E-mail is undoubtedly the primary communications tool. The telephone still has a role to play, but our electronic friend has usurped it. Our reliance on the send button is highlighted by a recent IDC report that predicts more than 60 billion e-mails will be sent every day by 2006.
In terms of information overload a crisis surely looms. It is an issue for the boardroom one would presume. But, in practice, seemingly not. Gartner issued a report in February 2003 claiming that few firms are giving e-mail management the attention it deserves. Bandwidth requirements are doubling every six months, essentially due to e-mail, but the implications are given little thought. Gartner warns that too many senior decision-makers are turning a blind eye to the potential problems caused by e-mail, and are failing to allocate budget or human resource, because they do not understand the risks or obligations facing them.
