Showing items posted by Dr Monica Seeley - 353 found.

Start the Year with a Clean Inbox

Posted Thursday January 2nd, 2014, 4:14 pm by

Clean Inbox Week 2014

Would you like to start the year with a clean inbox and learn how to keep it clean and reduce email overload?   Join Mesmo Consultancy for the 7th International Clean Out Your Inbox week January 20 to 24.  This year the email babes (Marsha Egan and myself) are thrilled to be joined by Steuart Snooks, Australia’s leading email management expert.We have created a dedicated Facebook page from which you will be able to access lots of new materials (from tips and hints to interviews with other leading email management experts).  This is in addition to the daily blogs and Twitter tips to help you each day.

 

 

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Click here to join our Facebook page and Like us please.

Twitter_logo_blueFollow me on Twitter (as Emaildoctor) using #cleaninbox.

 

More details to follow next week.  Meanwhile, happy new year and thank you for your support during 2013.  It was much appreciated.  We look forward to seeing you in 2014.

 

 

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Top five tips to improve email cyber security over Christmas

Posted Saturday December 21st, 2013, 6:59 pm by

Here are our top five tips to help you relax and reduce the risk of  cyber crime happening to either you or your business for example, identity theft, denial of service, loss of sensitive data and home burglary etc. The key is to disconnect but if you find that hard then be discrete about what you say and post.

  1. Go ‘cold turkey’ over the holiday, at least on Christmas and Boxing Day.Christmas image 1
  2. Set a safe and simple Out of Office.
  3. Avoid posting on social media sites about presents and where you will be, especially if you are going away.
  4. Watch out for unusual emails which will probably be phishing emails taking you to bogus websites that may capture your personal details.
  5. Never email under the influence of drink – when your judgement and vision could be impaired.

For some more suggestions on how reduce email overload overload and to take time our from the digital world and especially from email click here to see my latest blog on Huffington.co.uk.  The article also contains ways to re-balance your work-life balance and reduce stress.

If all else fails you might want to check your level of email addiction click here to start.  At Mesmo Consultancy have helped may business people reduce their level of email addiction and improve their work-life balance.  Call us for an informal discussion about how we can help you.

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Smart email security

Posted Saturday December 14th, 2013, 4:47 pm by

Top tips to reduce leaking confidential information through email and improve email security.  Article published in Executive Secretary Magazine October 2013.

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Email etiquette – does a salutation matter?

Posted Thursday December 12th, 2013, 11:45 am by

What does bad email etiquette cost you?  This question was prompted by the wonderful story yesterday of a French Café who charge polite customers less for coffee.  This generated a request from BBC Radio Solent’s Julian Clegg to talk about whether or not manners maketh man. (Interestingly, a quote from Willian Wykeham Bishop of Winchester around 1366)

Coincidentally, yesterday too I was asked if it was acceptable to reply to an internal email without including a salutation.  All Mesmo Consultancy’s research shows that if you add a salutation and a few polite words you are more likely to receive a reply from the other person than an email with just a one line question. For example ‘ Please can you let me have the sales figures. Thanks’ will engage the other person more than the bald statement ‘Let me have the sales figures’.

This is perhaps not surprising in the digital age where physical interactions are on the decline and we come to rely increasingly on digital interaction.  How we write emails and social media posts is our ‘e-dress code’.  It portrays a picture of you for better or worse.

Email etiquette which Mesmo Consultancy finds conveys a bad image include:Polite

  • No salutation and no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.  Both convey an image of arrogance, I am too busy, I am senior to you etc.
  • Capitals is like shouting.
  • High priority markers and reminder flags built in to an email also convey an image of arrogance and trying to pull rank.

In the lean world of business, we need to draw out the best in the people with whom we work.  Displaying arrogance in our emails and social media posts in not an option.  Moreover in such a noisy world we also need both to make ourselves stand out and find ways to work with those who prefer ‘Quiet’.  Good email etiquette can help.  Good email etiquette costs you nothing (well maybe a few seconds more to write the email) but helps you gain friends rather than enemies.

Use our free on-line ‘Email Etiquette’ benchmarking tool to see what image you create and how well you engage through email with others.  Still need some help than ask us about how our corporate email etiquette training which has helped others can help you win more business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Email disasters -Old emails turn like bad pennies and can be expensive

Posted Tuesday December 3rd, 2013, 6:14 pm by

Email disaster happen time and time again.  Over fifteen years of writing two books on email best practice and many articles, not surprisingly I have files full of email media disasters from the early stories of naughty Claire Swire emails to the more serious ones where Kirsty Walk asked her PA to hack into someone else’s inbox to retrieve some damaging emails.

When will we learn that no matter how hard we try to erase an email we wish we had never sent, someone will have a copy.  Furthermore as we become increasingly litigiousness manyoops organisation now archive all email traffic in and out of their servers. Two press stories prompted me to write again on this topic.  First, there is the phone hacking trial in which copious evidence is email related.  At one point the management team tried to destroy all old emails only to find not surprisingly that they had been archived by their mail provider.

Second, was the recent email trail between Ed Miliband and a senior aide which branded Ed  Balls as a ‘nightmare’.  This was a classic case of not only putting something stupid into an email but then compounding the felony by sending it to the wrong  person!

What can we do to avoid such email scandals which seem to now occur regularly?  Recall the email.  No that doesn’t work as I now have it and am intrigued why you are recalling it.

Here are my top three tips:

  1. Pause before hitting send and ask yourself what will be the consequence if this email is taken out of context?  Is this something that I want other people to know about?
  2. Write a rules which sends all your emails to the draft box before they actually leave your device.
  3. Check and re-check that you are sending the email to the right Frank Smith/Jane Wise.

Most people feel compelled to either reply instantly they receive a new email or fire off an email when feeling cross.  This usually results in unnecessary emails chains which often spiral into email wars and drive up the email overload.  There is a time and place for chatting and gossip but email is not that place.

Do you want to reduce the risk that someone in your organisation will make an email faux pass?  Call us now and ask about how our Brilliant Email Management masterclass can help you and your organisation prevent such email disasters (which are often very expensive in terms of damage limitation PR and putting people on gardening leave).

Meanwhile, dare to share, what are your tips for avoiding an email disaster?  Have you ever been subject such an email scandal?

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