Email free days - the enterprise 2.0 way

Email free days is getting popular in the organisations. Read more about it here and here. Personally, I think its a great idea.

I personally spend too much time on my email and I am a self confessed email checking freak. However, I do not like emails. Its so impersonal and cold. But when I try to be friendly over emails, my boss complains I am not professional enough. What should I do? I just pick up the phone and have a chat. If I need email confirmation of my discussion, I will write a quick overview of the issue and get the other party to confirm it without sending 20 emails before reaching a conclusion (and in the mean time, driving both parties crazy).

With Wikis, Blogs, knowledge management systems and so many other content tools available in this information hungry society, living without emails (for one day of the week) is actually very possible. Without emails, you still have your phone which allows you to establish a real conversation with someone. You can also have a face to face chat and build relationships. Content tools can also provide information without searching for the other party. This would actually force people to use those websites to retrieve information that is already out there and not make someone else retrieve/rewrite that message/information to you!

I do not like the idea of building relationships purely over the internet only. I would like a combination of real world connection enhanced by the ease of communication via the internet. This is what the internet / emails should do and not replace the "human touch".