Of Relevance

It goes without saying that we live in a world of information overload. So anything that gets news to us quickly and efficiently, is a bonus. I guess that is why Twitter is popular (although the efficiency of Twitter is highly deceptive).

Our inbox (or at least mine) is my efficiency downfall. Right now I have 300 emails in my inbox, with 100 of them unread.

I thought it would be interesting to point out how I deal with emails.

Since I use Gmail, I have mostly these options:
1. Leave email in inbox unread for now
2. Read and delete
3. Read and leave in inbox
4. Read and archive.
5. Archive unread.
6. Delete unread.

I can also label and star the email, which I tend to do through filters (the labels get applied automatically as the emails come into the inbox).

Options 5 and 6 are my preferred ones, since they require minimum effort on my part. But here’s the thing: My Gmail shows me the first line of the email in my inbox. So very often, that is all I read before performing action 5 or 6. So, for instance, if I see an email in my box that says in the first line

“Thanks for the info! Cheers, Bianca”

I know I can delete it without actually opening it. I’ve already gathered all the info I could from that email.

Or have I?

What if Bianca had added a PS after her signature, along the lines of

“Oh, btw, the meeting tomorrow has been moved from 11 am to 10 am. Let me know if that’s a problem”

Well ..yeah… it’s a problem. I wouldn’t see the postscript, since I would have assumed this was a simple “Thank you” email, and would have deleted it. That could lead to big problems. Far better for Bianca to send two separate emails, with short texts in each. Of course, Bianca really has no way of knowing that.

That’s why I am a fan of Twitter. I will never, ever ignore a DM twitter message. For starters, I know it’s only at most 140 characters, so it’s a quick read. My email inbox, on the other hand, is growing and growing in size. I have already declared email bankruptcy more than once (and the world continued to turn!)

Anything that simplifies life is a clear winner in my box. And keeping news short is a good start. But in the meantime, please prioritize your email content: the most important info should come first, to grab my attention. Otherwise, we might just have a big problem, for which we will blame each other.

I have a lot of online accounts to 3rd party services. Some of them are irrelevant to me, and some not. Many of them have content that I have created, and that cannot be found anywhere else (such as this blog). When I die, and especially if my death is going to be unexpected, my family will have a hard time to access these services, should they wish to do so. That’s because I am not in the habit of writing down my passwords etc. They are simply stored in my head.

So I was intrigued to come across Legacy Locker. It’s an ingenious service. For a fee, my family will be given the logins and passwords to services, as stipulated by me. They will also receive a “last email”. There is a strict procedure for determining that I am really dead, so there is little chance of security breach.

The fee is quite hefty though, at $300 (or $30 annually, if you don’t think you have that long :-) )

In theory, I guess if my family had access to my principal email account, they could get access to all my other services, by simply requesting a new password, and receiving it via that email. But we have to remember that not everybody is as online savvy as you and me, and sometimes it is nice to have it delivered in black and white. Of course, I could also just type it all up and attach it to my will, for free. (I do after all, have to inform the Executor of the existence of my info with Legacy Locker). But I still believe that there will be people who are eager to signup for this service, and there will be scores of people who will be grateful for that foresight.

The price point is also interesting. In theory, since the service does not really store any serious files itself, the infrastructure cost is minimal. Yet the price is not. The founder could easily have priced this at $10 or $15 and probably still make a hefty profit. On the other hand, since this goes hand in hand with estate planning, one wants to know that the company is serious, and will stick it out for the long run (or at least longer than you). I wonder if we are slowly going to move away from the “Should it be free?” question to the very opposite side of “Should we charge a premium because it will enhance the perception of value ?”. Or if, in true web 2.0 style, there will be a plethora of copycats who are going to compete on price, and bring the price down to an almost free product?