Nothing magical happens when my Inbox is empty.
There’s no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.
Which means I can decide whether or not to care about this.
And so can you.
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Tag: email
Reorienting Haiku
Unread email piles
It can only mean one thing
I’m getting more done
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Invention request
Could someone please invent an email viewer akin to TweetDeck? This way you could have vertical columns of emails from different groupings that you establish, allowing you to pre-filter what you are seeing and have whole verticals that are “read right now” and others that can wait? Colors, filtering into folders, etc….they’re all not addressing the basic problem which is to pre-apply some sort of classification to emails as they come in, rather than leaving that up to you.
If you think about it, given how much we all rely on email, our interface has barely changed in the last decade. Is there some great innovation out there that I missed?
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Cut away what you do not need to do
Michelangelo would see a block of marble and say that all he had to do was cut away what was not needed to release the statue within.
Reaching your goals is just as much about what you DON’T do as what you do. You can convince yourself that you need to….check your personal email every 30 minutes; log onto the newspaper to scan headlines; watch an hour of TV every night to unwind.
The thing is, you don’t. And if you cut out all the little things that you’d convinced yourself you need to do, you’ll discover a lot more time to do the things you have to or want to do.
Here’s a clue: if you have a gap in the day, what do you do? Do you reflexively open up a browser, scan your email? Instead of that, why not tackle the list of things YOU (not someone else who emailed you) have decided is a priority?
Until I started blogging, I never would have imagined I had time to blog. Now I do. Something had to give to make that possible.
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I have no idea what “DA and Operator Services” are
Here’s the text from some SPAM I got yesterday:
[You’re invited to a] special conference that will focus on defining new strategies to not only sustain current DA and Operator Services operations, but to generate new directions for future revenue growth. We believe our industry is on the cusp of a major paradigm shift. These two days will be dedicated to spelling out how DA and Operator Services organizations can benefit from that change and provide an exclusive forum unparallel in networking opportunities.
I have no idea how I got on this list, and I had to read it over three times to figure out what “DA and Operator Services” means.
Clearly I never should have received this email. These folks bought a list and spammed people. First, they’ve violated the core tenet of permission marketing, which Seth Godin describes as “Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them.” But that’s not my point here.
Instead, I’d like you to ask yourself: how often do I say or write sentences that are the equivalent of “This special conference will focus on defining new strategies to…sustain current DA and Operator Services?” You know, sentences like, “Our M&E team’s analysis showed significant impacts on women’s empowerment indicators and childhood mortality statistics in line with our broader pursuit of the MDGs.” Huh????
Language defines who’s in and who’s out. There’s someone out there for whom “DA and Operator Services is self-explanatory.” That person ain’t me.
There’s also someone who knows what M&E (“monitoring and evaluation”) and the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) are. But that person probably isn’t most people, and you have to be very conscious of when you are and are not speaking to a specialized audience.
In truth, even the people who get the acronyms would benefit from you speaking clearly and using plain English. Acronyms and industry-speak are usually a crutch, and there’s almost always someone in the room who’s too timid to admit that they don’t know the acronyms and what they mean.
Better yet, you might discover that writing (or speaking) in a way that most people will understand forces you to sharpen your own thinking AND makes you a better communicator to boot.
(Oh, and if you’re desperate to go to the “DA and Operator Services” conference, let me know. I’ve got all the details.)
10 Obvious Tips for Email (that most people don’t follow)
Like it or not, most professional communications nowadays is on email. And if communications are about building personal connections and trust (which they are), then getting email right is important. It’s a way to differentiate yourself in a crowded, noisy world.
So here are 10 tips for good emailing, especially if you’re in the relationship business (which you are):
- Never email someone who isn’t expecting to hear from you. Or if you do, you’d better have a heck of a way to introduce yourself. If they don’t know you or why you’re contacting them, you’re sending spam.
- Overwhelm people with your responsiveness. This matters more than you think. Get back to them quickly. If it’s going to take you more than a day to respond, let them know.
- Be personal. Have your personality come through. Really. Give them a glimpse of where you are, of what’s going in the world or in your world – something that places your email in a place and in time and shares a little bit about where your head is when writing the note.
- Use different tones of voice for different people. Formal or informal can work for email, it just depends who you’re writing (but informal still means full sentences). Just don’t be generic. Ever.
- Be concise.
- Be specific. Tell someone why you’re writing them. If you’re asking them for something, ask. Be clear, direct, and polite.
- Assume people are reading on a handheld device – even if they’re not, that will keep you short and to the point, and you’ll avoid graphics and tables and fancy stuff.
- EVERY email you write needs to strengthen and reinforce the relationship you have with someone. Every one. No exceptions.
- Think twice before you reply all. Then think a third time. And never, ever, reply all to say “Thanks” or “OK.”
- If you’re hesitating about sending an email, pick up the phone. Don’t hide behind an impersonal medium, especially for tough conversations.
(Oh, and one more thing that most people will ignore: filing email in folders is for the birds. It takes way too much time, and your email Inbox is not a to do list. Use search instead. MSN or Google Desktop really work, or if you’re lucky enough to have a Mac, use the built-in search feature.)
Slydial: Please leave a message after the beep
A new service has been launched called Slydial, which lets you place a phone call that goes directly to a persons’ voicemail, without the phone ever ringing. The service addresses the silent wish of every teenager who, for the past three decades, has whispered to herself, “I hope no one is there and I can just leave a message.”
The Slydial website describes when you might use their service:
Create the illusion of communication
You maxed out your emergency credit card the first week of school. Your parents are looking for some answers. A text message isn’t going to cut it but a voicemail would mean that you tried calling them.
Wow. Pretty bold to come out and state that your value proposition is to create the illusion of communication.
The number of tools we have to communicate is multiplying. If I want to let someone know what’s on my mind, I now have to decide between a phone call, an email, an SMS message, posting on my blog, updating my Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn or Plaxo Pulse profile. And if I were 20 years younger I could add to that list things like Twitter, video messages, vMix, Bebo, and of course Slydial.
All of this is very exciting, but it also requires a new kind of filtering and understanding of which messages are appropriate for which media. There is also the risk that, as the media multiply, less time and effort goes into composing messages that create a real connection and understanding between people. We end up with lots more information, but a lot less meaning, and we lower the bar on what’s good enough in communications with the excuse that email (or SMS or whatever else) is supposed to be sanitized and devoid of emotion and real connection.
The medium is not itself the problem. But when I find myself emailing someone who sits 6 feet away from me in the office to ask a question, I do wonder if things have gone too far. At least I’m not Slydialing them…yet.