AwayFind is a clever solution to the email overload problem. It lets you step away from your email without missing the most important messages - the so-called "email emergencies." That addresses one of people's deep-seated fears of email abandonment - the fear that some piece of critical information is going to arrive and we're not going to see it.

Basically, AwayFind is an auto-responder on steroids. You can configure its outgoing message to your liking. That message includes a link which allows people to get your attention if they are, in fact, emailing you about something urgent.

Your message could read, for example:

But What If It's Important?

Those who really needed to reach you can click the link to be taken to a web page where they can fill out a quick form, the results of which will be sent to you.

The form is not too cumbersome to fill out, but it has just enough fields to cause people to pause and consider whether or not it's really worth their effort. It also includes a CAPTCHA at the bottom to keep the spammers at bay. The form can be configured so that messages are categorized by the sender via a drop-down box (e.g. "Personal," "Business", etc.) and then those messages can be auto-routed to the appropriate person(s). In other words, AwayFind can automatically delegate your email for others to deal with.

When someone fills out the form, you're alerted based on the settings you chose during AwayFind's setup and configuration. You can receive a text message (SMS) or you can specify to be alerted at a different email account - that secret address you created for emergencies only. You can also check AwayFind's online inbox via the web.

With AwayFind, you can finally enjoy that vacation, to be sure, but you can also set up day-to-day templates to manage the everyday onslaught.

Pricing Info

The AwayFind service comes in two pricing tiers - a free version and a Professional version. The upgraded plan is $4.95/mo or $34.95/year and comes with a few extra features like a branding option which incorporates your logo, SSL security, integration with your web site, international SMS support, and more. It works with Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, Outlook, and others.

Now that you have all that extra time on your hands, you should probably read AwayFind's guide to not checking email (provided for free upon registration), as it will help you stick with your new plan. Remember, breaking email addiction is something we have to fight one day at a time.

The SmartDesktop application is designed to be used by individuals who to assist with organization of emails and files by project. (A framework for developers is also available). The application only works on Windows machines and supports the following applications:

• Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007
• Microsoft Word 2003, 2007
• Microsoft Excel 2003, 2007
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, 2007
• Microsoft Visio 2003, 2007
• Microsoft Project 2003, 2007
• Internet Explorer v6, v7
• Mozilla Firefox v1, v2, v3
• Adobe Acrobat v6, v7, v8
• Adobe Reader v7, v8
• AutoDesk AutoCAD 2007, 2008
• Compatible with Google Docs
• Compatible with Zoho Sheets

While traditionally a software program like this would stick to only supporting other desktop software, the company seems to have taken note of the online office trend and has decided to branch out from being solely tied to the machine to support some cloud apps as well. With support for both Google Docs and Zoho (only Zoho Sheets, unfortunately), there's a chance for SmartDesktop to succeed among the online crowd as well. That is, assuming they continue to add support for online services, including the rest of Zoho's suite.

To really benefit from a program like SmartDesktop, you need to have a lot of data stored in files across both the web and your machine and no time or inclination to organize it on your own. But you don't need to work on "projects" to use SmartDesktop; it is meant to organize anything that you're working on, whether personal events, managing clients, doing research, planning a budget, etc. In SmartDesktop, a "project" is just the container for the files, email, and web pages that are related to each other.

This structure takes SmartDesktop beyond being just another desktop search app. Instead of just scanning your hard drive for keywords, it starts with a project-oriented view of your information and doesn't even index the information you haven't touched. This way, search results are faster and contain much less noise.

Will SmartDesktop really help people deal with information overload? Those interested in finding out can can sign up to be alerted when the beta is made available for download: just click here.

Information Overload By the Numbers

• $650 billion: Annual cost of interruptions for knowledge workers in the United States
• 28% of a worker's time is spent dealing with interruptions that are neither urgent nor important
• 6 Hours Per Week: Time lost due to context switching (multi-tasking, pausing, etc) - Does this means the Louis Gray's and Scobles are still few and far between?

Intel also contributed their own internally collected numbers:

• Average employee receives 350 messages per week
• Average executive receives over 300 messages per day
• Employees spend about 20 hours per week managing email, 2 hours of which is unnecessary email

Discussing Solutions

When talking about solutions to the information overload problem, the key areas that were touched on were process, training, and raising awareness. Intel also mentioned a couple of solutions they have implemented themselves - one being the use of "quiet periods" of 4 hours twice per week where people can disconnect from communication and fully focus on getting things done. They also make use of an internal software program called the "Intel Email Effectiveness Coach," that warns people when they're about to do something stupid, like send a message to 2000 people. (Wow - they should sell that!)

As far as software solutions go, Jared provides us a short list of the highlights. Here's what he said stood out:

• RescueTime - keeps track of not just your activities on your computer but those of your office mates, enabling you to see how you stack up and when you're slacking
• Slife - similar to RescueTime in that it gathers statistics about computer usage, but data is primarily kept locally rather than "in the cloud"
• SmartDesktop - Imagine your computer knew what was contextually relevant no matter what you were doing on it. (Private Beta)
• Seriosity - an economics-based approach to email management whereby one attaches virtual currency to their messages
• ActionBase - Turns Outlook into a database of sorts for knowledge management and wiki-like email correspondence
• Talk2Us - Jared called this one a "crazy voice recognition manage-your-life software that's in private beta"
• ClearContext - Helps you to better identify important information, group relevant items together, and generally have a better workflow within Outlook
• Permessa -Enterprise unified messaging for performance and compliance monitoring

Jared himself is also the creator of AwayFind, a tool that lets you get away from email without getting out of reach.

We will take a look at some of these other solutions over the coming weeks here at RWW and let you know what we think.

Image Credit: Autoroute: Mzlle Biscotte

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iorg_discusses_solutions_for_i.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iorg_discusses_solutions_for_i.php Trends Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:00:00 -0800 Sarah Perez