So how was your inbox this morning? Overflowing at the seams? Full of messages from people you don’t know, subjects you don’t care about, and somewhere in among the dross, the odd gem of information which could transform your life 2_____?
Welcome to the club: e-mail is both business blessing and commercial curse. You can’t do without it, yet you still can’t face the idea of wading through every one of those tedious messages that come through the digital door every day. Perhaps 3_____, then it’s time to move on to the fun parts of the magazine because I have momentous news for you: the e-mail flood may be bad today, but tomorrow 4_____. Not only are you going to get more of the stuff, the stuff itself is going to explode too – into audio and graphics, video and customer response forms. And 5_____, you’re going to lose a key business edge along the way.
In the US, 6_______________for large corporations that deal with employees, customers and suppliers by e-mail to dispatch a staggering 800,000 messages per day (yes, you did read that correctly). Small wonder that one boss of a large software company decided to close down his network e-mail system for part of each day, 7_____he thought people were too busy e-mailing and not spending enough time communicating.