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•Five Greatest Little Office Helpers 103

fish design, you’re sure to find the right note to suit your style. With over 29 differ-
ent colours, 56 shapes, and 27 sizes, Post-it® Notes have certainly changed over the
years, but one thing remains constant – they’re great for reminding yourself, com-
municating and organising your thoughts, to-do lists and ideas.

Post-its have had detractors, people who when they first saw them were mysti-
fied, thought them profoundly stupid, unnecessary and expensive; in a word a scam.
They probably buy them now in blocks of 64.

Idea 60 – E-mail

I know a sales director who watched, at first calmly, a reasonably heated discussion
between two of his people who had a difference of opinion on the way forward for a
part of their business. He watched through his e-mail, as each and every salvo that
they fired at each other was copied to him. After a few days of this he took them
both metaphorically by the ear and put them in a conference room with an instruc-
tion not to come out until the issue was resolved. Their desks were about twenty
metres apart.

This downside of e-mail should not mask the glorious potential of global e-
mail. Apart from the possibilities it raises for making money on the Internet [see
Four Greatest Ways (So Far) to Become a Millionaire on the Internet], it is just possible
that the political impact of e-mail will be as great if not greater than radio and
television in terms of everyone having access to everyone all over the world. Dicta-
tors cannot like e-mail.

E-mail allows everything to happen simultaneously. As Oliver Freeman puts it,
‘E-mail provides a sporting chance that globalisation will not be imperialism under
a different name.’