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Can ONE person really read and answer upwards of 200 emails every day??
"Surely, he is not reading EVERY piece of mail that comes his way!"
Lieutenant Colonel Mike L. Walton is a busy guy by anyone's estimate. He
works the equalivent of two jobs, reading and answering about 50 pieces of
email and then goes home to read anywhere from 200 to 400 pieces of email.
A day.
When I was given and read his press release, the immediate question came to
my mind.
"Surely, he is not reading EVERY piece of mail that comes his way!"
Lieutenant Colonel Mike L. Walton is a busy guy by anyone's estimate. He
works the equalivent of two jobs, reading and answering about 50 pieces of
email and then goes home to read anywhere from 200 to 400 pieces of email.
A day.
Can ONE person really read and answer upwards of 200 emails every day??
This year's Community Club Dinner will feature one of the Internet's
outspoken, most often quoted and inspirational writers and speakers on
American Scouting - Mike Walton. Walton, known as "Settummanque,
(set-tum-man-quay or set-tum-quay), the blackeagle," is a longtime Scouting
supporter, cheerleader and sometimes critic. He brings to each group he
speaks to the message that "with faith, family and Scouting, Great Things
Happen!"
"Kids today are looking for equalizers," Walton stated, "and Scouting is
that One Great Equalizer which doesn't require batteries, hookups,
electricity nor nimble fingers and wrists. But it is our adults who care,
volunteer their time, and allow young people to Make Great Things Happen".
The annual Community Club dinner will feature Anson Kennedy and his jazz
band, along with vocalist Rhonda Markin. The dinner honors Scouting
volunteers living "south of the river" in the Twin Cities area and is
jointly hosted by the Viking and Indianhead/Scouting Boy Scout Councils.
The highlight of this year's dinner is the awarding of the "Good Citizen
Award" to Dr. Joseph Embury of the Department of Chemistry at the University
of Minnesota.
Clearly, however, the person generating the most buzz is "the guy from the
Internet," Mike Walton.
"As soon as I heard that Mike was going to speak this year, I paid for a
table," said Paul Nixon, a Scoutmaster with a group in Cannon Falls, who
works at the Federal Building across the street from where Walton works.
"He's funny and he has a way of getting right to the problem and solving it.
I've been reading his stuff on Scouts-L since 1997..."
Walton is one of the "deans" of "Internet Scouting," He utilized the
Internet in its younger days to allow members of his College Scouter
Explorer Post to share information, project data, schedules and to talk with
fellow Explorers and Scouters all over the nation as part of a special
project. He later became one of the first members of the Scouts-L youth
programs discussion group. Since 1990, he has seen the mailing list blossom
from 20 or so to more than 4 thousand people who regularly turn their
computers on, download their email and receive the 50 messages coming from
the "international daily Roundtable meeting which NEVER ends" daily. Many of
the postings read there each day are replies or postings by Mike Walton.
"I really do read a lot of email in a given day," Walton stated, sitting at
his desk at one of his three offices. Behind him, the computer chimes
several times during our conversation -- each time announcing the delivery
of yet another piece of electronic correspondence for him to read and act
upon.
Mike actually reads and responds to between 175 and 400 pieces of electronic
mail every day - to include weekends and most national holidays. The mail
is split between that received as part of Scouts-L or one of the other five
Scouting-related mailing lists and groups he subscribers to; and between 100
and 120 email messages sent directly to his email box. Many of the postings
are from volunteer or professional members of the Boy Scouts of America or
the Girl Scouts of the USA. He also responds to messages from parks and
recreation department leaders, parents of youth members, and on occasion
from youth members themselves.
"There's actually several secrets to how I get through all of this," Walton
stated, bending over as if to grant me a secret to his success.
"The first is knowing the capabilities of your email software. I am forced
to use Microsoft's Outlook when I'm here and when I'm in Chicago; but at
home, I use Qualcomm's Eudora almost exclusively. You have to know how the
software collects mail, when it does it, and what you can do to sort and
file the mail pieces."
Walton demonstrates by inviting me to view his computer screen. After he
removes the desktop password from the screen, he explains, "I sort mail by
subject line and by sender. Mail from my family goes to the top of the
pile; mail from my boss or her boss comes next, and then anything from
inside the building comes next."
Walton points to several folders on his computer desktop. There's one for
his military work, another one for mail from vendors, kids wanting patches,
adults wanting directions to the Center, inquiries about the 88th Infantry
Division, and another one called "Eating Spam."
"That's where I send the unsolicited jokes and stupid things people try to
send you. It gets emptied every day before I go
home."
"And this mail?" I pointed to a stack of mail in a folder called
"Lunchtime".
"This is mail from mailing lists I'm on. During my lunchtime, I'll go
through this mail and read and file the mail there.
I'm about a week behind on it, but I'll clear between 70 to 100 pieces
before my lunchtime is over."
I sat and observed him as he went through 40 pieces of email in about 15
minutes -- reading, taking notes, replying and filing it away. Some he
would place into a "research" or "query" bin for sharing with other members
in the small office. Others, he would answer and file in "completed" or
"PAO Actions."
Walton works as a civilian public affairs technician and as the community
relations expert with the Army's 88th Regional Support Command at Fort
Snelling. In this role, he is constantly answering email concerning the
usage of the command's band and color guards, requests for patches or tours,
and requests for photos of "Army tanks and helicopters" even though the
Command has neither.
"Everyone thinks that we have tanks, helicopters and lots of soldiers going
"Hooah!" all day long here. They're really disappointed when I tell them
that this command has no tanks, no helicopters and very few soldiers. The
majority of our workforce here are civilians during the week and Army
Reservists on weekends," Walton stated.
Including Walton.
He drives six hours each way for two weekends each month to work in his
Forest Park, Illinois office, as the Commander of one of the four Army
Reserve public affairs commands in the nation. In his "weekend warrior"
duties, Walton commands some 200 journalists, broadcasters and their
supervisors in four locations in the Midwest. "I spend about a third of
each month either in Chicago or on the road working as the Commander of the
318th," Walton states.
His Chicago office is full of the trinkets -- plaques, medals, certificates,
and other items -- which marks the experience and service of a 20-year Army
soldier and officer. A computer and printer is central to the office. He
forwards email to a separate email account at that location so that he would
be able to keep up and perhaps stay ahead of the mail which comes in daily
while he is in Chicago.
The 318th Public Affairs Operations Center is geared to support one of the
Army's deployable Corps or to be set up as a theater support public affairs
element in such far-flung places as Kuwait, Pakistan or Turkey. It is what
the Army calls a "high-deployable unit", which can be sent away at any time.
Walton is constantly on the phone talking with his fulltime support team in
Chicago, or as in this day, talking and yes, answering email from them at
the same time.
"The work of a unit doesn't just happen on the weekend...it happens every
day, and I have to be around to respond to and sign documents and forms,"
Walton smiles as he returns to a form which required him to type his
signature block, print, sign, and scan back to the unit.
"I don't know what I would do without this stuff. The action you just saw,
before automation, would have taken us four to five days to complete and
involve three or four people. I just completed it in, well, a little over a
minute and a half."
Many of his responses to various Scouting questions he has placed within a
Frequently Asked Questions section on his website called "The Tree" in an
attempt to "curb the tide of daily email". The website has been recently
picked up for inclusion in the U.S. Scouting Service Project (USSSP), the
largest Scouting volunteer resource and reference site on the Internet, with
more than 2 million hits a year. Since 1999, Walton has served as a member
of the USSSP's Board.
"I read and answer a lot of Scouting-related mail," Walton stated, "along
with mail from a list dealing with a software platform, my cell phone/PDA,
military public affairs, and two personal groups: a writers' forum and a
list dealing with interracial relationships and communication."
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Walton is a third-generation soldier. He received a
commission through Army ROTC after serving as an enlisted soldier in
Kentucky's National Guard. A "contingency Public Affairs Officer,"
Lieutenant Colonel Walton has seen many of The Army's hot spots around the
world. He has led or supported efforts in informing the public as to the
benefits of The Army's "off-the-shelf, ready to serve" Reserve.
In the last ten years, he has been in several African and Central American
countries as well as in Hungary, Bosnia, Poland, Italy, Germany and
Sardinia. He provided guidance and leadership toward the Army Reserve's
tenth anniversary of their watershed participation during Operations Desert
Shield and Desert Storm. He has held jobs in the private sector as a
university administrator and director, teacher at the junior college and
collegiate levels as well as within a federal Job Corps branch, as an
electronics or computer salesman for several national retail chains, and as
a recreation therapist and coach for mentally and physically challenged
individuals.
Email in all of those jobs has been important to his success. With email,
Walton said, he could reach out and gather information and resources from
literally around the world in order to help him to make a decision, advise a
client, or become knowledgable about what he is about to do next. Walton
explains how he learned how to use this new technology.
"I learned about email in a "beaten over-the-head" manner. I was attending
a military school whereby all of the assignments were delivered via email.
I had never used a computer before, and here I was in my hotel room with a
laptop, software and a printer and expected to generate documents using
those things. I was sick for about a week...it was just overwhelming!"
Walton did graduate from the course, and upon his return to graduate school
at Eastern Kentucky University, he approached the academic computing center
and requested some assistance in learning how to use email. The university
was at that time experimenting with electronic mail themselves, and they
pointed Walton to a music major who knew more about the computing system
than many of the staff members.
"The guy's name was -- and you're going to laugh but I SWEAR it's true !!
Scouts' Honor!! The guy was Steven King."
Not THE Steven King, but Steven R. King, who later graduated from EKU with a
bachelors' degree in Applied Music and in Business in 1994. He was a
freshman when Mike met him in 1991, and today, King owns a computer literacy
firm in a suburb of Atlanta.
In trade for teaching Mike the ins and out of electronic mail and filing,
King was treated to dinner at the Walton's family home. "It was a good
trade off...the wife prepared some great meals and I got a lot of learning
done!" Later, Walton signed up as one of the first subscribers to a new
system called "America Online" and has been a member since.
"My wife and children, and now my mom and dad -- can all reach me no matter
where I'm at through my AOL account. It's been the most reliable account
I've had and has done me well. I start off several of my presentations by
showing a brief commercial for AOL....they should be paying for my email
account!" Walton quipped.
Walton brings to the dinner a respect for Scouting in America, and a
considerable resume of experiences as a youth and later as an adult member
of Scouting.
A holder of the Cub Scout Arrow of Light, the Boy Scout Eagle Scout Badge
with Silver and Gold Palms, and the Exploring Achievement Award (which he
was the spark plug and one of the first recipients of the special award),
Mike Walton is a former Paraprofessional executive and volunteer with
several large, medium and small BSA Councils serving in a variety of
leadership roles.
A fully trained Scoutmaster, Explorer Advisor and Sea Exploring Skipper,
Mike holds training awards and keys in several program areas as well as
other service and leadership awards. He also was the recipient of heroism
and national conservation awards as well as youth and adult religious
emblems and medals including those outside his own faith.
Walton is also the recipient of several Army medals for his youth and
community service and received awards from the Scout Associations of Great
Britain, the Netherlands, El Salvador and an Association in Germany. In
1976, Walton was honored with membership in and later became a Brotherhood
member of Boy Scouting's Order of the Arrow. He is a member of the National
Eagle Scout Association and several other regional and national
Scouting-related associations and groups. He and his wife are brothers of
Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity based upon the ideals of the
Scout Oath and Law.
"By far, the most important award I have earned in Scouting has been the
Eagle Scout Badge. It has not only opened up a lot of doors for me, but it
forces me every day to think about doing for others, for being of service,
and about the importance of being a citizen and a contributor in society, "
Walton said.
Walton served as Senior Contributing Editor for an independent journal
called SCOUTER Magazine for two and a half years. He has authored two
unpublished books dealing with his personal experiences as a youth and later
adult member of the BSA and how it impacted his life - and others. He has
started on two other books and is slowly finding the time to complete them.
Several excerpts from those books as well as his own and others' opinions on
various topics and questions facing scouting leaders today are also found on
"The Tree". Some of his articles and postings have found their way to the
BSA as potential parts of future issues of their official publications.
"I think back when the Internet was young, they were all upset that here I
was, explaining how and why the BSA did things the way they did and still do
today; but as the BSA started to get involved themselves on the Internet, my
role has somewhat taken a backseat to some of those professionals whom are
willing to say "This is why..." and then adding, "Mike Walton was right when
he said..." He laughs at that last line.
The Boy Scouts of America does not officially endorse Walton's way of
"spreading the gospel" of Scouting. They would rather that people get that
information through local offices and professionals trained to offer that
kind of information. "It's not that they don't like me," Walton said, "it's
just that they would rather the information come out of the mouth of someone
they can control and pinch and say "uh-uh!! You can't say that to them!"
They can't do that to me....and now, they don't want to, as long as I back
up what I say and illustrate with BSA policy and information."
Walton would not comment on the recent problems between gays and the Boy
Scouts' program, nor on the relationship between the Boy Scouts and several
religious organizations. "Those comments need to come from the BSA and not
from a foot soldier," Walton replied, adding, "I have made lots of comments
which do appear on my website and at other locations about what I love and
what I don't enjoy about Scouting. And nobody has told me not to comment or
say anything, either way. It's just that in answering those questions, I
don't speak for the BSA and if you're looking for an answer, you should go
to the source."
The bell dings again behind his back, a signal that yet another email has
arrived.
"It never ends, and I hope it doesn't. I really enjoy reading and solving
problems, doing the research if I need to and
offering solutions. I think that most of the people whom have asked me
something as Colonel Walton, Mr. Walton or Scouter Walton also enjoys
getting a complete answer -- even if it's not the answer they wanted to
hear."
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