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Welcome back to the podcast!
This week’s edition: “The Cybercouth Tiger Returns.”
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from our friend and loyal listener, the Cybercouth Tiger. Today he joins us with more tips for how you can observe common courtesy when communicating at light speed.
Delighted, as always, to be here. Productive U listeners, I come to you today to present some simple methods for minding your manners in e-mail.
When I was just a cub, my mother instilled in me the most basic elements of good etiquette. I was taught to properly introduce myself when meeting others, to keep my stories brief so as to allow others a chance to participate in the conversation, and to refrain from being a snitch to the others in my streak.
In the cyber world, carelessness will allow you to offend more people faster than ever before, but those simple lessons from my cub days can still be applied to help you avoid doing so.
I pose a conundrum: you receive an e-mail from a business associate (let’s call him James) who proposes a meeting to discuss an exciting opportunity to advance on the corporate ladder. He informally concludes this correspondence with the following statement, “Call me to discuss. -j.” Hands trembling with nervous excitement, you lift the telephone receiver and prepare to dial—but alas, you realize you have no contact information for this individual!
Oh, James. Your pitiful e-mail signature offers nary a method for contacting you; indeed, it lacks even your full name. Loyal listeners, I beseech you: take the time to compose an informative and comprehensive e-mail signature to be appended to your outgoing mail messages. Be sure to incorporate basic identification and contact information such as your full name and the best way to reach you. On a business e-mail account, this should include your telephone number, and a fax number if applicable. Your recipients will thank you, and I will personally applaud your courteous efforts.
Now a word about brevity. While an e-mail signature is clearly beneficial for those messages that require a body of message text, let us now observe how a brief message may not even necessitate a body. In such cases where only a short message needs to be conveyed, consider typing it directly into the subject line, followed by the acronym “EOM.” For those not in the know, this stands for “End of Message.” To your recipients, it means, “Don’t even bother opening this message, since there is nothing more to read.” Once they catch on, however, it will sound much more like, “I’ve extended the courtesy of being so concise as to eliminate the need for you to open this e-mail message. Please use that extra time as you see fit.” I feel compelled to inform you that I’m paraphrasing here; I can only assume they might actually be thinking something similar.
(I elaborate further on the topic of e-mail brevity in a recent letter I sent to the computer support staff at Productive U Podcast. You can read it here.)
While we’re on the subject of subjects, I might add this recommendation: never send an e-mail with a blank subject line. Common features in most e-mail applications include the ability to sort and search for messages according to their subject text. Quickly locating a message with no subject can become quite an ordeal. Do your fellow e-mailers the simple service of including some informative text in the subject line, so that they may properly prioritize and categorize your message.
Lastly, dear listeners, we are far past due for a discussion regarding CC and BCC. Allow me to clarify the purpose of these oft-abused fields.
When you include an e-mail address in the CC field, you are notifying your direct recipients in the To field that others are listening in because this message might also pertain to them. CC should not be used as a means of coercion. I recently observed an instance in which a manager was suddenly CC’d on an e-mail conversation between two co-workers. The intent in this case was to notify the manager of some petty squabble that was arising between the two co-workers. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. Don’t simply invite someone’s office superior to the conversation as a mediator.
Similarly, the BCC field should not be used to secretly or sneakily include a recipient on an e-mail message. While it is true that the addresses in this field remain hidden to all recipients, the actual purpose of this feature is to protect the privacy of your recipients when sending an e-mail to a group of people. Wanting to prevent everyone’s e-mail addresses from becoming public property on such messages is an acceptable use of BCC.
I shall now take my leave of you, but you can expect to find me here again. When there is a lapse in cybercouth, the tiger shall pounce! Of course, I prefer to educate rather than pounce, so I will return to share more tips to help you avoid becoming a cyboor. Cheers!
Links
- Create an e-mail signature: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
- Show the BCC field: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
We’d like to thank the Cybercouth Tiger for sharing his netiquette advice with us, and we’d also like to thank you for listening! If you have any comments for us, feel free to share them at www.productiveUpodcast.com.
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See you next time!
Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum
