Last week a friend send me an email, while I was traveling. So he got my out of office reply. He was wondering why that might be and asked his twitter community about it - and an interesting discussion about these little mails came up.
His thoughts went like this:
If he sends someone an email, he does not really need a quick response, he knows this can come some days later. If he needs rapid or immediate response, he uses instant messengers (IM) like MSN, Skype or iChat.
And he is true in a lot of ways, I think. Especially us in the online business - I am there, even if I am not here. You can reach me, even if I am not in the office. I use a Blackberry and a 3G connection for my laptop, a wifi scanner aso. My way of working and also my way of life is kind of always on. This is one reason I have my IM contact details on my business card (yes, I still use paper) and my email footer and use a plazes widget on my blog e.g.
At least half of my ad hoc conversation has moved to IM the last years, IM is very popular in my peer group and it helps me, to hold track of urgent things and of important things as well (the latter mostly in email).
Most of my contacts really use IM today to ask urgent questions of send urgent messages. And most of them are like my friend very patient on email. But there are still a lot of people who expect you to immediately answer email (what is always kind of funny, because you never know if an email reaches the one you are sending it to). For these the out of office reply might still work.
So do we still need it? Do you expect me to still have one?
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Comments (7)
I suppose it only depends on the expectations of your customers. Your colleagues and your "online world contacts" will surely know they better reach you ad-hoc with instant messaging than with email.
So you shouldn't ask the online world but your customers who may not fully be "digital natives" :-) ?
Posted by Frank Hamm | May 28, 2008 5:14 AM
Posted on May 28, 2008 05:14
I don't expect you to have one. But my less digital friends would (I continued to ask around IRL, to get a different audience)
Posted by Malte Diedrich | May 28, 2008 7:03 AM
Posted on May 28, 2008 07:03
A better question might be: Do we still need an office? Do you expect me to have one?
Posted by Meryn Stol | May 28, 2008 7:27 AM
Posted on May 28, 2008 07:27
Totally agree. I never use Out of Office, unless I am traveling for vacation and disconnected from the Net. If I am traveling on business (like I am now), I am just as accessible via blackberry, twitter, cell phone, etc as I am sitting in the office. In fact, I probably am more accessible because I'm not in meetings all day. Out of Office should be dead for all occassions but vacation when you are sitting on a beach sipping a nice cold beverage and the blackberry is locked away in the room.
Posted by Dave Knox | May 28, 2008 7:31 AM
Posted on May 28, 2008 07:31
Thx for your suggestions - I am still thinking about it (and about what might be compatible to the team's policy).
Posted by Wolfgang Lünenbürger-Reidenbach | May 28, 2008 7:53 AM
Posted on May 28, 2008 07:53
It depends on the person and what information they want disclosed to everyone. It looks like now people are starting to have a business profiles disclose online, but they also have their personal profiles as well. Some people merge them even.
I think there is an unwritten code of conduct that even if you use immediate applications or even email.. that it may take some time for people to reply.
The auto response is for the people who still don't understand the new techie advances and they just stick with email. So when they get the quick auto reply, it makes them feel warm and cuddly and they can sleep at night.
I like Meryns' reply too. A lot of companies still are scared to let people work at home when they can just be as, or even more efficient at home. Plus they could potentially be more happy with their job.
Posted by Nick Schmidt | May 29, 2008 12:21 AM
Posted on May 29, 2008 00:21
Based on this topic I'm worried that my clients are a bunch of Luddites. I think that we are definetely moving toward an always connected world, but we are still a few years away from making Out of Office obsolete.
I can definetely find most of my friends whenever I want to. I have their cell phones, IM accounts, and connections with them all over the internet.
Now clients have pretty good access to me too, but they still primarily rely on email. It seems to be polite business practice. I can count two times just in the past week where I was out of the office and came back to two or three emails regarding the same urgent topic. In both cases these people had my cell phone and only had to call, but chose to go the email route.
These cases have slowed down, so I do believe we are moving in a positive direction, but it's going to take a lot longer before Out of Office is no longer needed.
Posted by Mike Santoro | May 29, 2008 8:08 PM
Posted on May 29, 2008 20:08