Online Silence and Trust

Posted on May 8, 2010 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I lectured at the Info 2010 conference this week, where we had a special track dedicated to Information Overload, with many excellent speakers. One of these was Dr. Yoram Kalman, a key contributor to IORG and a long time friend, who presented his research into Online Silence. This is the phenomenon, so familiar to us all, where you send an email to a person and no reply comes back. After a few days you get restless and resend; often this will remain of no avail. Then you phone the recipient, and perhaps leave a message urging they look for your email in their Inbox…

Yoram has been studying the Chronemics – the behavior in time – of online communications for years; the public release of the Enron email data set allowed him to quantify email behaviors in great detail, which I won’t go into here – you can find his publications on his web site. What I want to point out in this post is the basic concept of Online Silence as a real phenomenon and a major problem in the knowledge work domain.

To my mind, the major impact of Online Silence is how it undermines Trust in virtual teams. Trust is important and fragile even in collocated teams; but in our globalized world – flat in theory, but very spherical where time zones are concerned – we work in teams dispersed around the planet, and then Trust becomes even more critical – and far more fragile. Without being able to look your team mate in the eye, you have to rely to a large extent on indirect evidence of their attitude and commitment. Sending someone an email and not getting a reply certainly doesn’t help build mutual trust; but it can’t even indicate its absence. This is because the silence may indicate anything: perhaps this guy ignores you with malice, even trying to undermine your success; perhaps she saw your message and would love to reply, but she has more urgent work on her plate – not as bad as malice, but still indicative of a rather low opinion of your importance; maybe he just missed seeing your message in the deluge of incoming mail; or possibly they’ll still get to it (but don’t hold your breath – if you didn’t get an answer in a day or so, the chance is low; Yoram’s research shows that clearly).

Since all you can see is the lack of a reply, you really have no way of knowing – and that’s the worst possible state, from a trust perspective. Yet in a world where email overload is rampant, where people get more mail than they can possibly ever respond to, this is the reality. I myself sometimes try to make a “contract” with a colleague I need to collaborate with: let’s commit to always respond to each other’s emails within 24 hours. But sadly, this never seems to work for more than a short time…

I lectured at the Info 2010 conference this week, where we had a special track dedicated to Information Overload, with many excellent speakers. One of these was Dr. Yoram Kalman, a key contributor to IORG and a long time friend, who presented his research into Online Silence. This is the phenomenon, so familiar to us all, where you send an email to a person and no reply comes back. After a few days you get restless and resend; often this will remain of no avail. Then you phone the recipient, and perhaps leave a message urging they look for your email in their Inbox…

Yoram has been studying the Chronemics – the behavior in time – of online communications for years; the public release of the Enron email data set allowed him to quantify email behaviors in great detail, which I won’t go into here – you can find his publications on his web site. What I want to point out in this post is the basic concept of Online Silence as a real phenomenon and a major problem in the knowledge work domain.

The main aspect of Online Silence that I find of interest is how it undermines Trust. Trust is important and fragile even in collocated teams; but in our globalized world – flat in theory, but very spherical when time zones are concerned – we work in teams dispersed around the planet, and then Trust becomes even more critical – and far more fragile. Without being able to look your team mate in the eye, you have to rely to a large extent on indirect evidence of their attitude and commitment. Sending someone an email and not getting a reply certainly doesn’t help build mutual trust; but it can’t even indicate its absence. This is because the silence may indicate anything: perhaps this guy ignores you with malice, even trying to undermine your success; perhaps she saw your message and would love to reply, but she has more urgent work on his plate – not as bad as malice, but still indicative of a rather low opinion of your importance; maybe he just missed seeing your message in the deluge of incoming mail; or possibly they’ll still get to it (but don’t hold your breath – if you didn’t get an answer in a day or so, the chance is low; Yoram’s research shows that clearly).

Since all you can see is the lack of a reply, you really have no way of knowing – and that’s the worst possible state, from a trust perspective. Yet in a world where email overload is rampant, where people get more mail than they can possibly ever respond to, this is the reality. I myself sometimes try to make a “contract” with a colleague I need to collaborate with: let’s commit to always respond to each other’s emails within 24 hours. But sadly, this never seems to work for more than a short time…