Mark Langford, the founder of a video game retailer in Australia called Game Trader, believes email is the bane of the business world. In fact, he hates it so much, Langford has stopped using it with all 33 of his franchisees.
“The trouble (with email) is that it can easily get taken out of context. I call it email wars, where people take something out of context and it starts a fight,†Langford tells SmartCompany. “So you can have this endless loop which is ridiculous, with people misunderstanding things.â€
With email practically killing his business, Langford did what almost no one else in the world today is doing: he disconnected. “It was very much a calculated decision,†he says. “We said, we have to get out face-to-face.â€