Sunday, September 16, 2007
Tough Love for Email
Web Worker Daily: "Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson suggests another approach to taming the email monster: ruthless brevity. In common with our own Anne Zelenka, he’s come to the conclusion that emails should be short instead of nice, but Mike has taken this a step further by instituting a formal policy for his own outgoing messages: they’re all five sentences or less."
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5 comments:
What a funny concept, although smart I think. I know I always put off emails because I feel like I have to respond fully to what somebody wrote and it seems really daunting. Although, that's usually because I've recieved an email that's way too long.
Then again, a long email can be nice, more personal. I guess technology today has its pros and cons in that respect: it's terrible when it takes over your life, when you feel tied to your email or vocie messages or something; it's great when personal contact is so easy and accessible, when we can stay connected to people accross long distances and get a hold of each other when we need to without telegrams or messengers on horseback.
However, when it comes to professional life, I think keeping it short is a good rule of thumb.
Personally, I would as soon write a letter for personal correspondence if anyone would take it upon themselves to write back. Of course, this is coming from someone who prefers text messages to the phone
Because most emails are not permanent documents, I don't feel they need any formality when writing them. Even when I worked for an office in Philadelphia, they didn't care how formal the email was, as long as all grammer and spelling was correct and that I signed my name. Emails should be universally known as informal means of communication. This "five sentence" rule is really unnecessary. Just get straight to the point. Period.
So this is where Rico go tit. I actually don't think its mean at all to enforce a 5 sentence rule, that allows for some exceptions. Most of the time thats all you actually need to get the message across and the rest is just fluff. I think this rule is perfect for businesses and school, but not at all neccesary for personal correspondence.
I think that this only applies to work related e-mails. Why would you write a five word long e-mail to a dear friend of yours? But with that aside it makes sense that on the level of spending time everyday to read everything that is written in every e-mail you receive. That sometimes the stuff that is put in e-mail, even if they are important, do not any relation to the heart of the topic. Ok, maybe not all e-mails should be five words long, but the point to just to get the point. Sweet and simple.
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