Jerry Tuttle, FCAS, saw the future in May 1993!
Random Sampler: Electronic Mail — A Better Way to Communicate
By Jerry Tuttle
I am an unabashed fan of Electronic Mail (“E-Mail”), and I am encouraging my friends to jump on the E-Mail bandwagon. E-Mail gives you the ability to send mail from your computer directly to the other person’s computer. Someday we will all have E-Mail both for business and at home, and it will change the way we communicate.
Compared to a telephone call, E-Mail avoids playing telephone tag … and you can send a confidential or lengthy message without giving it to a third party. … You don’t have to walk over to a fax machine and wait until it is free, and you can send E-Mail messages to several people at once with just a single outgoing phone call …
The E-Mail is sent without human intervention, and it is sent fairly quickly. E-Mail can be received with complete privacy, unlike normal mail or facsimile, or it may be read by a designated person such as a secretary.
After making 15 consecutive calls to my son’s Little League team or to a PTA committee, I envision the day when we will all have personal E-Mail at home and I can send those 15 messages with a single outgoing phone call.
Walt Wright, FCAS, is the former editor in chief of Actuarial Review.
