A staggering 269 billion emails are sent every day. Your business is receiving only a small fraction of those emails. Yet your staff likely feel as if at least 269 of those are coming their way daily. In fact, the typical employee in 2018 received 90 emails, and sent out 40. 
Email is a powerful tool. But its help with doing business ever faster creates added business pressure. Consider these five strategies for better email management.

1. Don’t start your day with email. Many people do. It’s how they set up for the day. However, beginning the day with a cup of coffee and clicking through your inbox, can backfire. Many of those emails become items on your to-do list. You put off important tasks from your day responding to other people’s requests. Plan your day around your business needs first. Even knock off some of the more important tasks, before diving into that inbox!

 

1. Think twice about checking email constantly. It’s tempting to open emails as soon as they arrive. But, you only want to tackle your inbox when you have the time to take action. If you open an email planning to get back to it later, you’ll likely forget. When you have to revisit an email to remind yourself what it’s about, you’re doubling the time you spend on that message. Avoid interrupting your momentum by turning off email alert notifications and phone badges. Instead, set regular times to read and respond to accumulated emails.

 

1. Write clear, concise emails. Avoid contributing to a colleague’s inbox chaos. Provide as much relevant information as possible. Now, that doesn’t mean writing a War and Peace-length email. Focus your message for your audience, anticipate questions, and answer in that email.  Starting the message with an informative subject line can make a big difference too.

 

1. Save time with reusable messages. You often end up answering the same questions over and again. Create templated emails that you can have at the ready to provide relevant details. Depending on your email software, this capability may be built in or you may need to add a plug-in.

 

1. Use filters and folders to sort email. Learn how to automatically filter your messages into the appropriate folders. For example, if the email is from accounting@yourbusiness.com then send it to your “Accounting” folder. This can save hundreds of hours a year.  The better your folder system, the less time you’ll spend looking for specific emails when you need them. In Outlook, you can also set up a filter to change the color of email for different senders. Your boss could be red, and you’d know to handle that one first. Also save time by setting up strong filters for junk and spam. Unsubscribe from mailing lists that you don’t need any longer. Cleaning out the clutter can make your inbox much less overwhelming.

Email is an essential tool in business today. Don’t let it become a drain on your energy and attention. Make the most of the time you spend in your inbox with smart strategies for email management.  

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”
-Thomas Paine, The Crisis.
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As you enjoy time with your friends and family on this Memorial Day, please take time to remember all of those who have fallen in defense and service of our great nation. Their sacrifice, and that of their families, shall not be forgotten!

Death is a morbid topic most of us try to avoid. Making a will and saying we prefer cremation is often the extent of our advance planning. Yet, you may want to also think about what’s going to happen to your data.
Consider your digital footprint. You have photos, files, and emails on your computer and your phone. You’re also documenting your life on social media and sharing on more than one channel.

Your wearable technology (say an Apple Watch or a Fitbit) may be recording information too. If you have a virtual assistant in your home, it’s recording your search history and saving that data on the cloud.
Yet many of us never think “What will happen to my data after I die?” Do you want it deleted? Are there digital assets you want to share? Perhaps there is tangible value attached to some of your digital assets. At the very least, some photos and videos that may have sentimental value for those who survive you. So, let’s explore some advance planning you can do to protect your digital legacy.

Personal Files on Computer or Phone
Your personal devices are password protected. While necessary, this makes it more difficult for your survivors. 
Now, they could physically pull the computer or phone apart if needed. But, it’s easier to have a copy of your passwords in a secure place for someone to access in the event of your death. Another option is to use a password manager. You can designate someone as your backup contact. They will be able to gain access to your passwords should you die.

Digital Media Collections
Often, when you click the “Buy” button, you’re not really purchasing that movie or music forever. Your contract with iTunes, for instance, was only for your lifetime. Your rights expire at your death.

Cloud Accounts
Consider the personal and private data you have in the cloud, such as Google or Microsoft’s Outlook. This might include calendars, emails, GPS, documents and financial information.
Google’s Inactive Account Manager lets you make plans for your account. You decide:

• When Google should consider your account inactive 
• What it should do with your data afterwards
• Whether to share account access with someone (providing email and phone number)
• When or if your account should be deleted.

Microsoft won’t provide your passwords after death. However, via their Next of Kin process someone could be sent a DVD of the data in your outlook.com account.
Other cloud providers ask for proof of death and of legal right to access. In Dropbox’s case for instance, your survivors will need a court order. Even with all this, there’s no guarantee your personal data is completely removed from the cloud. It may exist in other datasets in system backups.
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Social Media Accounts
Social media companies do not provide login credentials. Many require proof of identity and a death certificate to deactivate the account. Facebook and Instagram will “memorialize” your accounts. The public can’t see, but Friends or Followers can still view it and post memories. You can assign a legacy contact to look after the account or have it deleted.
You don’t want someone using your social account to send out spam or inappropriate photos. For instance, a sexy spambot took over a New York Times media columnist’s Twitter account after his death in 2015. 
Plan ahead to protect your privacy and provide access where necessary. Think of the pain and heartache you can save your survivors by managing your digital legacy now. 

A global shortage of teachers in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the world could soon be overcome by the creation of digital teachers.
Take Will, a teacher with a difference. Will is an artificially intelligent digital avatar with a human face (and head), who takes primary school students through their paces on energy use. Created by the Auckland, New Zealand-based energy company Vector in partnership with AI company Soul Machines, Will interacts with students to deliver content and provides questions and multiple-choice answers to test student understanding at the end of each unit.

Technology and The Future of Education
Will is the first of a new breed of teachers that the DaVinci Institute founder Thomas Frey argues will become more intuitive and responsive to the increasing complexities of the classroom as the technology evolves. In fact, he thinks robot teachers will be the norm in schools by 2030.
Frey, a former IBM executive, told Business Insider: “I’ve been predicting by 2030 the largest company on the internet will be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet.”
He’s not alone. British education expert Sir Anthony Sheldon went a step further to say that teachers would be replaced by robots by 2027 and argued that inspirational teachers of the future will be artificially intelligent. Technology, he said, “will open up the possibility of an Eton or Wellington education for all.”

Responsive Technology
Technology could also help UNESCO reach its ambitious goal of ensuring every child across the globe can meet minimum proficiency in reading and numeracy.
Sheldon, head of the prestigious Wellington School, told the UK Independent that classroom technology offered great promise that was beyond anything seen in the Industrial Revolution or since.
“These are adaptive machines that adapt to individuals. They will listen to the voices of the learners, read their faces and study them in the way gifted teachers study their students,” he said. “We're looking at screens which are listening to the voice of the student and reading the face of the student.”
AI is already playing a critical role in partnering with teachers to meet the diverse learning needs of students. For example, catering for the individual needs of 30 students in the classroom is a challenge. AI can help personalize learning design so that each student has an appropriate level of challenge.
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We’ll Still Need Teachers
The idea that teachers will somehow be replaceable by technology is slowly gaining traction.
But not so fast, says Alex Beard. The former British school teacher embarked on a global tour of the technology behemoths at Google and ed-tech think tanks that were using data and AI to make inroads into the classrooms. The result was Natural Born Learners, which reaffirmed the role of teachers.
Central to Beard’s argument was the need to recapture the 2,000-year-old truth about learning – that it is difficult. And that’s the point. Teachers and technology will partner to deliver better student outcomes and the shape of that partnership will evolve with the technology.