“Thank you for your message. I am out of the office with limited access to email. Please contact my colleague…..” In these days of widespread mobile broadband and WiFi coverage, just being out of the office shouldn’t really make any difference to your ability to deal with emails. Here in the U.K., 47 of the 50 handsets listed in O2’s brochure claim to be able to access email.

Ironically, out-of-office emails are widely used by people attending major mobile industry events. Here are a couple of typical out-of-office messages I received earlier this year:

“I will be at CTIA the week of March 22nd with limited email access.”

“At Mobile World Congress, Feb 14-18, with limited access to email… if urgent, please call or SMS my mobile.”

Paradoxically, it is often easier to exchange emails, which are sent as and when a connection becomes available, than to make or receive a phone call at the Congress and, particularly, CTIA, where the U.S. networks seem to get overloaded pretty quickly.

Stranger still, are the out-of-office messages from people working in the mobile industry that simply read: “I am out of the office with limited or no access to email….” Have they really gone somewhere without mobile coverage or do they think their emails aren’t worth the data roaming or WiFi charges that they’ll have to pay to read them on the road? Or, perhaps, they haven’t figured out how to access email on their mobile handset. Either way, this kind of message doesn’t make them sound like an enthusiast for things mobile.

I can’t respond to your email because I’m thinking

As email isn’t typically used for really urgent missives, you only really need to be able to check your inbox once a day. Most business travellers should be able to manage that. The only time an out-of-office email really makes sense is when you are actually on vacation. But be honest. Better to be clear that you aren’t working and that is why you won’t be responding to emails. If you think your colleagues, clients or customers will frown on you taking a holiday, then you can always say you are on a “retreat”, a “brainstorm” or a “think week” and that you won’t be checking email regularly.

While that might sound a bit lame, Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men and former CEO of Microsoft, would set aside two think weeks a year in which he would read papers by Microsoft researchers and ponder the software giant’s future. Gates would hide away in a secluded cottage where he wouldn’t be interrupted. If you choose your words carefully, you too can position reading Ian McEwan on the beach as a “think week”. But be warned – a careless status update on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter by you or one of your friends could easily reveal that your “reflective retreat” is actually a wild and hedonistic holiday.

In any case, it really isn’t credible any more for anyone in the mobile industry to claim that they have no, or limited, access to email. Better to say: I am out of the office with full access to email, but I need some time to think.