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Monica often writes replies to questions on Quora. Here replies are popular with some receiving over 3K views. Here are a few from the summer.
What is a legitimate use of BCC – in email? For sending an email to a group of people.
Is it bad/good practice to include my (email) signature (block) every time I reply to an email. Good practice.
and a golden oldie from last summer.
How do I write a polite reminder to my boss? Start with a gentle reminder.
Is there something you want to ask? Doesn’t matter how trivial you think it might be. Rest assured others too will be struggling. Either email us direct or submit it through Quora.
Alternatively buy a copy of either ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox‘ or ‘Brilliant Email‘ where you will undoubtedly find the solution.
Tags: bcc, Brilliant Email, email best practice, Email signature block, Quora, Taking Control of Your Inbox
Recently, I was asked, what makes a good email signature block. Here is my advice.
Email signature blocks should be as short as possible. An email signature block is not an advertising campaign. This is best left to either your website or an advertisement. The key point of an email signature block is to tell the recipient who you are and how to contact you.
Key information to include:
Avoid:
Some people include social media presence links which again in my opinion are optional because the signature block starts to become long. Sometimes with short emails the signature block takes up more lines than the email itself. How annoy in that? For people on mobile devices, all they want is the key information.
What is you opinion on email best practice and what should and should not be included in the email signature block.
Tags: email best practice, Email signature block, Mesmo Consultancy
According to recent research from Centrify (providers of identity management services) forgetting your password is more annoying than spam email.
The cost of cyber crime has doubled in the past four years according to recent research from Ponemon. Strong passwords is one way to prevent prying eyes but 
just how easy is it to construct one? Also is it good to keep changing your password?
Back in 2010 Microsoft found that changing security words often cost billions of pounds as people wasted time constructing and memorising them and then forgetting them and worse leaving them unsecured.
Centrify now estimate that poor password management costs around £130,500 per year for a business of about 500 users. How they arrive at that figure is not clear. What is clear is that we really are not good at the basics of identity management. The top five mistakes being:
1. Always use the same password whenever possible.
2. Rotate through a variety of similar passwords.
3. Keep a written password in a master book of passwords.
4. Use personal information in a password.
5. Avoid using complicated symbols or combining upper and lower case.
Security management behaviour can easily be improved although it often takes a cyber attack (personal or corporate) as a wake up call. User education is key to reducing cyber crime. Here are our five top tips.
1. Avoid the traps identified above.
2. Second, use strong passwords which are really very easy to construct and remember. Take a phrase and then build a password from the first letter of each word and turn some into capitals and numerics, for example make your ‘i’ and ‘1’ and add a couple of symbols.
3. For those with multiple accounts consider using some form of password management software such as LastPass or Keepass.
4. Where you have a choice adopt devices which have more than just password protection for example finger and retina recognition.
5. Be vigilant about those emails which grab your attention telling you your accounts has been hacked. Delete them without even opening them as they are almost certainly from spammers attempting some form of identity theft.
Email is often the open backdoor for a cyber attack. For more about how we help our clients to reduce the risk of email cyber crime through email best practice contact us now.
Tags: Centrify, cyber crime, email best practice, email cyber crime, KeePass, LastPass, Password Management, Ponemon, Spam, Strong Password
Training is always the first item to be cut during an economic downturn. If Mesmo Consultancy’s order books (for email best practice training) are a barometer of the state of economy, then as others are experiencing there is a distinctive feel good factor in business. We have had our busiest six months since 2011. Working with organisations of all sizes and from all sectors we are still seeing considerable scope for ways to improve personal and business performance and productivity.
Here is our pick of the top five articles and blogs from the past few weeks on ways to improve personal and business performance from reducing email overload to proof reading apps.
1. The one work problem that plagues us all – and some cleaver ways to fix it
Suffering from email and social media disruption, feeling you have no time to stand still? This is our top pick.
Top time wasters
2. Cyber crime – top tips to reduce the risks of an attack on your business and yourself
A cyber attack not only dents your reputation but can also absorbs valuable time and resources on the damage limitation exercise.
3. Is the art of using pen and notebook dying?
Sometimes reaching for a pen and paper is the quickest way to take notes. No waiting either for the technology to boot-up or hassle if it runs out of juice.
4. The rise of humans: how to outsmart the digital deluge
How long does it take to get back to real productive work after you stoop to peek at either email or social media post? Sufficient time to run five miles in Roger Banister style. To be precise 23 minutes according to research from Microsoft) The moral as we have said many times before – limit all those distractions and stay in the present for at least 2o minutes.
5. Five speed reading apps for iOS to help you conquer your reading list
Many top executives have amazing speed reading skills. In today’s age of information overload speed reading is an essential survival skill for all of us regardless of our position in the organisational food chain.
Tags: cyber crime, email best practice, email overload, Email training, improve personal productivity, notebook stories, pen and paper
Here are our top five articles of note related to email best practice (from tackling email overload to email security).
What did we miss? What was you article of note from the last few weeks?
Tags: email best practice, email privacy, email statistics. cyber crime