British Energy trials 'email-free' Fridays

British Energy is running small trials of an 'email-free' Friday policy to help combat the danger of email overload and encourage employees to talk to each other.

In an interview with silicon.com, British Energy group CIO Ian Campbell warned email can get in the way of collaboration.

He said of the trials of email-free Fridays run in the IT department: "You try not to send emails to each other but go and see them or talk to them and spend time with them. And although we know it will never eliminate email at the moment it actually helps to spend time with people."

The changing way people communicate and collaborate is one of the big trends Campbell is focusing on at British Energy.

He said: "Collaboration is a big one for us. It's a huge productivity saving. If we were five people and I sent out a document to four people and everyone sent back their version plus one to everyone else you've suddenly got 16 versions of the same document. How do you control that? Collaboration puts it in one place."

British Energy is looking at collaboration software from both Microsoft and Oracle but Campbell claims Microsoft's Sharepoint is currently "the frontrunner" because of the way it integrates with existing applications and platforms.

Campbell said: "What will happen in the future as collaboration and other tools come on board we will filter and will pool what we want. Over the next couple of years that will make our lives easier."

In the exclusive interview Campbell also reveals how he tackled the transformation of what he describes as a fragmented and isolated IT department since joining British Energy in 2005 - and how the organisation changed its security strategy from total lockdown to a more user-friendly, layered approach.