Geek Reads, Summer 2007.2: Send
This article was originally posted on August 06, 2007.
In 1959, William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White published a helpful guide to anyone who cares about the written English word. It was called “The Elements of Style,” and it is the most concise and helpful style guide ever published (in the opinion of your humble scribe.) David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, of the New York Times and Hyperion Books, respectively, have attempted to do the same with e-mail in their book “Send: The Essential Guide to e-Mail for Office and Home.”
As someone who uses e-mail almost constantly for work and considers himself reasonably knowledgeable about good and bad e-mail behavior, I wasn’t expecting to find many nuggets of practical knowledge in this book, but I did and I’ve already put some to use, to wit:
- Have clarity in your subject line. “Rescheduling our Tuesday meeting to 10 am” is a lot more likely to be read than “FYI,” even if the body of the e-mail is the same.
- Use mirroring. It is hard to relate tone clearly in e-mail, so mirroring the other person’s degree of formality, brevity, style of greeting, etc. is almost always useful.
- Understand your relationship to your audience. You would speak differently to the CEO than a buddy you are planning to meet for happy hour. Write accordingly.
- Make sure e-mail is the right medium for the message. Many topics are best handled via face-to-face meeting, phone, IM, or a good, old-fashioned letter.
- Never put anything into e-mail that you wouldn’t want a jury to read. Remember Elliott Spitzer’s advice, and that “SEND” is a four-letter word for a reason.
Although I don’t agree with everything they wrote (e.g., their advice on not using “please” and “thank you” in e-mail), I found this to be a nice reminder about good e-mail habits. Check out http://www.thinkbeforeyousend.com for additional details as well.
Originally published at https://mikegil.typepad.com.
