JP Rangaswami on Open Email
Having a morning chat with JP Rangaswami, who will be on a panel session with me today at the Cutter Summit. JP has adopted an unusual approach to email.
JP has set up a stringent approach to filtering his email. He throws all email where he is CC'd directly into the trash. Basically, he only reads email directed to him, alone. Of course, for this to have any influence on people's behavior, he has to loudly and regularly let others know that he is doing this.
More interestingly, he has opened access to his email to his staff. By treating his email as an open forum, he has found that his associates are more involved in his interactions with others. He has found that they can use this -- particularly his sent mail -- is a great learning opportunity.
I am personally not in a position to leverage this thinking, being a soloist, not an executive in a large company like JP is. But I can see how revolutionary open email could be in a historically closed and secretive corporate context.
I assume that each of those Sent messages is addressed to only a single recipient, and that his co-workers are free to ignore any other messages he sends?
Posted by: Bill Seitz | April 30, 2007 at 12:48 PM
I've been doing the CC vs To think for years as have several people I know, though I don't trash it, just filter it into a subfolder. Of course, if you tell people this, guess what happens?
Right - they put you on the To line.
Posted by: rick gregory | April 30, 2007 at 05:28 PM