Writing Bad Emails: or why I turned off MySpace alerts

So i get this email from MySpace:

	Birthday Reminder
	One or more of your friends have birthdays coming up this week —Visit MySpace to check out who!

I get it that MySpace wants to lure you back into it’s time-sucking presence as much as it can (especially if you haven’t logged in for a while) but didn’t anyone else give them the “Writing effective emails” memo?

Rule Number One
Don’t send me an email telling me to go somewhere else as you’ve just made more work for me and now I don’t like you. If someone is having a birthday, tell me who. Say, “Jeff is having a birthday. Visit MySpace to send him good wishes.”

At work we just had a meeting about this- should we send you an email with a link to the meeting minutes folder or should we cut and paste (or attach) the meeting minutes? I’m all for including the minutes (or at least the agenda so I can remember which meeting this was for- many times there are too many and the minutes come too far from when the meeting actually was).

Rule Number Two: Be Quick and Specific
Being consise and using effective subject lines is being respectful of your and the other person’s time.

Don’t say use “Hi” or “FYI” as subject lines- use things like, “FYI- todays meeting cancelled” or “Need info from you re trip.” It’s easier for me to prioritize instantaneously when i’m giving good things to work with.

Rule Number Three: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
This one helps you too. If you aren’t specific with what you need or how you need it- you’ll have to assume i’ll need to clarify- which means I’ll need to contact you and that takes (more) time. If you can be as specific as possible the first time (AND CONSISE), you’ll get what you need fast.

Rule Number Four: Be nice! (updated)
Everyone is busy and email is part of that wonderful CMC that is full of misinterpretations due to lost contextual information. You need to be cognizant that there’s a lot of information missing in email- body language, voice inflection, etc- and it may be affecting how people interpret your textual presence.

While I try to be to the point and specific, I also end up using a lot of !’s to help make sure no one thinks i’m being “short” with them. My bf tends to think all the !’s are a little excessive and make me seem like a cheerleader- but I can’t see that as a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with a little (or a lot, in my case) of enthusiasm. There’s nothing wrong with making sure you’re writing effective emails, either.

Happy Emailing. More posts to come as I carve out a moment to write them. :-)