Category: email

Check it Twice

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

About a decade ago, I sent out an important email with a major mistake in it. The blowback was a mess.

Someone I was working with at the time—a former journalist who had both more wisdom and life experience than I had—told me that I was overdue for a practice that she’s employed for decades: any time she had something important to send out, she would hold off on sending it for a few hours or even a day, and come back to it a second time. She said that I needed a structural fix to my process, or I’d make that same sort of awful mistake time and again.

She was right. I’ve employed that tactic ever since and it’s saved me countless similar blunders.

(Aside: the “Schedule Send” feature in Gmail is a nice way to implement this.)

The goal of this extra step isn’t editing—the document is supposed to be finished—it’s simply to ensure there are no important mistakes or inconsistencies.

For the way my mind works, this step is most successful when I look at the “final” draft in a different form factor. So, if I’ve written it in Word or PowerPoint, maybe I read the final PDF instead. Or if I’ve written on my laptop, I reread on my phone (the latter works especially well with my blog posts). And, if it’s really important, I force myself to read the whole document out loud.

I also apply this approach to anything I write when my emotions are high. In these situations, my orientation is different: instead of rereading for content, consistency, and typos, I’m reading for what the content makes me feel, and where the emotional dial is set. More often than not, if the emotional vibe is negative, upon rereading I decide not to send the note at all, and instead to talk to the person directly. Negative things immortalized in writing rarely age well.

One of the deceptions of how we all work today is that all our communications seems quick and impermanent, when they are anything but.

Our words make as much impact as they ever have.

It might be time to build a habit of stopping, taking a breath, and reading what we wrote with fresh eyes.

Meaning it

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

I just received johnson banks’ quarterly newsletter. This is the first paragraph:

Hello

This is the autumn edition of johnson banks did this, heavily skewed to a project that’s taken up most of our year so far. If our electronic epistle arrived by mistake, just unsubscribe and our apologies for the intrusion. Alternatively, if you enjoyed it, please feel free to forward it to others who might be interested or want to subscribe.

The message is: we actually care if you want to receive this note. If you do, that’s great. We are happy. And if you don’t, we care, because we’re not interested in bothering you.

It’s amazing how, more than 20 years after the “SPAM” was first used to refer to junk email, actually caring rather than just acting like you care is still all it takes to truly stand out.

Threaded conversations

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

In my forever battle to beat back my (Outlook) Inbox, I’m in the middle of a tweak that I’m enjoying.

I switched over to show all conversations as “threaded” conversations. This is standard in Gmail and is the default on my iPhone but I’ve never done it in Outlook and had turned it off on my iPhone (it’s on again).

It’s taken some getting used to, but one week in I’m finding getting through my Inbox feels easier and faster, and overall it’s less work to keep track of things.

The way you do this on Outlook is under the “View” menu, click on “Show Conversations.” As a bonus click on “Show Messages from Other Folders” and then you’ll see your own sent replies as well as any filed messages (if you file into folders, which I don’t).

Show conversations_1

It takes some getting used to, especially because in Outlook there’s no “RE:” in the subject line, so everything feels like a new message. That’s confusing but otherwise I like it.

THE SAME SUBJECT LINE

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Every time you send an email you’re asking someone to make a decision.

Open this now or later.

Prioritize it or put in the “I’ll get to it later” pile.  (And later never comes.)

When you write your spouse, your best friend, your boss, you write a subject line that will help them understand why you are writing, help them understand how important the message is (or isn’t), help communicate something.  The subject line is the second thing they see when your email arrives (the first thing they see is that you sent it).

If it goes without saying that you would never, ever, send one person an email with the same subject line each and every time, how can it be that I still get newsletters whose subject is the name of the newsletter, conference invites whose subject is the name of the conference, offers from companies with the company name as the subject in big capital letters?

As in: NONPROFIT NEWSLETTER VOL 3

Or

SOLAR INDUSTRY CONFERENCE SPECTACULAR

Why oh why?

Just because you are writing something for an institution doesn’t mean you’re supposed to sound like an institution.  Please, sound like you.

 

Less ubiquity, please

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

My office is in the Google building so I’ve gotten to see lots of Google Glass beta testers riding up and down the elevators.  My bet is that Google Glass will be a product flop, but that it will be a bit like the space program – the product itself won’t sell much or be relevant to most people, but the underlying technology will probably have a huge impact on our lives.

This may be old fogey-ish of me but I don’t believe that it is just a generational question that keeps me from embracing the notion of ever-present, ever-available access to the web and email and apps with the tilt of my eyes.  Yes, I could imagine that at some not-so-distant date all glasses will come with a camera option (the head is a nice, steady way to take pictures) but I don’t buy the argument we need Google Glass because with it we at least won’t look down at our smartphones when we’re at a restaurant or in a large group.  What matters isn’t where our eyes go, what matters is where our attention lies.

And I suspect that over time we will have to re-teach our children the skill of sustained attention, the skill of having an empty moment and not doing anything with it, the skill of intense conversation and real listening.  Did you know that the average teen sends 3,000 texts a month?

In today’s world we all are continually experimenting with the lines between connection / productivity / responsiveness and distraction / rudeness.  Two colleagues of mine suggested the following four rules for managing incoming email and handheld devices, which I liked:

  1. Turn off desktop alerts of new emails coming in (the little box that pops up)  (in Outlook: File > Options > Mail > Message Arrival > Uncheck “Display a Desktop Alert”)
  2. No reading email before breakfast
  3. No reading email while in transit
  4. No phone or email in the bedroom

My own scorecard is as follows:

  1. I turned of desktop alerts for new emails about a month ago and I love it.
  2. I almost never read email before breakfast and when I do it’s a sign that I’m under a crazy deadline or stressed for some other reason.
  3. Hmmm.  I made a rule a couple of years ago not to look at my phone while in elevators, and I’ve stuck to that (it had become a reflex), but I spend enough time in transit that I don’t know that I can commit to this one.
  4. I do have my phone in the bedroom but I can honestly say it’s 95% as a time-piece and alarm

 

In reality these four rules are a really low bar.  Increasingly I think we will all be playing with the limits and rules that work for us, and everyone’s line will be different.  What makes me nervous is when I get reflexive about checking.  That sort of unconscious behavior feels unproductive.

 

I remember a year ago I was on a family vacation and my wife told me how proud she was of me, because one day on vacation I’d let my iPhone battery die.  That should not be seen as a major accomplishment.

Speaking of email

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

What do you do when you’re running around and don’t have time to reply to an important message?

How about: “Thanks for this, just wanted to let you know I received it…I’ll reply in full in the next 48 hours.”

This allows you to:

  1. Figure out if you can just as easily reply in full in the time it’s taken you to ask for more time
  2. (For things that will actually take real time to reply) Let the person on the other end know their message was received and that you’re working on it.

Like it or not, radio silence doesn’t build relationships.

Three email rules and the bcc courtesy

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

Bcc: (“blind carbon copy”) has been with us since the beginning of email (as in this great ARPA email standard from 1977).  Even before email (yes, there was such a time), written office memos would be sent to recipients without letting others know they were on formal copy.  While it’s difficult to uncover the original intent of the bcc: email field, consensus seems to be that it was created for mass emailings to large email recipient lists.

So, how do we use these fields today?

While email tips and tricks can seem like small potatoes, we’re all overwhelmed by our Inboxes and like it or no, email is integral to how we communicate and, consequently, to how we build relationships.

Sadly, people routinely miss the opportunity to be “good emailers” (psst have you signed the Email Charter?  If not, you should and be sure to sign up for their mailing list.), so I thought I’d share three simple email tips that feel like table stakes to me – plus a bcc: bonus for kicks:

  1. Have as few people as possible receive an email.  This is not the same as copying people to make sure no one gets offended.  Just like a good meeting, the best emails have exactly the number of people needed to make a decision – no more.  (and last time I checked, you almost never want seven people to make a decision).
  2. Use the subject line to communicate something.  People are generally terrible about this (e.g. email chains that go on for weeks titled “RE: question.”)  Write specific email Subject lines and don’t be afraid in your reply to re-title emails you receive (e.g. take that RE: question email and turn it into “June 5th breakfast details [Re: question].”)  Occasionally I’ll even dip into the convention-breaking practice of letting someone know that I’m emailing just them to help a note stand out from the crowd (e.g. “Pankaj – June 5 breakfast”).
  3. Differentiate between the To: and Cc: fields.  To me, the To: field means “I expect a reply from you” and Cc: means “I don’t expect a reply from you but you do need to know about this.”

So what do we do about bcc:, that murky backwater of email etiquette?

Recently I’d been evolving to the conclusion that bcc: should be avoided altogether.  It feels sneaky (by definition the recipient doesn’t know you’ve done it).  And even if you don’t care about that email moral high ground, there’s the practical risk of the bcc: recipient replying all, which is never a good thing.  So “secret” bcc: is off my list of good email practice.  If you need someone to see a note you can just forward it from your Sent mail.

Lately though I’ve started to observe a use of bcc: that increases email peace and harmony. It works like this.  Say a (small!) group of people is copied on an email introduction:

e.g. Christine is being introduced to Joaquim by Alejandro.

Alejandro writes an email to Christine and Joaquim, maybe others are copied for some reason.

Now, Christine and Joaquim both want Alejandro to know how much they appreciate the introduction AND to communicate that they’ve not dropped the ball.  So naturally they ‘Reply All’ on this note, which is all well and good until 17 emails go back and forth and poor, well-intentioned Alejandro (and maybe a score of other folks) is copied on this whole mess for weeks on end.

The new-and-improved way to handle this is for Christine to respond to the note like this:

 (moving Alejandro to bcc:)

Joaquim, it’s great to meet you.  How about we find a time next week to meet – maybe next Thursday morning?

Voila!  Alejandro is in the loop for this one step and is satisfied at his successful email introductory prowess, and as a bonus he’s off the hook when Joaquim inevitably replies that he’s going to be deep-sea diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea next Thursday so maybe he can talk to Christine when he’s back stateside.

(you get the idea)

Happy emailing.

LIFO, FIFO, or NIFO?

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

There are lots of different email strategies out there (and it’s quite a reflection on the world we live in that mastering email is a key element in becoming more professionally productive).  You might file or search; you might believe in an empty Inbox or not; you might leave your email on all day or disconnect your email program for part of the day.

(I happen to be: search not file; no empty inbox; on all day.  You?)

The big question is, what exactly do you DO when you open up your Inbox?

The FIFO philosophy (first-in, first-out) has you digging from the back…you start with your oldest email and work backwards.  I suspect this is an uncommon strategy for all but the most avid empty-inboxers.

LIFO (last-in, first-out), conversely, has you start with whatever came in most recently.  It’s tempting and rewarding and, I suspect, a terrible strategy most of the time – instant gratification disguising itself as productivity.

I’d propose a NIFO strategy instead: none-in, first out.  That is, you open your email because you have something specific to get done, someone you want to reach out to, a very important action that you want to initiate.

Since you have many very important things to do (customers to call on, projects that you are moving forward, etc.), starting with these, rather than starting with replying to whatever everyone else wants you to do, allows you to own your agenda rather than have your agenda own you; it ensures that when you run out of “email time” (as you inevitably will) that the things that are left off the list aren’t the five most important things you have to do; and if you’re disciplined about this you’ll never dive into email just to empty your inbox…you’ll start with actions you want to initiate and then (and only then) will get to “replying all.”

Spam tax

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Somehow the spam I’m getting is getting better with subject lines that make me open the message (hmmm, maybe they’re reading some of my posts!). Things like “Can we meet this week?” and “Following up about next week’s lunch.”

I’m a huge, huge fan of Chris Anderson’s email charter and believe that there’s a LOT we can do to free ourselves from the non-spam email onslaught by changing our own behaviors and expectations.

But spam is still a huge amount of all email sent (as much as 90% in 2009, though it has been dropping lately), and spam that’s getting through my (and your) email filter is getting smarter every day.

So here’s an idea: create a $0.10 spam tax that is platform-independent (works on Google as well as Outlook).  If an email recipient hits the “report spam” button:

  • They are automatically unsubscribed from that email list (this may be difficult to implement, but if possible it would prevent abuse of the “tax them” link while also killing two birds with one stone – unsubscribing + tax)
  • If more than a certain number of people (100) qualify an email as spam, the tax kicks in (again to prevent frivolity)
  • Implement this universally with a single searchable web-based database of spammers, also listed tax paid, etc.

There’s some work to be done to make the tax big enough to have this be a real deterrent – ideally the tax level would be greater than what spammers pay to buy my email address.

This feels like a pipe dream, but maybe someone can take the idea and make it better.

My Outlook “Block sender” button doesn’t feel like enough any more, since these people are actively cutting into my (and your) productive time, and it would be of great public value to architect a “sin tax” that puts a damper on this.

For the comments section: what would you do with the money collected through this tax?