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Top tips from Mesmo Consultancy (and Associates) on how to save time and improve business and personal performance by ‘Taking Control of your Inbox’ and using proper business email etiquette.
Provide time for the recipient is the eighth principle of my Nine Ps of Smart Email Management charter. Yet how often do we plan ahead and think about the recipient of our email? One of the commonest stressors cited by workshop participants is ‘the sender never leaves me sufficient time’ for a proper, well thought out reply.
Yet it’s interesting that when asked to compare how quickly a reply is expected, most delegates say internal emailers expect an instant reply whilst customer’s and client’s time fame is often far less demanding. In one organisation, senior managers said they were often very surprised at how quickly junior members of their team replied to their emails. When was the last time email response time formed the subject of a management team discussion?
Some email etiquette quick wins to reducing the pressure on people are:
If we are to chip away at this current debilitating culture of multitasking and feeling that everything needs our immediate attention, then email response times need to be discussed and a workable service level (response time) agreed.
This week’s email etiquette tips are on managing the response time.
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email overload
One cause of email overload is being a slave to email at the expense of other communications media. As Peter Drucker once said ‘the new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.’ But is this at the expense of the quality of communications?
When was the last time you talked rather than emailed someone? Email is just one of a glittering array of communications media which range from Facebook, text and instant messaging to old fashioned talking be it either face-to-face or through Skype.
After text and IM, email carries the least ammount of contextual information. You have no idea whether I am crying or laughing. Some would argue that you can add emotions with emoticons. But these too can be misinterpreted and most business people regard them as unprofessional and sloppy.
A conversation is very often worth nine rounds of email ping-pong at the end of which the matter is probably still unresolved. Indeed, using an alternative communications channel can be a very effective way of reducing email overload.
Some tasks for which an alternative to email would be more effective include:
Why are we so locked into email? Is it cultural, personality related (eg introverts find email easier than talking). Is it generational (there evidence that Generation Y pefer social media to email)?
To check just how addicted you are to email use our Email Addiction benchmarking tool.
This week’s tips on how to reduce email overload are focused on choosing an alternative to email to ensure that you convey the right message right first time.
Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your opinion on why you feel we are so addicted to email which drives up email overload and also when you have found an alternative to email more effective.
Tags: email addiction, email best practice, email overload
Last week was particularly busy with several on-site workshops for a major client. Last minutes changes to the workshops left little time to write blogs and tweets. There was some down time and I was tempted to go to blog and tweet. However, being in London the allure of the Watercolour Exhibition at Tate Modern seemed much more appealing and so it was. After that a trip to the theatre to see Terrance Ratigan’s Flare Path.
Did anyone miss me on-line? Certainly, no one either emailed or tweeted me to ask where were their daily tips. Had I fallen off a cliff?
This cold turkey experience reminded me of James Delingole’s article ‘Bloggin’s not a job – it’s an expensive addiction’ in the Spectator on April 16. We often blogg and tweet because we feel it’s expected of us. It’s become addictive at the expesnse of our health and well being. Was it better to blog or look at some exquisite water colour painting? For me the latter was a far more enriching experience. It opened my mind to some new ideas and lifted my spirits (not that they were low – rather it set them on an even higher high). The play too had some insightful lines about human relationships and how we manage these.
The addictive nature of all this blogging and tweeting was re-inforced when I walked around. So many people have their heads in their smart phones and seem oblivious to the richness of their surroundings, from the tapestry of people walking beside you to the often exotic window displays all of which can provide food for thought and a chance to think outside the box.
For you my loyal followers? It’s great to have you all, but if it’s a choice between the reals arts and sitting at a computer (or head in my smartphone), then my reccomendation is the former!
Careless emails can be very expensive. Last week I ran a workshop on ‘Managing the risk of cyber crime’. Cyber crime in all its different guises now costs business more than physical crime according to a recent Cabinet Office report (you and I stealing pens and paper from the staionary cupboard). In financial terms, cyber crime costs businesses about £17bn per year. Recovering from a breach of security costs most business between £20,000 and £500,00 according to PcW.
The inclusion of e-evidence can add upto an extra £500,000. Yet as the KPMG e-disclosure report identfied, few High Court Judges really know how to handle e-evidence. Indeed witness the super injunction fracas.
Sony admitted it will loose revenue and clients as a result of the hacker attack on its Playstation network.
All this prompted me to re-visit how easy it is to leak confidential information through email.
You can have the very best technology to scan outgoing emails for content, block the use of unkown USB sticks etc. However, at then end of the day the majority of cyber crime is committed by human error. The most common leaks occur through the following human actions.
How often have you either been trained in email best practice and the law or trained those who work for your business? Probably, if you are like most organisations, rarely and often only after an incident.
There are two simple steps any business can take to manage the risk of a cyber crime attack through email. First, have an up-to-date Acceptable Usage Policy which has been read and accepted by all employees. Second, provide adequate user training.
During the week I will post some simple ways for everyone to help manage the risk of breaching security and compliance. A subsequent blog will also look at the common laws which govern email.
Tags: cyber crime, email best practice, email security
Reduce your email carbon foot print as part of Green Office Week. A free copy of ‘Brilliant Email’ to the best contribututor to help lower the email carbon foot print. Just becasue email is some how invisable it can be hard to realise just how much email overload raises our carbon foot print.
My thanks to everyone who has emailed with their activities thus far and which are shared here in additon to my daily tips on Twitter. Amongst the best ideas are those from Nicky Bassnett at a Manchester based University:
Several people have set their printers to save paper and toner by setting the default to one of the following.
Then there are the well tried and trusted practices of turning off all PCs, laptops, smart phones and monitors when you go home/stop working for the day. This might also help create some me time as you are less distracted by the ping of new messages (text and emails).
What are you doing? There is a free copy of Brilliant Email for the best activity. Tell me what you are doing either by email or leave a comment. You can also take my LinkedIn poll.
Tags: email carbon footprint, email overload, green office week