 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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Goodreads vs. Google Books
February 13, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Chris
Many people I know use Goodreads as a way to compile, share and review the books they've read, find out about other books, and possibly connect with other readers. I have an account, too, but just don't find myself using it much, either to connect with other readers or to find out about new books. I tend to find out about other books in three main ways: 1. from other people (in conversation, articles, and blogs), 2. from Amazon ("people who bought this book also bought..."), and 3. from browsing at my library. When it comes to the word-of-mouth referrals, I think I am just way more likely to read a book recommended by a friend or another individual I respect (like a NYT reviewer or a blogger I read) than by another Goodreads user that happened to read a book I also read. Sometimes, though, I do want to research a book online that I may have heard about from one of my three main sources. I will often search for it on Amazon first and skim through some reviews. However, I am finding myself often turning to Google Books to get even more information about the book- even being able to preview pages within it. The more I do this, the less I am using Goodreads, so I wanted to compare the two and figure out which features make one a better tool than the other. For my review, I used 'Time Travel in Einstein's Universe,' by J. Richard Gott, as an example book (I mentioned this book in a previous blog post about Mark's blog). Lastly, when you search for a book you haven't added yet to your profile, you'll tend to get many matches back if the book has multiple editions or title variances (Google consolidates the entries for you). 
Click here for full size screen capture. Google Books Google Books was initially put together as an effort to scan and index the world's books and make that information available online, rather than as an effort to build an online social community around books. This is why one of the main features of Goodreads is lacking from Google Books- the social connections made by adding 'friends' and communicating with them. However, the majority of the other features of Goodreads are also available on Google Books. Each book has a profile (see screenshot below) which displays images of its front and back cover, the title, author, publisher, publication date, library of congress categorization, page count, and isbn number. There are also links to online stores where you can purchase the book, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Booksense.com, and Froogle. You'll also get a current price display for Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. There is also a 'Find this book in a library' link, which will query local libraries (based upon your Google account zipcode) for the book you are viewing, a feature which emphasizes the more 'academic' approach of Google Books. While Google Books lacks the 'social' features of Goodreads, like adding friends and the ability to browse their profiles, it does provide some other data which Goodreads does not. Google Books profiles will show 'popular passages,' which preview snippets of text from the book that are most often quoted elsewhere. You'll also have access to reviews of the book written by other Google users, listings of references to the book from other webpages online, listings of references to the book from other books, listings of references to the book from other scholarly works, a related books list, a 'key terms' (tags) list, and a list of other editions of the book that are available from Google. Again, these offerings cater more to an academic approach to online book research. Lastly, the search results in Google are a bit more finely tuned than in Goodreads, which makes sense given that search is the bedrock of Google. While Goodreads doesn't make the connection between various editions of a book, Google does and includes an 'other editions' link within the snippet on their search results page. 
Click here for full size screen capture. Google Books also has an additional view (see screenshot below) which allows you to preview the book you are viewing. Depending upon the book's copyright, you'll be able to view varying amounts of pages within the book. If the book is part of the public domain, you'll be able to view scans of every page of the book, and do text searches within the entire book's text. 
Click here for full size screen capture. Conclusion I'm not sure that one tool can necessarily be seen as better than the other. Examining the features of each really shows that they were created with different goals and users in mind. If the social features are what you're looking for, Goodreads is the platform for you. You'll be able to add friends, see what they're reading, discuss books, and expand your library based upon your friends' recommendations, all within an attractive 'shiny' interface. On the other hand, if you're looking for a more academically-oriented online tool (and the familiarly austere Google interface) that will give you more detailed book information and help you connect to other books based upon other user's info and other books that have been archived, but not a social network, Google Books is for you (and for me, actually). Did I miss any features of either Goodreads or Google Books? Which tool do you prefer and why? |
Tags: social-media software books google
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It's All About Skimming
February 7, 2008 at 11:00 am by Chris
Mark and I recently had a chat (of which you can read a transcript on his blog) about how anyone could possibly keep up with the amount of information delivered via RSS to our computers every day. Every day you gasp? How about every hour!? I mentioned to Mark that one of the most important skills to develop (I can't believe I'm calling this a skill, but...) is to be able to skim through that information well. Good skimming means that you can quickly scan an article and determine if its content is relevant to you, then either decide to read it more closely or file it away for future reference, and maybe even share it with a friend who will find it interesting while you're at it. If you can't skim well, you'll never keep up!Skimming might not be necessary if everyone blogged in the same manner. Think about it: if every blogger decided to post one substantial and high-quality post a week, readers would have more time to digest the information. We'd probably have to subscribe to fewer blogs in order to feel like we're keeping abreast of things, too. However, this is just not the reality. Even magazine and newspaper columnists, who have traditionally written daily, weekly, or monthly columns, these days keep blogs on which they post several times a day (if not several times an hour). This is is just the pace at which information moves now. However, because there is so much information being passed back and forth, it's likely that much of it won't be relevant to you. Unfortunately, you won't know one way or another unless you start sifting through it.  If you take a look at my Google Reader trends (see image above), you'll get a better sense of what I am talking about. Notice that over the last 30 days, I read (skimmed, more likely) through 4,715 feeds- that's around 157 feeds a day! You can tell from the chart that most of my feed reading (skimming, again) is done earlier in the morning. This is a good time for me to catch up on this stuff before my phone starts ringing. Good thing I'm a morning person... Also, notice that some of the feeds I subscribe to update between 10 to 40 times a day! Granted, some of them are from fulltime journalists who are paid to do it, but this gives you an idea of the pace and frequency I mentioned above. Believe me, my job keeps me plenty busy, so I don't have time to settle down and really read all of this content- and I wouldn't really want to, either. Remember, much of it is not going to be relevant to me. But, some will be very relevant to me, so if I don't skim through all of it, I won't find the 'some' that is worthwhile. 
One last point. Most people who value reading (myself included), will be initially disgusted by the notion of skimming as a means of staying informed, especially when it comes to content that is professionally relevant. In this regard I think two ideas are important. First, blog content is meant to move at a faster pace, so reading a blog post and reading a book are going to be very different experiences. Blogs will not render books (actual books or ebooks) irrelevant anytime soon. This is a good thing. While ideas can be batted around in blog posts and stimulate lots of conversation, books are still needed to present ideas in a well developed and well researched manner. Second, the accelerated pace of blog post publishing is similar to that of book publishing. In fact, statistics from 2004 show that a new book of fiction is published in the United States every 30 minutes. And that's just fiction. Only in the United States. In 2004! This is why a recent book titled How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, by Pierre Bayard, shouldn't be scoffed at. Bayard points out that the only way for anyone, especially scholars, to keep up with the amount of information being put out there is to simply be aware of what's being published, because let's face it, you can't read it all. He even points out that sometimes it's more important to be aware of how a book fits in to the larger trends/mood/zeitgeist (wow I've used that word twice in one week on this blog) than to have actually read it. Have I read Bayard's book? No. ...His point, exactly! If skimming is legit for books, it had better be legit for blogs. |
Tags: software books blogging google
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Building Your Online Reputation
January 17, 2008 at 10:00 am by ChrisIf your website is already or is becoming a significant part of your marketing or operation, it is going to start to be more and more important that you are aware of your online reputation. The internet has many venues for individuals to voice their opinions and concerns about your product or service, so it's going to be to your advantage to be aware if your name is being praised, or dragged through the mud. If you're not sure how to do this, here are a few suggestions:
The first and probably most important thing to do is set up an RSS feed for search results for your company name online. If your are familiar with subscribing to RSS feeds, this is a pretty simple maneuver. If you're not familiar with this, start by reading our Web Smart newsletter, RSS: When the Web Comes to You. Since blogs are one of the most likely formats to find current consumer feedback, go to Google blog search and search for your company name (also, read another of our newsletters, Blogging: The Bedrock of Advertising 2.0- it covers just about all of what I'm dealing with here and more). Depending upon your name, some of the results will not be related to you. That's ok- you can filter through these quickly. What you want to catch are the correct ones, so you may want to include some other terms if appropriate. Notice that on the left column of the search results page, there is an RSS feed for your search. By subscribing to that feed, you'll now get an alert every time your query is used in a blog somewhere. Even if blogging is not a part of your online strategy, being in touch with blog activity that is related to your company is essential for both building your reputation, and repairing it if it's damaged. Since you now get these handy alerts, you can respond to posts related to you promptly. For example, if you see an article that is recommending your product or service, or describing a good experience with your company, you can quickly view it and add a comment of your own thanking the blogger for their post. This communicates to everyone involved that you value consumer opinion, and are willing to submit to a certain level of transparency to interact with customers or clients. Keep in mind that time is of the essence, so if your comment is vastly outdated compared to the original post, its visibility will be pretty low. This kind of activity can really help to build your reputation, even if the blog search feed you've subscribed to is not specifically related to your company name. It could even be topical (i.e. searching for 'agency web strategy') so that you can contribute your expertise to the general conversation that's occurring online. On the other hand, if your reputation is being damaged through blog activity, this gives you the opportunity to either correct false information, or apologize if the criticisms are accurate.
Update: 02/05/2008: Here are a couple of blog posts from the HubSpot blog about blogging: 10 Commandments of the Blogosphere 5 Tips for Efficient Blogging |
Tags: strategy books blogging
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Predicting the Future
August 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm by Chris
In his 2001 book, Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, astrophysicist J. Richard Gott includes a chapter on predicting the future based upon the current length of a phenomenon's existence. The idea, based upon the Copernican concept that, as observers, we are looking from a non-special vantage point, proposes that one can determine with a 95% rate of accuracy the future span of existence for any phenomenon.Gott realized this during a 1969 visit to the Berlin Wall, when it occurred to him that he could make a guess as to how much longer the wall would exist based upon knowing that it had already existed for 8 years. He reasoned that since there was nothing special about his visit, he was observing the wall at some random point int time between the beginning and end of its existence. To play it safe, he speculated that there was a 95% chance that he was observing the wall during the middle 95% of its existence (or in other words, that there was a 95% chance that he was not viewing the wall during the first 2.5% or last 2.5% of its existence). Ok, so what's so special about that? Gott reasoned, then, that he could use these percentages relative to the amount of time the wall had already existed to predict how much longer it might exist. 
Left is a diagram of several phenomena and their potential future lifespans based upon Gott's Copernican prediction method, which he submitted for the January 2000 issue of Time magazine. He uses the 95% chance that (in the year 2000) he was observing these things from a random point during the middle 95% of their existence to estimate how much longer they might exist. According to this method, the internet, based upon its 31 years of existence in 2000 was 95% likely to exist for more than .75 more years but less than 1,209 more years. I have added Newfangled Web Factory with today's 2007 predictions to the list. According to this formula, Newfangled will have a greater potential future lifespan in 2010 because it will have existed for longer then than it has now.Note that the longer something exists, the longer it is likely to exist! As Gott puts it, "Things that have been around for a long time tend to stay around for a long time." Incidentally, he cites the original list of the 7 Wonders of the World, cited in approximately 150 C.E. during the time of Antipater of Sidon, as an example: "Two of the Seven Wonders (the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes) no longer existed at the time the list was made, but five still did: the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Pharos of Alexandria, and the pyramids of Egypt. Of the first four wonders that had each been in existence for less than 400 years at the time the list was made, not one is still here today. But the oldest, the pyramids, which were then 2,400 years old, have survived." I'll take this opportunity to point out that Newfangled's 12-year lifespan puts it in 'pyramidian' scale in terms of web development companies! |
Tags: books newfangled the-future
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The Accuracy of the Mean (or on The Wisdom of Crowds)
July 26, 2007 at 8:00 pm by Chris
The general premise of the book is that accuracy tends to increase as the sources of input grows. So, if many individuals are asked to guess, for example, the weight of an ox, the mean of their collective responses will tend to be much more accurate than any single response. The Ox example, by the way, refers to a specific historical anecdote involving Sir Francis Galton, a 19th century proponent of eugenics, who happened upon a local town fair at which many people were asked to guess the weight of an ox. The crowd's collective guess at the ox's weight was 1187 pounds- just 1 pound off from its actual weight of 1188 lbs! While this may not have fully thwarted his ideas of eugenics as they relate to individuals, it suggested something new about collective 'intelligence.'
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Tags: social-media audio books
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