Tricks of Effective E-mail Users

Methods We Use, and By Which We've Been Impressed

Carol Anne Ogdin
Founder, Deep Woods Technology, Inc.

Introduction

     Some of the best examples of e-mail cross our desktops, and we love to learn from them.  Over time, we've adopted these examples of good practice, employed their methods, and shared them with our clients.  You'll find many ideas here.

     Some of these tricks and techniques are simple common-sense, especially if you've been using e-mail for a long time.  In fact, you may have already adopted some of them.  But don't assume your end-users are as experienced or as astute.  It's amazing how many of them have never considered improving their e-mail behavior. 

Tell Me What It's About

     I've received your message; give me a compelling reason to open it.  Make sure your Subject line summarizes the content in some meaningful way so that the recipient is motivated or inclined to open and read it.  (Unfortunately, the one's who do this best are the people sending unsolicited mail known as "Spam".)

     A message that arrives at my computer with an empty Subject line, or one that says "Help me!" or just "URGENT" is going right into the trash unless I know the author's name.  If the originator doesn't want to make it easy for me, why should I bother?  They probably sent the same message to a thousand other people, too.

     A concise description is the best Subject:

     Subj: Revised Earnings Estimate from Intel

If you're following the Intel stock, then this is probably of interest to you; if not, you can safely skip the message.

     And, when responding to a message, keep the original Subject intact, and precede it with "Re: " (meaning, "Regarding..."):

     Subj: Re: Revised Earnings Estimate from Intel

Or, if you forward the message on to another recipient, let them know you got it from elsewhere by using "Fwd: ".  You might be a credible source for information about "earnings at Intel," but this let's your correspondent know you're doing them a favor.  (Incidentally, if you're tempted to forward, ask yourself a question first:  Is that person likely to have already heard about it?  If your intended recipient is the house finance wizard on semiconductor stocks, don't bother.)

     Subj: Fwd: Revised Earnings Estimate from Intel

Respect Your Correspondents

     In reading your e-mail, assume the best of the author.  As we've pointed out elsewhere, it easy for the two parties in an e-mail exchange to misinterpret and misunderstand each other.  If the message you're reading makes smoke curl out of your ears, start with the assumption that you're not clearly reading with the author meant.  And, if that doesn't work, take the appropriate steps to cool things off.

     On the Internet, there is an old and reprehensible practice, no doubt started by immature undergraduates, called flaming.  Flame wars start when one correspondent misinterprets another, and responds in haste and anger.   The results can quickly escalate to hostile proportions.  It is neither productive or healthy, and in the organization it can clearly be a career-limiting move.

     Flaming is often the natural consequence of not adapting one's communication styles to the new media. One author can innocently write a brief, sarcastic response, which another perceives as a direct and personal affront.   That insulted reader then responds with a scathing put-down.  The original author then writes a further-escalating offensive remark, and the other party responds with an ad hominem attack on the person or personality of the original author...and so on.  Even a simple question can provoke an offensive remark that initiates the escalation:  A simple "What do you mean by that?" can be interpreted many ways, from an honest query for infomation for meaning, to a near-parental challenge.

     If you find yourself on the receiving end of a flame, you have many options:  The first, and often the best, resides with the "Delete" button.  If the you simply ignore the offensive part of the behavior and respond only to more substantive content, it may defuse an otherwise inflamed situation.

     Flame wars usually erupt when there are few or no cultural constraints, nor penalties for abusive behavior. Youthful exhuberance, unencumbered by social strictures to apply reason and logic, total lack of supervision, and a "faceless" body of people with whom to exchange insults offer some people an opportunity to express a sense of personal power that is still in evolution.  Among employees, however, there are implicit standards of conduct and alternative avenues of redress open to the offended party; as a consequence, flaming is seldom seen in corporate communications.  If such behaviors do erupt, it is certainly in the interests of both system administrators and human resources staff to establish, promulgate and enforce standards of conduct.  The customary avenues for dealing with other kinds of abuse are quite adequate to the problem.

Reply to All

     You've gotten a message sent to you and 73 other people.   You have a reply to send  (say, "Okay.").  You see the "Reply to All" button, which assures that all 73 other people and the originator of the message will get your reply.

     Don't do it.

Reply with History

     You've gotten a complex message, and you're composing a reply.   It's helpful to remind your correspondent just what you're responding to.  So, use "Reply with History" or whatever your e-mail calls it.  Some, like Outlook Express, included with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4, make it hard to do selectively, because you have to choose to enable or disable a configuration option; that's poor user interface design.  In many cases, the Subject line will be enough, and you don't need to include the original contents.

     If your e-mail software doesn't provide for copying the received message as part of the outgoing message, you can always do the cut-and-paste yourself.

     When you can, use color to separate the original message from your response:

From: Bill
To: Carol Anne
Subject: Wednesday's Meeting

Would you pick up a dozen donuts on your way
in to work before the meeting?

Sure.

--Bill

If you're using a "plain vanilla" Internet mail tool, you won't have the advantage of color differentiation.  By convention, the original lines to which you're responding are preceded by the ">" symbol:

From: Bill
To: Carol Anne
Subject: Wednesday's Meeting

You wrote:
>
> Would you pick up a dozen donuts on your way
>  in to work before the meeting?
>

Sure.

--Bill

The four lines preceded by ">" represent the text quoted from the originator's ("Carol Anne") message, so the short response has some meaningful context.  These techniques make it easier for your correspondents to be responsive to you.

Sometimes, in multiple exchanges, the symbols can start to get thick:

From: Bill
To: Carol Anne
Subject: Wednesday Morning's Meeting With H&R

>>>You wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Would you pick up a dozen donuts on your way
>>>> in to work before the meeting?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Are you sure a dozen will be enough?
>>>
>>>--Bill
>>
>>You're right; better make it two dozen.
>>
>>--Carol Anne
>
>Okay, but it'll make me about fifteen minutes late.

That's alright, I'll cover for you.

--Carol Anne

Use Appropriate Technology

     E-mail is but one of many technologies at your disposal.   If you need an immediate response, use the pager and the telephone.  Or, unheard of as it may be, you might even stroll down the aisle and visit your correspondent's cubicle.

Avoid Opening Messages

     The first step you can take is to remove the need for the recipient to even open the message to read it.  Of course, if they're smart (and they have the right e-mail tool) they can "preview" the first few lines of each message in a window below the list of messages.  But, even with such a tool, many users maintain a whole window of incoming message subject lines, and no preview window.

     Some messages don't have to be opened to communicate:   The entire message is on the Subject line.  Read the Subject, and you've gotten the entire message.  But how do you hint they needn't even open the message?   Put an asterisk in the front of the line:

     *I'll be away from the office Monday, the 7th

If that's the information they needed...they got it!  No need to open any message body.

     Another way you can use this is to provide a concise response to a message without composing a message body.  If someone asks permission to do something, you can easily grant consent by using the asterisk, your message, and "Re: " with the original Subject line to remind them what you're approving:

     *Approved: Re: Trip Request to Internet World

Mark the Topic Drift

     Sometimes, a message will trigger a tangential thought, stroke of wisdom, or hilarious line you consider worth sharing.  But, it's a "drift" away from the original topic.  Signal your "topic drift" so people just focused on the task can safely ignore it:

     > Re: Meeting Scheduled for Tuesday, at...

Stop the Madness

     Sometimes, messages just fly back and forth with little real content.  You send me something, I send you a "Thanks" message.  You send me back a "De nada" message, etc.  We have social training to make sure the other party is finished before we end the communication; that why there may be a round of a half-dozen goodbyes from your dining partners as you leave the restaurant in separate cars.

     You can cut it off quickly with a short "NRN" ("No Reply Necessary").  I typically enclose that signal in square brackets at the end of the message:

..., so we'll see you there.

--Carol Anne
[NRN]

Please Stop!

     Sometimes, in all innocence, an individual will start sending me copies of messages on a regular basis, thinking I want to see such stuff.  They usually stop as soon as I send an e-mail message about it.  Please honor such messages when you receive them.

     One way to make that process easier is to let people know what "TBNT" means:  "Thanks, but No Thanks."  By inserting that in the Subject line of a reply, the correspondent should be able to figure out what you're no longer interested in receiving and cut you off the list.

Use Precision Addressing

     Most e-mail software provide three separate kinds of address fields:

     List people in the To: field only if the message contains something that will require action of the addressee.

     List people in the cc: field only if the message contains information the receipient may or may not find useful or interesting.   Generally, when broadcasting mail to everyone, you should use the cc: field, because by it's nature such broadcasts seldom demand action.  If your e-mail software demands a To: address, use your own e-mail address; you know you can safely delete that copy when it arrives back at your e-mail client.

     Generally, the bcc: field should generally not be used.  It is usually considered bad form to include people in a communication that others are not aware are being kept informed.  It smacks of a power play.   In the days of memoranda, the "blind carbon copy" was often used to keep a record maintained by central filing..

Use Mailing Lists Discretely

     Mailing Lists, or Group Names, or whatever scheme your e-mail provides for sending mail to a group of people by entering one name is an invitation to abuse.  There are two parts to the process:

Usage

     You create a named list or group (say, "Managers at Wilson St. Campus"), you type in a name, and list the e-mail address of each member of the list.  Some e-mail systems even allow you to include one list inside another (so that, for example, "Managers at Wilson St. Campus" could be one of the members of "Corporate Managers", along with managers from other sites).

     Once the list is created, you simply use its name as an e-mail address, along with any individuals or other group names you choose.  The e-mail system automatically expands the group down to the level of each individual e-mail address, and sends the mail message to each.

Abuse

     Now, imagine a group of, say, 100 people, all members of a project.  It is quite appropriate to send an e-mail message to the group, addressed on the To: line, announcing an all-hands staff meeting.  On the other hand, if a particular message is to be addressed to a significant number of them (say, half), it it definitely not appropriate to use the list (group) name.

     Another potential abuse of the list is when a subset of the list (group) members are expected to take action, and the rest are merely to be informed.   Do you name the list (group) on the To: line, or the cc: line?  The answer:  Definitely neither.  Don't use a list or group in this case, or create new lists for that purpose.  By simply listing everyone in the group on the To: line, an large number of people are going to have to open and read an irrelevant message, and that costs money.

Maintenance

     The other source of problems with mailing lists and groups is when people are taught how to add people to a list, without knowing how to delete them from the list.  I'm of the opinion that people should learn how to delete before they're taught to add.  I was once on a "Volleyball" group at one client's factory for months because the person who'd erroneously added my name didn't know how to take me off that list.

Honoring Requests

Getting Methods Adopted

     If you appreciate these tricks, techniques and methods, you can start using them immediately in your own e-mail.  You might even be able to get your near-neighbors and immediate colleagues to adopt them, too.  However, getting a few hundred or thousand employees to adopt these methods will require more than just publishing them and expecting change.