and redefine our publics.”

You can listen to our full discussion on Inside PR

What people said

Stephen Da Cambra: really enjoyed Jeff’s presentation. It appealed to me directly because of my own struggles with giving up my privacy on the web. Even high-profile guests can ramble on a bit – but Jeff was on point throughout, with enough short divergence to keep it interesting.

Rick Weiss: Jeff Jarvis was great. He’s an engaging speaker and presented a lot of food for thought around privacy in the digital age.

Aggie Fortier: The speaker was very engaging with interesting examples to support his position. More importantly, Jarvis opened the door to discussion on the implications of public versus private. He has raised the bar for future speakers who follow.

Martin Waxman: Jeff Jarvis speaks the way he writes and is entertaining, provocative and insightful. Really enjoyed the talk; looking forward to reading the book.

Dave Fleet: Fascinating subject and a phenomenal speaker. One of the best presentations I’ve been to in a while.

Jim Courtney: Really excellent introduction to and perspective on privacy issues. Loved the stories and historical perspective.

Nigel Newton: Jeff Jarvis is an evangelist for societal change enabled by the net. His generosity of spirit and his belief that we, the users of the net, are capable of respecting the ethics of privacy and public sharing is persuasive. If fear of technology is the primary emotion holding back the natural evolution of the net and its influence on society, then Jeff’s well-crafted perspectives will be a source of courage for the faint-hearted.

Eden Spodek: Jeff Jarvis is a fantastic speaker and I would attend a Third Tuesday anytime he’s invited here – even if he’s not launching a new book. He brings the online privacy discussion to a whole new level and I enjoyed his insights on cultural differences and privacy. I can’t wait to devour Public Parts.

Zach Klein: Great session. Super smart dude.

Mark Blevis: Jeff is an engaging and animated speaker. I really enjoyed this event. It was of high caliber. I could have happily listened for another two hours.

Alfred Coates: I really enjoyed how Mr. Jarvis’s message of openness and sharing felt like a mix of opportunity and challenge to those in attendance. Mr. Jarvis speaks with passion and conviction and a healthy dose of humor. I will be reading public parts this weekend and working my way through Buzzmachine in the foreseeable future.

Karen Runtz: While many speakers may be entertaining at the time, what they say won’t stick with you. That’s not the case with Jeff Jarvis. I have his book for reinforcement! No, seriously, I did find his presentation memorable. It brought me in mind of the excitement I felt at a conference some 15 to 20 years ago hearing and Ithaca U prof talk about the changing nature of communications. She was encouraging us to think of our “products” as workable clay, instead of finished polished pieces sent on their way. That resonated with me, just as Jeff’s words about the Internet did last night.

Read all the reviews

That’s just a selection of the rave reviews for Jeff Jarvis’s Public Parts presentation at third Tuesday. If you want to read the full set of reviews, you can find them at the Third Tuesday Ottawa and Third Tuesday Toronto event sites.

We are hoping that Jeff will be able to come back to Canada for third Tuesday Calgary and third Tuesday Vancouver in either January or February. And if you’re in another city and are looking for a great speaker with thought-provoking content, Jeff Jarvis won’t disappoint.

What others thought

Melanie Coulson, the online editor at the Ottawa Citizen blogged her impressions of Jeff’s presentation.

Don Butler of the Ottawa Citizen also interviewed Jeff for an article which appeared in Saturday’s edition of the newspaper.

Were you there?

If you were at the event and wrote about it, please leave a comment and post the link to your coverage.