[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtlphotos/480714473/)

Sam Sethi over at Vecosys argues that [email is the new snail mail](http://www.vecosys.com/2007/05/28/no-defines-our-new-world-culture/):

> Email is the new snail mail. I now communicate more and more with friends by Skype, IM or Twitter.

And rightly so

Skype lets you have real conversations, rather than the disjointed time-lagged jumble that an exchange of emails often turns out to be.

Because Skype lets you chat and share files as well as talk, you can pick the mode of conversation that suits what you want to do. Quick question? Send a chat message. Document for review? Send it over Skype, and get an instant response. All getting too difficult to type out? Click and you've got a conference call.

I suspect that your boss would probably call this 'increasing productivity'. That's a good description, but you could also say 'wasting less time' or 'having more fun'

*Photo by [WTL Photos](http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtlphotos/)*