Smart Tips for E-Mailing
Are you guilty of sending annoying e-mail? Of course you are. That's because what you (or I) think is cool can drive someone else up the wall.
I have a handful of examples in my recently released "E-Mail That Gets Your Message Across" column.
I sometimes seem to write more than I should, so here are a couple of e-mail ideas I had to leave out of the column.
Don't Be Cute: Do me a favor and save the garish background wallpaper, images of your dog, and unreadable Victorian script fonts for your 12-year old niece. (Apologies to your niece.) It hurts my eyes and is unreadable. Stick with easy-to-read plain text or Ariel font.
You think I'm kidding? Michael E., PC World's Webmaster, once told me about the background wallpaper on a reader's message. The text and background were so gaudy "I had to copy the text and paste it into a new message in order to read it." Ever so polite, Michael suggested that "you may wish, especially for business correspondence such as this, to consider sending messages without a wallpaper background."
One more thing: Stop using those annoying, animated IncrediMail icons. They clutter up the message and the flashing icons give me a headache.
Short Signature Lines: A sig line is cool and useful, and I recommend you have one. A line or two with your e-mail address and maybe a link to your oh-you-gotta-visit-my-home-page is enough for me. Do me a favor and drop the 50 word resume, your favorite political rant, or the multiple-line quote from Benjamin Franklin.
Stop CCing: Unless it's necessary, and I mean absolutely essential, keep your CC: list shorter than the content of your message. The last one I got, from a PR flak who oughta know better, ran three screens long. I saw names of journalists I hadn't seen in years and didn't know were still alive.
You have e-mails that drive you wild? Tell me about them in the Comments area below.
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Steve
The Japanese IQ test wasn't that hard it took a short while to get my brain working but I completed all the crossings and all were on the far side of the river in 6 minutes.
Now that I have done it once the next time should be around 3 minutes.
I am no young upstart, I am 73 years young and still learning.
**I'm impressed with your reasoning skills. --Steve
PLEASE list your title, phone, and fax number at the bottom of your email. That way I don't have to try and find you in the company directory.
Please tell folks (again) how to copy and paste text to their message, rather than the nightmarish text or attachment within the attachment, within the attachment, within...well, you get the picture...eventually.
_____________________
@gzane: absolutely, I agree! -- Steve