 Christopher Butler Strategy and Resourcing Hi, I'm Chris. I've been working at Newfangled since September, 2004. | Chris Butler's Blog |
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5 Simple Ways to Send Better Emails
May 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris| When I first picked up Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, I thought it would be a pretty light book telling me lots of obvious stuff I already knew. After all, I send emails all day every day, and have been for a long time. However, I was easily proven wrong. While SEND is a quick and relatively light read, it contains lots of helpful information which I have already put in to practice. Here are five of the main ideas that I'll be sure to keep in mind for my emails from now on: 1. Seniority and "to:" Order This may not be an issue for you or the people you work with. In fact, before reading this in SEND, I never even considered it. However, my feeling is that when it comes to email etiquette, you're better off being safe than sorry. Essentially, Shipley and Schwalbe's point is that when assembling your "To" list of multiple recipients, put the names in order of seniority, if that applies. This is one of those tiny details that you may overlook, but someone else may not. 2. Good Subject Lines This is a pretty simple point to get, especially if you do much with email on hand-held devices (like your Blackberry). Keep your subject simple and on point. If the content of your email has nothing to do with the original subject line of the email string you're still in, go ahead and change it. However, if you use Gmail, keep in mind that the subject line is what Google uses to string emails together in a "conversation," so you may have other reasons to maintain a particular subject. Because we send so many emails, both internally and to our clients, I like to use an "internal" tag when sending emails to Newfangled people that are not related to particular projects. This way, a busy Project Manager can quickly identify my email and prioritize it among the many others from our clients. One of these subject lines might look like this, "Internal: Project Manager Meeting Rescheduled." Likewise, I might tag an email related to a particular project like this, "client.com: Go Live Schedule." 3. To Cc or Not to Cc The Cc field can be a shield, or it can be a sword, so use it with care. Because Cc stands for "carbon copy," the intent was to use this field to include a recipient who may not need to follow up directly on the email's questions or requests, but needs to be kept informed of the information. Using the Cc field can send strong messages, too. If an email conversation with a client gets tense, but you know that you are following the proper protocol, you might Cc your superior on your response. This "shield" approach will communicate to your recipient that you're done playing games and are confident that your superior will back you up if needed. If you do this, be sure you're in the right. On the other hand, if your email is accusatory or corrective toward your recipient and you Cc someone else, you clearly have your "sword" drawn. Be sure you're ready for battle. Lastly, I think it's polite to inform your recipient that you are Cc'ing someone else, and why. If the Cc'ed address is foreign to your recipient, they could immediately be on the defensive even if the don't need to be. In my example below, notice that if I didn't let "Ralph" know why I was Cc'ing Mark, he might get defensive and assume it was a passive aggressive way of complaining about the schedule being off. To: Ralph 4. "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld was given a hard time for this quote, but he's actually right. In fact, one of Eric's favorite quotes ("The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." ) points out that we often assume we know things that we don't, or that others know things that they don't. It's good to know that there are things you don't know- thanks, Rummy! This problem runs rampant in email, so never assume that the recipient of your message will know what you're talking about. Unfortunately, writing a huge email with lots of back-story won't necessarily do the trick either. Because people tend to get so much email now, thorough reading of long emails is not a guarantee. This means that your job is even tougher. You'll need to make sure that your email as comprehensive as needed but also as succinct as possible. Simple tricks like making sure that major points, instructions, or questions have their own line will make it easier for your recipients to pay attention and follow up. Also, if you are sending the email to multiple recipients, try highlighting particular information for them. Below is an example. Notice how I didn't just launch in to my questions without providing some context (the new employees). To: Eric, Mark, Mitch, Katie, Jason 5. Oh no you didn't! Not in My Inbox! Do you ever get emails forwarded to you that include days, weeks or even months of communication that the sender expects you to sort out in order to respond appropriately? Shipley and Schwalbe correctly point out that when this happens, the sender is essentially taking work from their desk and putting it on yours. Don't let senders make you do a ton of work they should have done before emailing you! An appropriate response to an email like this might be as follows in the example below. Notice how I politely bounced that work right back. To: Eddie |
Tags: project-management email business books
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Quick Book Review: Send
April 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris
I've just finished reading a small book called Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. I'll probably write a larger post in the next several days about email in general in reflection on the book, but I wanted to just quickly post a recommendation. This book is a quick, but worthwhile, read. Send contains plenty of interesting NYTimes-column-esque factoids that contextualize email in the larger history of business and personal correspondence, as well as provides some advice as to how to do a better job using email. I began reading Send with the idea that I had "mastered" email. After all, it's what I spend the majority of my day doing. However, I quickly realized that there were many ways that I could improve. One of the large themes in the book is that senders often take for granted what information their email recipients will know. Consequently, the email itself ends up being quite inadequate and unhelpful to both sender and recipient. The authors recommend over an over again taking the extra time to ensure that an email is comprehensive and clear, rather than always prioritizing speed. Other topics they discuss include the "anatomy" of an email, different types of email (asking, answering, informing, thanking, apologizing, and connecting), emotional email, etc. Here's a review of Send from the New York Times. The authors have even set up a website for the book that includes a blog and some email horror stories. |
Tags: email business books
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Google and Privacy
January 31, 2008 at 11:00 am by Chris| Eric's latest WebSmart newsletter on Gmail has begun a nice little conversation about Google and privacy issues, so I thought I would throw together a few links on the subject: Wikipedia's "Criticism of Google" page This article covers the various criticisms and controversies that internet search company Google has been involved in. Read it here Google-Watch.org's list of 9 concerns Read it here CNet News on Google This article deals with the information Google collects and doesn't make public. Read it here Norwegian authorities investigate Google on privacy issues Read it here Google's Matt Cutts on Google and Privacy His personal opinion about Google and privacy, not any kind of company position. Read it here Here are some links about privacy from past Week in Review posts: Read about the FBI Wiretap being cut off after the Feds fail to pay telecom spying bills. Read about the all-seeing, all-face-recognizing, fingerprint-collecting, iris-scanning eye of our government. Then pack your bags and head for the hills! Read about Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd challenging Google to provide leadership in the digital world. Update: 02/01/2008: SSL Gmail Not As Safe As You Thought! A security researcher has found that even using SSL HTTPS to access your Gmail account -- which was touted at the time as a surefire way to protect Gmail users against attack -- is vulnerable. Read here > |
Tags: privacy technology email google
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Spammy Emails?
January 30, 2008 at 4:00 pm by Chris| Recently, the Greasemonkey script for enabling HTML signatures in Gmail was updated for Firefox, and created quite a stir here at Newfangled. At one point, I was working on trying to fit just about the entire internet into my 'sig' but eventually settled for one that is roughly the size of one of those ice cream sandwiches we used to get from the school cafeteria when we were kids... Now I don't know what to do! Seriously, though, this script has opened up a bit of a controversy which can be summed up in one statement: "Is there such a thing as email etiquette?" I do think that email etiquette exists- the only problem is that nobody seems to agree on what the tenets of this code of conduct should be. While there are some concepts that most people seem to be in agreement about (I've listed them below), signatures seem to be the subject of contentious debate. According to the Technology Evangelist, heavily formatted email signatures are a no-go. He writes, "When you send an email, you are in effect storing information on the recipient's computer. Do you really think they're interested in using their hard drive to store your colorful email signature? Tip: Just tell them who you are. Name and contact information in plain text does the trick. Anything beyond that is wasteful."Mitch Wagner from Information Week agrees in general. He writes: "The primary purpose of an e-mail sig is to let people know who you are and how to contact you. If you're really, really important, your e-mail recipients had better already know that...The longer your e-mail signature, the lower down the food chain you are..."Wagner goes on to make some other humorous observations about sign-off style, as well, and the comments thread is pretty thick with conversation and many opinions on the topic (they're all over the map). So, is there a rule on email 'sigs' or not? I like that Wagner sees some gray area here. I don't necessarily agree that the bigger your sig, the less important you are (he also makes this connection later when he remembers a colleague of his that actually has a pretty grande sig), but I do agree that longer and more detailed sigs will be more appropriate in some roles and industries than in others. He does mention marketing (see this guy as an example) as one of those industries, so I guess we're safe if we want to go sig-nuts... Other Email Etiquette 1. Don't abuse the subject line. Forms of abuse include: Composing your entire email in the subject line, Typing your subject in all caps for dramatic effect, and Utilizing words like 'hot,' 'urgent,' 'emergency' when they are not warranted. Note: This includes any other derivation of 'hot,' like 'on fire' or 'caliente!' and/or combining unjustified words like these with the all-caps abuse (i.e. 'HOT!'). 2. Reply All Issues. Allowing for many to participate in an email string can be helpful, but can also be annoying. If your reply doesn't need to be heard by all, then don't reply to all. If the conversation digresses from the original subject, start a new email. 3. Spelling. Spell check your emails. Note: 'cuz' is not a word. '2' is a number, not to be confused with the words 'to' or 'too.' Similar confusion exists for the number '4.' 4. What ever you decide with sigs, if you have a long string going, be sure to not include the sig with every reply you send out. What are your thoughts on email etiquette? Did I miss anything crucial? Update: 02/27/08: Boxes and Arrows just published a great article that touches on just about every point I made above, but in much more detail. You can read it here. |
Tags: software email
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