Uptown

I was interviewed by Jason Del Rey from Inc.com for an article he wrote on businesspeople who make a jump into politics. You can read the article here.

As a timely follow-up to casual Fridays, several companies across the US have decided to launch "Zero E-Mail Fridays", encouraging employees to use phone or face-to-face communication instead of e-mail on those days. According to a story published on usatoday.com, the ubiquitous use of e-mail has slowly replaced traditional conversations at the water-cooler, sometimes leading to people working in the same office but not knowing each other.

Then there's e-mail overload, of course. You know the feeling: It seems like all we do is try to keep the never-ending flow of messages in the inbox at bay. There's help! The article shares a few tricks from Marsha Egan, an executive coach, which I'm copying below. I am determined to follow her advice by the letter. Starting now. Actually, let me check my e-mail one more time. Oh look, a long-lost friend sent a message! With pictures from her new baby girl! Focus, MC.

"Egan says even the busiest e-mailers can, with care, keep control of their in-boxes. Her tips:

•Don't use e-mail to avoid unpleasant tasks. "I couldn't believe people who had never talked to each other but worked in the same office," says Scott Dockter, CEO of PBD. Dockter started e-mail-free Fridays about a year-and-a-half ago. Since then, the number of messages his 400 employees send has dropped by about 75%.

•Don't constantly check for new messages. It can take four minutes to refocus on work after checking an e-mail, Egan says. Jay Ellison, chief operating officer of U.S. Cellular, estimates that his 7,000 employees spend about 1½ hours a day on their in-boxes. E-mail-free Fridays give them more time to solve customers' problems, he says.

•Respond to important messages first - even if they're difficult. Less-pressing issues can wait until a free moment, Egan says."

Last week, the New York Times announced that it would make its editorials and op-eds available on the Web for free. In a message to subscribers of the (now defunct) service TimesSelect, they explain their shift from access-restrained to freely available content:

"Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it."

So instead of logging into TimesSelect, copying an article and then pasting it into a Blog, from now I will commit one less copyright infringement and link directly to articles on the Times website.

This comes only a few months after Prince (one of my favorite rock stars) distributed free copies of his new CD Planet Earth with a British tabloid newspaper. Much like Prince, the Times is discovering that traditional business models don't hold in this era of information ubiquity and accessibility. Hopefully many other movers and shakers will follow their lead.

I discovered this on Emmanuelle Vaast's blog: There really are social networking sites for all age groups. Not only do baby boomers connect virtually, but so do plain and simple babies, thanks to sites like Club Penguin or Barbie.com. Will that speed up the acquisition of reading and writing skills? I will observe my statistically not significant but otherwise perfect sample of one and report back when the time is right...

I have two chapters in "Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government", edited by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger and David Lazer. The book just came out with MIT Press. An excerpt from the intro describes the chapter I co-authored with David Lazer:

"David Lazer and Maria Christina Binz-Scharf look at the process of evaluation [of the consequences of changes in information flow in government] from within the system. Rather than offering another method of evaluation, they examine the mechanisms and structures that may help spread evaluation information on the use of information and communication technologies in the public sector. Utilizing network theory, they highlight the role that a variety of intergovernmental organizations play in connecting otherwise distant parts of the informational ecosystem regarding information technology and government."

Here's the book announcement by David Lazer on the Complexity and Social Networks blog.