At work, we’re having another periodic set of valuable exhortations about email overload – and there are various good practice guidelines coming out.

Valuable, too. But I like the 10:1 email rules from Lars Ploughman

• 9 people read the email
• 8 people file the email (in their private folders, thereby duplicating effort)
• 7 people are interrupted in their work or thoughts when the email arrives
• 6 people will never be able to find the email again
• 5 people didn’t actually need to know about the change
• 4 people joining the project in the next phase wouldn’t have received the email
• 3 people will be able to find the email again, should they need to
• 2 people will check back to the email at a later date when they need the information
• 1 of them will understand the email in context, be able to find it at a later date and action it

So, does that mean more wiki working; more proprietary software; or social networking.

Me? for a project? I’d go for wiki, with links to a controlled repository.