Fridays go from casual to e-mail-free

FRIDAYS GO FROM CASUAL TO E-MAIL-FREE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Michelle Kessler]
E-mail can be a useful communication tool, and people who write a lot of it are more likely to receive it, IDC tech analyst Mark Levitt says. But it can quickly get out of hand. White-collar workers often receive 140 messages a day. Each day, about 39.7 billion person-to-person e-mails, 17.1 billion automated alerts, and 40.5 billion pieces of spam (not including this note) are sent worldwide. Today about 150 engineers at chipmaker Intel will kick off "Zero E-mail Fridays." E-mail isn't forbidden, but everyone is encouraged to phone or meet face-to-face. The goal is more direct, free-flowing communication and better exchange of ideas, Intel principal engineer Nathan Zeldes says in a company blog post. E-mail-free Fridays already are the norm at cell carrier U.S. Cellular and at order-processing company PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services in Alpharetta, Ga. Prominent techies are tackling the problem individually by declaring "e-mail bankruptcy" — deleting or archiving an entire in-box and starting over. [CRAZY! we say. No email Fridays... what's next? Unsubscribing from listservs? Nutty!]
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20071005/1a_bottomstrip05_dom.art.htm