Posts Tagged 'email'

Can’t they read?! – Take 2

Posted on November 7th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I’ve pointed out that people don’t read the emails they’re replying to… and here is one more common manifestation of this: when you send someone an email asking two or three questions, you can be almost certain the reply will only address the first one. The recipient reads your mail, hits a question, responds to it and moves to another message. Then you need to write them another message to get the other items addressed (and create more overload for both parties). This being the universal case, there are steps you can take to defend against this tendency (besides sending.. Read more

Can’t they read?!

Posted on October 28th, 2011 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

The intent of email is to facilitate communication. Right? So – someone mails me to ask to meet Tuesday. I send a reply: I can’t meet  Face to Face that day, so let’s do it by phone – can you do it at 3 PM? The reply I get says: If it’s FTF I can’t, can we do it on the phone? This happens all the time: you explicitly write something – and your correspondent acts as if it weren’t there. Can’t they read?! Truth is, they can read all right, but they have so many emails, so little time,.. Read more

Cues for useless email?

Posted on September 28th, 2011 · Posted in Organizational Solutions

One of the slides in my Information Overload lecture analyzes the root causes of sending useless email, and goes into the very human motivators stemming from mistrust in many corporate cultures. One of these is CYA – sending mail, or copying too many people on it, to cover one’s backside. So in a recent lecture one of my audience, not being a native English speaker, raised her hand and asked what CYA meant. I translated it for her and explained how people might send mail to people who had no need for it merely to cover themselves from any objection… Read more

How ignorance can lead to Information Overload

Posted on September 13th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was discussing Email Overload with a friend of mine who is a veteran manager at an international hi-tech company, and he made an interesting observation. His company, he said, is large enough that many email senders have no idea who should be copied on their messages; they can’t be sure who “needs to know”, so they just CC everyone who is remotely likely to be involved. Basically, they are replacing “Need to Know” with “Might possibly need to know”. Of course, although these folks think “better safe than sorry”, they should be very sorry – the recipients that don’t.. Read more

The innocence of youth

Posted on September 4th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was having coffee with a colleague I go back a long way with, and he told me of his first encounter with email. He had just joined Intel (in Israel) in 1988, and his boss showed him his new cubicle, his desk, and his computer, on which he demonstrated the email application. My friend came from a workplace where there was no such thing, and the following conversation ensued, more or less: My friend: What is this for? His boss: well, if you want to write something to someone, you write it in this window, add the person’s name.. Read more

Yes, I do!

Posted on July 2nd, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

An attendee at a lecture at a multinational tech company pointed out to me that part of his problem with email overload stems from situations where he is part of a functional distribution list, say “All Engineering”. Some messages to the entire group he does need, but there are other specific recurrent  messages that other engineers need and he doesn’t. Then when he goes to the sender and asks to get off, he is told it can’t be done – you can’t “unsubscribe” from the list: if you’re an engineer, you are automatically included and cursed for all eternity to.. Read more

Email Overload and Organizational structure

Posted on May 16th, 2011 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I was discussing email overload with two VPs in a hi-tech company, and one of them   shared the observation that he had been suffering from heavy email loads until an auspicious event happened: he had appointed a more junior person to manage part of his activity, and the overload disappeared. Of course one hopes he had good cause to appoint the subordinate to the role, other than to ease his own Inbox nightmare; but even so, it is interesting to consider what has been talking place here. There can be a number of mechanisms at play: The VP had been.. Read more

The price of extreme mobility

Posted on April 16th, 2011 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

Our desire for extreme mobility is both enabled by and a motive of the impressive progress in powerful mobile devices like the iPhone, Blackberry and their clones. We can now read our email messages anytime, anywhere, on these tiny marvels. But there is a price – because the small form factor is inherently unsuited to reading many of those messages. This was pointed out by an attendee at one of my information overload sessions. This guy, a manager at a hi-tech company, was very familiar with the use of handhelds to communicate; and he pointed out that a consequence of.. Read more

What comes first – email or a phone call?

Posted on April 7th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was giving a workshop on Information Overload and an attendee   proposed that email is more effective when you precede it with a phone call. His thinking was this: if you first discuss the matter at hand on the phone, and only then send an email to confirm or flesh out details, then there will be no lack of clarity because both parties are aligned. This means less back-and-forth emails to seek clarification or correct misunderstandings. Now, this actually makes a lot of sense, and in fact I use this system when I need to broach a subject or a.. Read more

Does Local Culture impact email style?

Posted on March 10th, 2011 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I was lecturing on Information Overload at a hi-tech company and when I got to the part about “write succinct, terse, clear mails” an attendee raised his hand to ask me, how would that be perceived by recipients in the United Kingdom? Turns out that they had a workshop on global cultural gaps and it included the notion that the British like to start with small talk and only get to the point later; so they ought to find very short emails rude! Good point, that. Having also worked in a global corporation, I am very much aware of the.. Read more