” Stop Using Email: It’s a Waste of Time “
The year was 1993: Back during the Jurassic period of corporate communications and branding. Google’s CEO and Founder Sergy Bryn and the other really, really smart guy from Russia were going out with plump communist co -eds and cheerleaders from Leningrad Senior High.
I was the Director of Marketing for a large shopping center owned and operated by the Macerich Company. Macerich was and still is a prominent REIT and owns about 70 malls in the United States.
We received a COMPANY MEMORANDUM ( remember those?) from our VP of Marketing. The subject was email. ” Email, I bellowed synically? What the heck is email? “
The memorandum was sent to all Marketing Directors and we were told that email was the wave of the future. Things would be different now. We would become modern communicators. Email would make our lives easier. We would become more efficient.
“Yeah, right. I said to myself. Sounds like another pain in the neck software nonsense I have to learn !”
Grudingly I began to use email communications. My regional director would call me twice a week and ask: “Did you get my email? I would confidently tell her : ” I only check my email on Fridays.”
Months passed and I grew to like email. I even began to love email and to delight in hearing “You’ve Got Mail.” ( That was kinda goofy, huh?)
I was proud to feature my email address on my business card. I was hip. I was cool. I was modern. I sent several emails just for the heck of it to John Butler, of Butler, Shine and Stern in Sausalito. Once I told him a design was rejected and he got mad at me for using email….But I was happy becaude I knew how to use email!
I think one of the first people to send me emails regularly was Marty Rubino, the then publisher of the Marin Independent Journal. We would send emails reminding each other what time our golf tee time was and where we would meet for Sushi lunch.
One day a borderline cantakerous Senior Vp from corporate paid a visit to our shopping center. He came with the slightly less cantakerous VP of Development. I showed him some of my projects which I often would post on my wall. Marketing people like to post their projects on the wall. It’s kindof, sortof like putting photos or drawings on your refrigerator when you were a little dorky snot nosed kid.
I told our borderline cantankerous Senior VPs about how we are using email to communicate and that it makes our lives easier and more efficient. I told them how modern and relevant it was.
“Email?!!!” he bellowed.
That’s a big waste of time and not a productive way to do business.” – Pick up the phone and talk to people.”
He was not a fan of email. He actually seemed irritated. In fact, he strongly advised me to spend my time more wisely.
One uneventful month passed. I did not use or check email. Email was not a good thing. I was a team player and did as I was told.
That very summer, our company attended a large conference in San Diego California. It was sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers. We mingled with shopping center developers, IT people, Creative People and consultants from all over the world. It was a fabulous event. We attended seminars, luncheons and happy hours. We had delicious rubber chicken dinners served with soft carrots and green peas.
Guess what everyone was raving about at the conference ? Emails. Emails. Emails. We attended a two hour presentation on how to capitalize on email communications and how to use it to benefit our company. We were told to foster and nurture the use email because we are modern communicators. We were told to embrace email because it enables us to better promote our company’s brand. We were told to use email because all of the top brands in the world use email. My marketing agency headed by Leon Altman of Altman Communications concured and insisted that email and the internet are the future!
The aforementioned Senior VP who had admonished me came to me during a luncheon and looked at me quite sheepishly. He looked like he had devoured a volery of crows.
” I was wrong about email,” he said . ………….. ” We must embrace new forms of communications.”
Today we are in the year 2010. 17 years later. One and a half decades have come and gone. Times have changed dramatically. We no longer receive company memorandums on letterhead. Google’s, Sergey Bryn and the other really, really smart Russian guy are smarter than ever Billionaires. We conduct Google searches all day long, we Twitter, we check Gmail, we blog about things that mean something to us, we are online journalists even though we can’t write worth a damn. We use Web 2.0 vehicles that include Linkedin, Google Adwords, Facebook and Utube.
Why do we use all of these new forms of communciation?
We use them because we are modern communicators. We embrace them because it enables us to better promote our company’s brand. We use them because all of the top brands in the world do: American Idol, CNN, Larry King, Mercedes Benz, Google, Armani, BMW, Barack Obama. And as he did in 1993, Leon Altman of Altman Communications concurs that these new communications tools are the future!
The Merchant Maven
