Blog

Your inbox as a waypoint (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-25T21:05:42Z

Ever sift through your personal email inbox and come across a great sale at Target, a sizzling handbag on Gilt.com or an unbeatable Click 'N Save deal from Southwest Airlines that you want to share? As creatures of habit, the natural thing to do is to hit the forward button - a pretty "old school" move in this age of social media. Much to the dismay of marketers, most of these email messages wind up stuck in our personal email silos because even if we do happen to find that needle in the haystack, there’s no easy way to broadcast the contents of the message to your separate social networks.

Email's rocky road is something ZigMail's CEO Richard Gerstein, former chief marketing officer at companies like Sears Holdings and HP, thinks about a lot. He describes the past five years as an evolution, from email being used for personal communication to primarily transactional communication, the central nervous system for our transactional identity and repository for messages we want from businesses (deals, receipts, account alerts and newsletters). It’s no wonder open rates are declining and consumers are afraid to give out their email address. Richard estimates these messages – not SPAM, they’re the ones we opt-in for – represent as much as 70 percent of our inboxes today.

Earlier this year, ZigMail disrupted the email market with ZigMail, a free solution to combat this overload by scanning and organizing all those messages and shrinking them into a single daily digest. This week marks another step in redefining the email paradigm.

The next generation of personal communications is on tap at the DEMO Spring 2012 conference this week, where venture capitalists, journalists and tech aficionados will see the debut of Zigit – the new solution from ZigMail that makes email social. In one click, anyone can “Zigit” and share their favorite deal, catalog or product from email to their Facebook or Twitter walls.

If you're in Silicon Valley this week, swing by DEMO and see ZigMail execs on stage throwing a bon voyage party for email messages lost in the wasteland of our personal inboxes. We’re expecting consumers to cheer this new way to share the brands they love. Don't be surprised if a few email marketers and marketing managers crash the party once word gets out their email campaigns will no longer hit a dead end!

Here are some snapshots of us getting ready at the conference, including a pic backstage in rehearsal and at our booth in the pavilion.

(above) ZigMail President Michael Kennedy at rehearsal.

Read more about our Road to DEMO in the series of blog posts and look for #DEMO12 on Twitter.

Photos: (top) Flickr user The DEMO Conference, (bottom) ZigMail.

99 down 1 to go (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-17T01:08:21Z

Product is ready. Script is locked down. The stage is set for the wildest six minutes in ZigMail's history!

The ZigMail team arrived in the SF Bay Area this weekend raring to go for the DEMO Spring 2012 conference in Santa Clara. Everyone's texting, calling, Facebooking and emailing to see what we're up to, but you'll just have to hang on and keep your eyes and ears peeled this Wednesday for our big launch. All we can say is you'll see something that's never been done before and it's mind-bending! If you liked what we did with ZigMail stomping out email overload, then just wait for what we're about to roll out.

Our Co-Founders Richard Gerstein, Michael Kennedy and Orin Fink didn't do much sightseeing this weekend, but they had a lot of fun putting the finishing touches on the new product and practicing the demo that we're unveiling at the event on Wednesday and Thursday. When we walk on stage we've got six minutes to wow the crowd of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, journalists and ZigMail fans. Not sure if a guy with a big cane walks out and yanks us off if we go over our six minutes, but we're not planning on going over our allotted time to hear the cue the the house music, that's for sure!

We followed those helpful tips for demonstrators from Rob Lee at Evergreen Creative (thanks Rob!). He was pretty much spot on with his comment that we'll know we're ready when we've run through our product demo about 100 times. We can just about do the presentation in our sleep (or make that, we're so amped up for our presentation we're not getting much sleep - yeah, that's more accurate).

We're hopping in the car and heading down 101 to the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara for our big on-stage rehearsal with DEMO's production team this afternoon. One more run-thru to go!

We can't wait to meet all the other entrepreneurs and see the other hot products that will debut at DEMO Spring 2012 in social media, cloud computing, enterprise, disruptive technology and more.

Stay tuned for our reports and tweets from the show and be sure to follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/zigmail and #DEMO12.

Innovation Tour Pics (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T15:10:29Z

Nate Werlin over at DEMO/IDG just shared some great pics from the nationwide DEMO Innovation tour stop in Silicon Valley back in February. We were invited to hit up this party after our pitch meeting in February for DEMO (#DEMO12), VentureBeat and Kleiner Perkins.

DEMO Executive Producer Matt Marshall and colleagues like Neal Silverman (both pictured below) have been traveling around the country to host these events, where they connect with the entrepreneur community in search of the best innovation to showcase at DEMO Spring 2012. In addition to Silicon Valley, stops included Boulder, CO and SXSW in Austin, TX.

Below are a few pics of Matt, Neal and the crowd, including ZigMail President Michael Kennedy, who attended with our CEO Richard Gerstein. Flip through the full album here.

DEMO SVP and GM Neal Silverman (seated) and Executive Producer Matt Marshall.

ZigMail President Michael Kennedy.

ZigMail's Michael Kennedy with a DEMO supporter.

Images from Flickr user The Demo Conference.
Photos by: Saul Brombergek

Thank you ZigMail users

2012-04-18T16:36:36Z

When someone important says your software product epitomizes strrength, class and beauty, it's like a high-five fest. That's what it's like at ZigMail's offices today (we're even doing a few by WebEx since our team is spread from one coast to the other).

ZigMail has been named the Best Email Innovation for 2011 in the About.com 2012 Readers' Choice Awards. The program honors the best products, features and services across more than a dozen categories, ranging from technology to hobbies to parenting and more.

We thank our awesome community of ZigMail alpha and beta users. You made your voices heard and your votes count. We share this incredible honor with you!

It was a pretty high bar in this competition given the caliber of other finalists in our category. Hats-off to Google (Gmail SmartLabels), Shortmail, Microsoft (Windows Live Hotmail Scheduled Cleanup) and eMailDodo. We're honored to be in your company!

Our chief technology officer Orin Fink added, “There’s nothing better than having our users rank ZigMail #1 for putting an end to personal email overload. It’s gratifying to know we’ve built a product that has made it easier for people to manage their transactional lives. We congratulate the other finalists and thank About.com for shining a spotlight on game-changing email innovations like ZigMail.”

We also send a huge thank-you to Heinz Tschabitscher, email guide at About.com. Heinz orchestrated the judging for the email category and was the first to share the results with us. He says, “Congratulations! That was a great performance of you and your loyal users.”

We recommend bookmark ing Heinz’ tips and advice at http://email.about.com. It's chock-full of great ideas and solutions to tame the email beast.

Browse the other email categories.

The Script (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T15:00:30Z

ZigMail had our first technical review today for DEMO Spring 2012 with Rob Lee from Evergreen Creative. The call was a checkpoint to see how we're doing with the script for our six minute demo on the main stage and answer our questions about staging and production.

This guy Rob sure knows his stuff. Not only has he been the Technical Director for years and years of DEMO Conferences (produced by IDG and VentureBeat), he's the single point of contact for roughly 70 demonstrators this year.

We got some valuable pointers from Rob:

1) 100 is the magic number - Preparation is key. According to Rob, once you've done your 100th run-thru, you're ready.

2) Watch the clock - It starts when you start talking and six minutes goes fast. We're aiming for a sweet spot between 5:30 and 5:45.

3) Tell a story, don't just click screens - A great reminder to add some personality and storytelling.

4) Never let them see you sweat - Two tips to note here. One, have a backup plan in case something happens during your demo that you don't anticipate (like the network goes down). Second, we have a thespian among us (our very own Michael Kennedy, President of ZigMail), so hats off to him for asking Rob about the stage lighting and whether powder is recommended. Rob said it's a good idea to have some handy.

5) Plan your attire - Good reminder from Rob to avoid stripes (they dance on camera). This is something I also coach execs on for broadcast segments and videotaped speaking engagements.

6) Repeat tip #1.

Technical review complete. We got a thumbs-up from Rob on our script and are pretty comfortable with our game plan for launching our super Top Secret new product on stage. We wish all the other demonstrators the best of luck as they prepare.

The countdown continues. 97 to go!

Image from Flickr user The Demo Conference.

They like us, they really like us (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T15:00:52Z

One of the great things about having a new product on the market is the valuable feedback that rolls in from users. We're pretty humbled to learn users love ZigMail and see the numbers start climbing and the buzz start buzzing!

Having already introduced our alpha and beta versions of ZigMail to the market, we've been working hard to satisfy DEMO’s strict criteria for launching a breakthrough new product – one that no one has ever seen. This exciting journey is the focus of our recent "Road to DEMO" posts and we hope you're enjoying them.

In another milestone for ZigMail, we’ve just received an invitation to be a part of DEMO Spring 2012 in Silicon Valley. Thanks to all our users, fans, friends and families who have been following our journey and encouraging us along the way! Here’s a snippet of the email from Matt Marshall, executive producer of DEMO:

First of all, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to speak with the DEMO team, and congratulate you on your company's progress. We were all very impressed with your product, and would be thrilled to have you launch at DEMO Spring 2012. We think your product is a game changer, and would be a great addition to the DEMO class…

That bit about "We think your product is a game changer..." - our developers have smiles ear to ear! What we’re launching will remain Top Secret until we officially roll it out for the media and VCs attending DEMO Spring 2012 in Silicon Valley April 18-19. If you’re lucky enough to be there, you’ll be treated to our six-minute launch demo on the main stage.

We’d like to take a moment to thank Matt Marshall, Nate Werlin and the entire DEMO team, as well as Michael Abbott at Kleiner Perkins, for challenging us with this incredible opportunity to tell the world about ZigMail. We're joining a pretty incredible community that came before us – demonstrators like Salesforce.com, e*trade and Picassa.

As entrepreneurs, we're driven to create something innovative. We’re passionate about solving real problems and building solutions that begin with a spark of imagination. It's cool to know we're bringing the best technology to bear on changing people’s lives. We’re excited to share what we’re working on with the DEMO crowd.

As we chronicle our Road to DEMO, we’ll keep sharing the experience here on the ZigBlog and in real-time via Twitter @ZigMail.com. Be sure to follow along using @demo, #DEMO12 and #DEMOcon.

Dutch Goose (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T17:11:06Z

Turns out entrepreneurs have a lot in common with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. One of the most valuable lessons our co-founders have learned is that they're evangelists 24/7 and they always need to be prepared to tell ZigMail's story.

This was the case with our meetings and networking this week with the selection committee for DEMO Spring 2012. Anyone looking for the next big technology breakthrough–Cloud, Enterprise, Social Media and more–has heard of this shindig put on by IDG & VentureBeat. It's that super cool invitation-only launch event that's hosted coming out parties for Salesforce.com, Picassa and many other revolutionary tech ideas.

Our "Road to DEMO" posts document the journey we're taking as we make the case for ZigMail to land a coveted demonstrator spot. If it pans out, we might just get a chance to share our breakthrough email overload killer on stage for the world to see.

After yesterday's great meeting with DEMO at Kleiner Perkins, our President Michael Kennedy and CEO Richard Gerstein were invited to one heck of a party with movers and shakers from Silicon Valley at Menlo Park's Dutch Goose. As a boostrapped team that lives on pizza and whatever beer is on sale, the last thing ZigMailers are going to do is miss a party where we can hang with other entrepreneurs and enjoy microbrews on draft.

The event was part of DEMO's Innovation Tour making stops in Boulder, LA, Boston, Chicago and Austin. After a stop at another investor's office, Michael and Richard shd their jackets and ties and made their way over to the popular Stanford hangout.

The guys were quickly reminded that when you're building a small business, you better be prepared to talk about your offering and company anytime, anywhere. And you better make it simple and compelling to grab a crowd's attention at the Dutch Goose.

They were asked to give an impromptu ZigMail pitch for the crowd of about 100 people. Michael described it as "standing literally on a soap box and being given 60 seconds to tell the crowd what ZigMail is, the problem it is solving and the business model behind it."

He said it was a fun and inspiring night, adding, "It's always exciting to be around creative people who are looking to challenge the status quo. Nobody cares about failure–which is liberating–it's all about how everyday pain points can be reduced through the use of technology."

So we've pitched and wooed and toasted and shared war stories with some of the hippest geeks around. We thank Matt Marshall (VentureBeat), Michael Abbott (Kleiner Perkins) and everyone for the hospitality and for making us smarter for this experience. So far ZigMail's "Road to DEMO" has been an incredible ride.

Now we wait while the selection committee tackles a difficult decision to vet incredible tecnology ideas that could be the next big thing. We'll keep you posted.

Image from www.dutchgoose.net. Check 'em out next time you're in the Bay Area!

[Update: see pics from this event]

3-2-1 Pitch! (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T17:11:25Z

In my last post I mentioned I’d share insights on our DEMO pitch meeting this week at Kleiner Perkins' office on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, Calif. I just got the run-down from ZigMail Co-founders Michael and Richard who called from the car after today's meeting.

Richard summarized it by saying, “It is always exciting to be with people who are passionate and excited about innovation.”

Michael added that it was a great conversation and a very positive meeting with lots of reinforcement for what ZigMail is doing.

Highlights:

Met with Michael Abbott, partner at Kleiner Perkins, to review the market and our solution to the current pain being felt by most email users. Michael Kennedy said it was a great learning experience to sit down with someone who has been down this road. Abbott founded Composite Software and is seasoned executive from Twitter, HP/Palm, Microsoft .net and many other companies.
Met VentureBeat guru and DEMO Executive Producer Matt Marshall, who kept us on our toes with great questions about our idea to stomp out email overload and our business model to build ZigMail into a big company.
Found out VentureBeat is interested in covering our ZigMail product that recently entered beta. [As the PR contact, I can say I was very relieved when Matt later asked for a screencast of the product because our design guru Eric from TrueStory.com just launched this great one.].

Michael's key take-away? He said, "The process of making the pitch to the DEMO folks is beneficial in that it forced us to focus our pitch down to a simple sentence."

Aspiring to pitch DEMO or hit the streets for some funding? Here are some things that worked well in Michael & Richard's pitch meeting:

The problem and stakeholders
Scope of the problem
Approaches to solve the problem
Solution
Solution benefits
Metrics, i.e. market size, target audience validation

So now the guys are off to the famed Dutch Goose for a few pints this evening with today's hosts and other hot startup founders vying for an invite to launch at DEMO Spring 2012 in April. Stay tuned and watch for updates on Twitter using #DEMO12 and #DEMOcon via @demo.

Photo: Flickr contributor stevendamron

T-Minus 40:02 to Pitch Meeting (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T17:11:50Z

You’ve landed one of the most important meetings in the company’s history, second only to the one where you sat down with your spouse and said, “I have another idea for this great product. Yeah, I know the last one hasn't paid off yet. Think we’d still be ok without my income while I start a new company, research the market, build a prototype, rally some users and try to line up some investors? It shouldn’t take too long. Yeah, I really think this is the one.”

Meetings like those are good preparation for the tough audience to come at our meeting later this week with DEMO and Kleiner Perkins. Piece of cake, right? We have 20 minutes to woo a journalist who can make or break our idea with one keystroke and a venture capitalist who is standing between us and a bazillion dollar fund. Oh, make that 10 minutes. We just re-read the email and it says save the last 10 minutes for questions.

When you start thinking about meetings like a DEMO launch pitch, self-doubt creeps in. Is this idea as cool as we think? Do we really have what it takes? Will they get it? Can anyone possibly top the buzz that Pinterest is getting right now? Is there anything other than Cup of Soup in the cabinet? These reality checks are healthy and an everyday thing for the tech entrepreneurs I've worked with.

When you’re not busy second-guessing, someone like me who has done stints at well-funded startups is thinking about how I miss catered work lunches and Friday beer bashes…and having resources...bringing killer innovations to market before anyone else.

All along the way while building ZigMail, we’ve had checkpoints with our founding team, advisers and alpha and beta users to make sure we don't have blinders on. Having a trusted and experienced community as a sounding board is one of the biggest lessons learned - one that we eagerly share with other entrepreneurs we meet. It has helped us address areas where we're uncertain, view things as a devil’s advocate, inform and guide our strategy based on what's happening in the market, and prepare for crucial meetings like this.

Tomorrow it's all about refining everything for our meeting with DEMO and Kleiner Perkins on Sand Hill Road. Stay tuned.

Pitch This (Road to DEMO)

2012-04-16T17:12:55Z

It’s an email every startup dreams about. Subject: “Invitation to Present at Kleiner Perkins Thursday.”

As a huge fan of ZigMail, I had the zany idea to throw our hat in the ring to launch at the prestigious DEMO conference started by tech legend Stewart Alsop in 1991. DEMO has a 22+ year track record of being THE place where VCs, entrepreneurs and media discover the hottest startups in enterprise, mobile, cloud, consumer, social media and disruptive technologies. You may have heard of a few, like E*trade, salesforce.com and Picassa.

Here’s part of an email from VentureBeat, producers of DEMO, to ZigMail’s CEO:

Hi Richard,

We would like to extend ZigMail an invitation to present at the DEMO/Kleiner Perkins event on Thursday, February 9. You are currently scheduled to present at 11:00 AM in the Kleiner offices (2750 Sand Hill Rd. Menlo Park, CA 94025)

You'll be given 20 minutes to present…

We were so busy doing cartwheels that we nearly missed this nugget:

We will also be throwing a party in the evening at the Dutch Goose…

We're a bootstrapped startup, so anytime you mention free beer, we’re in. But seriously, we're going to have to pass the hat so our co-founder Michael Kennedy can hop a flight from Chicago to Palo Alto with two day’s notice. As if there was a rational reason to decline this meeting, they closed with:

Please confirm if you are able to attend…

Our team has worked in a lot of startups, so we're used to "I need this yesterday." But the thought of anything last-minute conjures up memories of our stints at big companies too. [Cue slow-mo imagery like "Chariots of Fire"] In the old days, we’d “corral the troops” to “weigh the options” based on who’s available then we’d and “circle back” after we’ve “bounced it around with the team.” Thank goodness startup think and act differently. “We’ll be there” and we'll make it happen because we know we've got the next big thing.

Our Road to DEMO began with Richard’s next question: What now?

What now is that Michael is packing his bags to meet Richard in the Bay Area for a meeting that we hope wows Kleiner Perkins and lands a coveted spot at DEMO Spring 2012.

All we have to do in less than 48 hours is fine-tune ZigMail’s Elevator Pitch in terms that our moms can understand. Wish us luck!

Does email marketing get a bad rap?

2012-01-10T17:18:32Z

I’ve got a split personality. As both a consumer and marketing professional, I look at every advertisement, Facebook promotion, promoted Tweet and email campaign through a different lense. Critiquing subject lines? Guilty. Asking why I’d ever be interested in that offer? Guilty. This leads to some pretty heated arguments between me, the marketer, and me, the consumer. My dog must think I’m crazy.

When I read Judith Aquino’s headline “Don’t Count out Email Just Yet” on DestinationCRM, I hoped her article would shed a ray of hope for both of us. The article says cites new data from InfoTech Research Group, confirming “the average ROI of email marketing initiatives is a striking 256 percent, and only four percent of users say no benefits are attained” thanks to better email targeting (+ 1 for us marketers). It mentions how consumer attitudes about email have shifted favorably, according to leading information technology (IT) analyst firm Forrester Research, as we share more with others (+1 for marketers). Forrester also indicates we delete fewer promotional messages, though my hunch is there are a lot of consumers out there like me who don’t delete because we just can’t keep up with the volume of inbound messages.

The catch is, with a better ability to target offers and the very low cost to execute campaigns, don’t expect the volume hitting your email inbox to dwindle anytime soon. Targeted or not, a lot of members in our ZigMail Alpha community echoed the need for a better way to streamline and organize these messages, especially the ones they want that affect their wallet, like super discount codes, insider sales and digital receipts.

It’s still early here at ZigMail, but the positive feedback from users indicates the market is hungry for a solution that simplifies and organizes the email chaos. Now you can give it a spin for free. So here’s to solutions that address quality and quantity so you can pinpoint and act on messages that matter to you.

Are you starting to see promotional emails that reflect things you’re actually interested in? Share your favorite example below.

Drowning in email?

2012-01-23T18:33:42Z

There’s been a flurry of recent articles on the email overload problem and the strategies companies are taking to thwart it. We can all relate to that anxious feeling of picking up our iPhone, Android tablet, or firing up email on our laptop and thinking – gulp – “How many messages am I behind now.” Like clockwork, my personal inbox comes with just as many unread messages as yesterday. So much for catching up. Maybe tomorrow.

The problem of email overload is as old as email. I remember being awestruck at the idea of sending an email instead of a letter, or making a call and thinking how much more efficient I’d be with this new technology. Now, as email overload surges in headlines, it makes me wonder why this technology category lacks innovation. Why, when email overload translates into lost productivity at work and that never-caught-up feeling at home, have we had to become email folder jockeys and rule experts or accept the status quo?

I know one thing. While I can relate to Tamar Weinberg’s post about her 13 email accounts (I went the same route to bring order to my personal email inbox), and I respect her impressive email workflow in Gmail to find some sanity, I’ll never hit what she describes as “email zero.” Not only is it not in my pack rat DNA to clear anything out of my personal inbox, the geek in me doesn’t want to let technology off the hook on this one. I’ve spent most of my career surrounded by ultra-smart entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and I know technology is up to the task of doing the heavy lifting for me. I know it is capable of presenting information the way an average email user thinks.

In my simple personal world, the framework I think about for email has two parts: emails I use for transactional purposes with companies (receipts, offers, frequent flyer statements), and correspondence (those I need to stay informed, respond to or collaborate on with others).

Work email infrastructure aside, the thorn in my side at the moment is my personal email. How is it possible many of us resort to creating a slew of dedicated email accounts to keep everything straight? My feeble attempt at solving this was creating separate email personas, like one for my shopping-related messages, one for my news and alerts and so on. I kept thinking, there must be an app for this. Then a friend turned me on to ZigMail.

The issue is getting a lot of play in the B2B world. I read a recent post on ZDnet from Tim Walters at Forrester Research about how one company is addressing the email overload issue. French company Atos plans to ban email in 18 months, saying only 10% of emails their employees get is useful. Pretty bleak. I get a lot of messages that aren’t useful at work and at home, but I’m certainly not willing to ban email. Are you?

I agree with Tim’s conclusion that “Email isn’t evil” and that it has a place when it’s not abused. I think the solution is two-fold: give consumers technology tools to take back control of their inboxes and hold email senders accountable for using email properly. TechCrunch picked up the Atos story as well, where I think Jon Orlin nails it by saying, “Yes, many of us really hate email overload.” But, he added, “If email served no useful purpose, we wouldn’t use it.”

There’s an explosion of innovation in this space led by companies like ZigMail that are democratizing solutions to de-clutter our inboxes. Presenting messages from companies I want to do business with in a simple, organized way has helped me easily find offers, receipts and account alerts and take action. Imagine that! A little time alpha-testing a free piece of software and my email has become useful again.

This cool little idea is bound to get out. Are you ahead of the curve? Try ZigMail (it’s free) and if your friends ask why you don’t hate email, tell them, well, there’s finally an app for that!

Holiday email overload

2012-01-10T16:35:48Z

As I prepare for the holidays, an article about holiday email overload caught my eye. Dave Johnson at CBS MoneyWatch recommends four steps to guard against holiday email overload at work. It got me thinking about how those same rules might translate to the glut of email I get in my personal email accounts – my lifeline not only to family and friends, but all my transactional correspondence with receipts, account statements and special offers I rely on to save money on my holiday shopping this year.

I found a few good tips for maintaining sanity while out of the office, but it’s a bit harder to apply some of the advice to personal email.

Broadcast your plans. Planning to be away from your work email account? Dave’s article has sound advice to reduce email volumes and set expectations on response times by setting an away message using your email system’s auto-responder (available in personal email services like Yahoo and Gmail too). However, with the exception of big travel plans, I’m never really “away” from my personal email account, so I’ll chalk this up to a great tip for work.

Set a schedule. Dave’s got another good suggestion to pre-determine windows to check email. I once worked for a CEO who blocked time in his calendar to do just that, and I know a lot of folks who do a beginning- and end-of-day check of their personal email. At work, checking email at intervals—instead of constantly—can be a great stress avoidance tactic when a question or problem manages to resolve itself in the interim. However, whether it’s my work or personal email, I’m the kind of person who likes to keep up instead of letting it stack up.

Consider declaring email bankruptcy in advance. This one is a biggie. Dave suggests an auto-responder message like: “Due to the high volume of email I will receive over the holiday break, I will delete all messages. If you really need me to see your message, please resend after the holidays or call me directly.” Again, remember that this was geared to a work context. Like the first tip, it definitely sets expectations for folks trying to reach you, but it’s hard to transfer the concept to personal email. For me, a “delete all” approach to my personal inbox would just shoot myself in the foot, wiping out messages I want from family, friends and companies I am eager to hear from (and don’t mind playing catch-up with).

Take a real break from email. There are strong arguments in favor of untethering, but I’m not exactly the poster child for success. I think email—at least personal email—is an important part of our connected lives. It just needs to work better.

Rather than change our behavior to make email work for us, we need solutions that bring more balance to our personal lives. That’s what gets me so excited about ZigMail and the momentum that’s building among early users. The idea of streamlining and organizing emails I want in a way that’s easy to browse before, during and after the holidays, now that’s enough to keep me tethered while I’m watching bowl games.

Let me know how ZigMail is helping you keep up with personal email over the holidays.

Ad Age Covers ZigMail's New Approach to Email

2012-01-10T17:11:39Z

We're all abuzz about this great AdAge article that spotlights Zigmail's alpha launch as a solution "that aims to help consumers sort their personal emails from the messages sent by businesses and marketers."

Hear what inspired one of our founders to take the leap into entrepreneurship by reading Cotton Delo's interview with former HP exec Richard Gerstein.

A lot has been happening lately

2011-08-10T23:41:35Z

We been bee-you-ess-why l8ly. Great stuff going on under the hood here and a lot to look forward to on the UI experience too!