April 28, 2008

Xobni: Use e-mail time more efficiently

According to Xobni, a San Francisco-based start-up that has developed an Outlook add-on that helps you manage your e-mail, by 2009, workers are expected to spend 40 percent of their time managing e-mail. Xobni’s goal is to make this time as efficient and painless as possible. We were invited to be part of the beta and we’re eagerly trying it out. In fact, we’re now spending about 50 percent of our time managing e-mail because we’re trying to figure out just what the software does. Thoughts thus far? Well, other than the fact we now spend more time with our email, we like the graphs showing us when people send us email. Helps us know when we should be out of the office to avoid certain people. Threaded conversations are interesting, including a summary of all attachments you’ve ever sent, by contact. We’ll check back in a few weeks with our full evaluation. In the mean time, if you want an invite let us know. We have a few to give out.

 

And don’t forget, the ability to write clear, concise, compelling e-mail messages becomes more important every day. Write It Well’s business writing book, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, offers tips and tools for using your e-mail time more efficiently.