eROI Days Email Agency

In today’s New York Times Business section, there was an astute article on “The Daily Struggle to Avoid Burial by E-Mail” by Randall Stross. At eROI, we have been covered in the press on multiple occasions for Email Addiction or Email Overload, but it was the combination of today’s “burial by email” article AND a recent eMarketing speech where a friend of mine talked of maintaining 40 social media site profiles, where I felt compelled to write this blog post (slightly ironic given that a blog is a basic form of social media).

Stross mentioned in the NY Times article that both Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Mark Cuban of Mark Cuban get upwards of 2,000 emails every day and 700 messages daily in Facebook, and both of these executive process all of these emails themselves. I get about 400 emails per day and usually reply to and send 60 emails/day if I’m not booked in meetings all day.

While email is the killer app and where I spend most of my time “online,” I also occasionally blog, use LinkedIn sporadically, barely use Facebook, and Twitter when I’m distracted at a conference. Basically, this blog post is my first online admission of becoming an old man - with so many distractions, I wonder if technology company entrepreneurs and executives will evolve into communicating in truncated sentence grunts with very little deep strategic thinking, planning and writing.

I have clients asking frequently, “how will I have time to do everything I do now, AND blog AND engage in all of these conversations about my brand in every single online community?” I’ve adapted my answer to a more definitive “You can’t do it all single-handedly.” Let me get back to my 35-year old friend who has 40 profiles - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Answers, Lockergnome, digg, del.icio.us, and on and on and on. The new generation and grandpa-old 35 year olds playing the new generation’s world, attention deficit disorder is a requirement, not a condition.

So, what’s my advice in this cultural change in expectations of keeping up in the online marketing world? Experiment with all of the social networking sites and tools, and find 3 sites/tools that generate the most value to you individually and/or your company (as an entrepreneur, individual benefit/company benefit is often the same). Thankfully, there is a new protocal, OpenID, where one username/password will carry all your info with you for every online community you join, because in the future, we will all be participants in hundreds of these broad social communities or niche branded communities.

With the acceleration of online communication, it relieves anxiety just to admit that “yes, I too, feel completely overwhelmed and overloaded by using every social site and tool that comes along.” I’ve said it and those words shall set me free. Now, if I could just leave my Blackberry locked in my office desk on a weekend. Fat chance.

I read the New York Times - Sunday edition - yesterday. The article was on the cover of the “Styles” section titled “Too Much Information? Ignore It. Silicon Valley stops and listens to a 4-hour-workweek guru.” I think the reason why I read it is that it is so enticing to think that is possible to change the world in 4 hours instead of 40 or 60 hours like most entrepreneurs. At the end of the article, it turns out that it is too good to be true. The author, “guru” Tim Ferriss works 60+ hour weeks, but swears that everyone else should only work 4 (that’s right, FOUR). How, only check super important email for 20 minutes once per day. Outsource everything, including online dating if necessary. Don’t get all those RSS feeds - get your news from waiters at restaurants.

Intriguing. It captured my attention, but left me wanting. Why? Because people need to practice what they preach to be truly believable. It’s the same reason why Al Gore got crucified for using 10x the energy of the average American (100x the average global citizen), even though Gore was the catalyst behind the green, sustainable movement sweeping the country through his movie and book “An Inconvenient Truth.” (Full disclosure: I’m a huge Al Gore fan and a Democrat, but disappointed that he could have avoided some hypocrisy by changing his habits or acknowledging that he will change his energy-guzzling habits). Long story short - practice what you preach, 4-Hour-Workweek guy, or change your message to be realistic for us entrepreneurs like 2 weeks of 4-hours working (a.k.a. vacation) followed by 2 weeks of 50+ hours working. To me, working includes non-profit, charitable work and work in the community - not just working to make money.

I was reading the physical, printed Sunday New York Times today and I came across a full-page advertisement in the Sports section. I initially noticed the ad because it was all yellow, but then I realized that some ad agency just copied and pasted a real email correspondence between Lance Armstrong and Scott M. (Nike). Unfortunately for me, I actually have to type all this out instead of copying and pasting, but here is an excerpt from the ad:

“From: Lance Armstrong
To: Scott M. (Nike)
Sent: Nov 5, 2006 3:32pm
Subject: Re Re: Re: Re: Idea

I’m dead.

Hardest physical thing I’ve ever done.
Try your best to make this happen.
No way I would have crossed the finish
line without the cheering. I owe them.

> From: Scott M. (Nike)
>To: Lance Armstrong
>Sent: Nov 5, 2006 3:29pm
>Subject: Re Re: Re: Re: Idea
>
>I think we can do it. I’ll let you know
>for sure. BTW, how do you feel?”

The advertisement continues the email dialogue, but the reason why it works is because it made me stop and actually read it. The content was so real and part of something most of us do every day – read and respond to email. As usual, Nike knows good marketing.