The Anatomy of an Email Storm

The Wall Street Journal devoted a full article this week to the Reply-All button. Towards the end, they brought up one of Reply-All’s unintended consequences: the email storm. This is where someone accidentally emails a very large distribution list, people then Reply-All asking to be removed, then the whole thing explodes until IT gets involved.

I’ve seen this happen twice. Both times it unfolded exactly like the chart below. I’ll admit, by the time it gets to Phase 4, it’s hard to resist the urge to jump into the mix.