How much time is invested @ work everyday in reading/replying our emails? Well, I do put (off-late) significant hours in mail management; some days all 8 hours are spent in reverting to people through this medium.
Chris Anderson (or Ted Chris as we all know him) has initiated “Email Charter” by declaring war against current use/abuse of emails. In simple words Ted recommends tweeting in emails – “Short is not rude; acronyms are ace Ventura” are his mantra. Smart initiative and sooner or later will catch up like fire in Amazon.
Looking back @ the evolution of communication – couple of decades ago it’s all about pages and pages of letters and few stamps. I still remember drawing letters to my BFF in school. The more the pages, the more love and affection we shared. Simple times!! “There are rules in writing letter. It needs to be well-addressed, polite and kind, exemplary and explanatory” – I recall my English mam Vanaja teaching us the principles of letter writing. Long bygone is the magical era of using pen and paper to vent our emotions. In no time we succumbed to the technology explosion and from emails we quickly shifted to chat and inherited OMGs, BRBs and ofcourse the smileys.
Now we are looking forward to incorporate an ensemble of chat and tweet in an email.
The forgotten phenomenon here is “Communication is an art”; and when it is not eye-to-eye and verbal, it becomes a Picasso task. The crux is simple:-
- Setting up the tone
- Convey the message in exact
When the above is lost, the below happens.
Wrong tone – We have no idea in what mind-set our “To-list” members are, when they open our emails. They may have got bitten by someone @ work, or have just experienced a passive aggression from the better half or may be incurred heavy loss in share trading. In totality, the timing is wrong and prep work for fireball is done. Few a times even my honest request was considered sarcastic by some recipients. Mention not the replies we get back – those are "FIREBALLS"; and subsequently your balls are on fire. The scale of fire depends on how much principles you are taught in response and how many more members are included in the CC.
Interestingly, people who do not speak up in person, show huge guts through emails. Avoiding confronting people eye-to-eye gives them the license for aggression. Trust me, face-to-face arguments can have a speedy recovery, but words inscribed in emails can be re-lived again and again.
Message forever –
Messages which run pages and pages are “BLUNT KNIVES” – that’s what we call them. Their mission is to kill you.
Messages which run pages and pages are “BLUNT KNIVES” – that’s what we call them. Their mission is to kill you.
- They WILL hurt you
- You WILL bleed
- But you wont die immediately
How far the knife is blunt? – Well it depends on whether it has attached documents or not.
Common misconception of these email originators are, the longer their emails, the more information and authority towards that information they possess. They will have loose ends in their big emails, things will be subject to interpretation and by the time we complete reading, we would have lost 30 minutes of our life and won’t remember where the pain actually started.
