Email at the workplace

E-mail Campaign Do’s

2010-08-10T08:49:00.002-04:30

The goal is to connect and engage with a targeted group of potential customers, followers, partners, and other people you’re trying to influence with your personal brand.

So, take in consideration this tips for your e-mail campaign:

* Keep it short—1-2 paragraphs is great.

* Keep it relevant and add value.

* Send an email out every 21-30 days.

* Include 3-4 links to internal website pages, your LinkedIn profile, or articles or other content you’ve written.

* Include an offer only for email recipients.

* Make sure your subject line rocks. Check out this from Marketing Sherpa.

* Follow CAN-SPAM guidelines and always offer an opt-out.

More information...

Overload: doing many things at once can make us less efficient

2010-04-20T09:02:00.003-04:30

(Fragment of article written By John Naish, for dailymail.co.uk)

Multi-tasking has rapidly taken over our lives, to the point where we look woefully lax if we’re doing just one thing at a time.

We think nothing of texting while also watching television, surfing the internet and talking to our family.

Indeed, drug companies are busy developing products to enhance our mental efficiency so that we can do even more.

But scientists are discovering that today’s mania for cramming everything in at once is creating a perilous cocktail of brain problems, from severe stress and rage in adults to learning problems and autism-like behaviour in children.

It also, ironically, often makes us less efficient. Advances in medical-scanning technology mean we can now watch what happens in the brain when people try to perform more than one complex task at a time. And the news isn’t good.

The human brain doesn’t multi-task like an expert juggler; it switches frantically between tasks like a bad amateur plate-spinner.

The constant effort this requires means that doing even just two or three things at once puts far more demand on our brains compared with if we did them one after another.

The pioneer of this research is Professor Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He scanned volunteers’ heads while they performed different tasks and found that when there is a group of visual stimulants in front of you, only one or two things tend to activate your brain, indicating we’re really only focusing on one or two items.

In other words, our brains have to skitter to and fro inefficiently between tasks. But the real problem occurs when we try to concentrate on the two tasks we are dealing with, because this then causes an overload of the brain’s processing capacity.

This is particularly true when we try to perform similar tasks at the same time - such as writing an email and talking on the phone - as they compete to use the same part of the brain. As a result, your brain simply slows down.

Even just thinking about multi-tasking can cause this log-jam, as Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at the University of London, reported a few years ago.

Read more...

Are you a Supertasker?

2010-04-14T08:41:00.004-04:30

Interesting thoughts from Cody Burke, a senior analyst at Basex.

"...We all believe we are special. Indeed, that’s why we would all likely be in agreement that talking on the phone or texting while driving is dangerous and should not be done.

Yet when push comes to shove, we may make exceptions for ourselves, and take a call that comes in while we careen down the freeway.

We tell ourselves that we can handle it, that we are adept multitaskers, or supertaskers, even as we give dirty looks to others doing the same thing.

It appears that some of us are right about being supertaskers, but it is probably not who you think (meaning not you)."

Keep reading...

Are web sources credible?

2010-04-05T09:55:00.001-04:30

That overly broad question is based on the false premise that Web sources are more or less of equal quality.

Instead, ask two targeted questions:

1) How much trust — or how little trust — should one place in specific Internet sources?

2) what are meaningful criteria for answering that kind of question?

But you can learn to evaluate the credibility of Internet sources systematically.

You can do this evaluation by answering some basic questions.

* Who is the author? (individual, corporate, pseudonymous…)

* How qualified is the person or organization responsible for the website or e-mail communication?

* Are primary and secondary sources for claimed facts cited clearly enough?

* Is this website logically organized?

Read other Vincent Pollard's thoughts about the credibility of Internet information in his article.

Information has gone from scarce to superabundant

2010-02-28T08:29:00.002-04:30

Special report from Te Economist on managing information.

Data, data everywhere. That brings huge new benefits, but also big headaches.

The world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster ever more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on.

Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account.

But they are also creating a host of new problems. Despite the abundance of tools to capture, process and share all this information—sensors, computers, mobile phones and the like—it already exceeds the available storage space.

Moreover, ensuring data security and protecting privacy is becoming harder as the information multiplies and is shared ever more widely around the world.

There are many reasons for the information explosion. The most obvious one is technology. As the capabilities of digital devices soar and prices plummet, sensors and gadgets are digitising lots of information that was previously unavailable. And many more people have access to far more powerful tools.

See the hole report...

Top 10 mistakes managers make with email

2010-02-07T14:49:00.002-04:30

Many of us think we use email well. But the true is we don't.

Too many of us rush, causing confusion and requiring more time to clarify misunderstandings later.

We miss chances to build relationships, motivate others, close deals and convey important information.

Usual mistakes made by managers, at all levels:

1. Using vague subject lines. "Meeting," "Update," or "Question" provide no value as subject lines.

2. Burying the news. Convey the important points first: put dates, deadlines and deliverables in the first one to three lines of the message.

3. Hiding behind the "BCC" field. At best, the 'blind copy' field is sneaky and risky.

4. Failing to clean up the mess of earlier replies/forwards. Few readers will wade through strings of previous messages.

5. Ignoring grammar and mechanics. PDAs have granted us certain sloppy flexibility, which means you'll impress readers even more when you write precisely.

6. Avoiding necessarily long emails. Longer messages sometimes work best; they can help avoid attachments' hassle and security fuss.

7. Mashing everything together into bulky, imposing, inaccessible paragraphs. Length does not discourage reading; bulk does.

8. Neglecting the human beings at the other end. Email travels between actual people, even though we don't see or hear each other directly.

9. Thinking email works best. Email is not always the best way to communicate.

10. Forgetting that email lasts forever. Most of us read, send and discard emails at lightning speeds.

Read full article on WSJ.com

Survey of executives finds a growing fear of cyberattacks

2010-02-02T09:40:00.001-04:30

Cyberattacks are a growing threat to the critical infrastructure underlining modern society, according to a survey of 600 computing and computer-security executives in 14 nations conducted by McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Study director cites findings that 50 percent of respondents believe they have already been the target of sophisticated government hackers.

More than half of the polled executives say that their own country's laws do not adequately discourage cyberattacks, and the three most vulnerable nations are identified as the United States, China, and Russia.

Forty percent of executives are anticipating a major cybersecurity incident in their sector within the next year, while all but 20 percent project such an incident occurring within five years.

The report indicates that the growing use of Internet-based networks "creates unique and troubling vulnerabilities," although the authors stop short of urging a complete partitioning of systems and the open Internet.

Full Article (New York Times).

What can be done to compensate impersonal nature of email in business negotiations?

2010-01-28T12:20:00.000-04:30

Realizing that the lack of rapport created through "e-negotiation" could lead to poorer outcomes for all parties, researches thought:

What if negotiators get to know a little bit about one another’s background before negotiations takes place?

To test this idea, researchers paired up students enrolled at two elite US business schools and had them negotiate a deal via email.

To a half were simply given instructions to negotiate. The other half were provided with a picture of the negotiating partner, some brief biographical information about the partner, and instructions to spend some time before start negotiation process.

When the participants were given no additional information, 29% came to an impasse and failed to agree on a deal.

Although, only 6% of more informed negotiators pair came to an impasse.

So, by taking the time to disclose something personal about yourself and your online counterpart, you will improve your negotiations outcomes.

See studies:
* Long and short routes to success in electronically mediated negotiations.
* Schmooze or lose: Social friction and lubrication in e-mail negotiations.

It’s okay to use a computer to persuade, but don’t act like one when you do

2010-01-19T11:40:00.000-04:30

How is a process like negotiation affected by whether it takes place online or face-to-face?

The lack of personal contact between negotiating parties have the potential to act more like a roadblock than a route to successful outcomes?

In one experiment, MBA students negotiated with one another either face-to-face or by email.

When all was said and done, those who negotiated through email exchanged far less of the kind of personal information that typically helps people establish better rapport.

Past research has indicated that rapport helps negotiators overcome interpersonal friction and find cooperative agreements.

Why we don't care about information overload?

2010-01-11T11:20:00.001-04:30

(Excerpt from article by Tom Davenport)

If information overload is such a problem, why don't we do something about it?

We could if we wanted to. How many of us bother to tune our spam filters?

How many of us turn off the little evanescent window in Outlook that tells us we have a new email?

Who signs off of social media because there's just too much junk?

Who turns off their BlackBerry or iPhone in meetings to ensure no distractions?

Nobody, that's who — or very few souls anyway.

Why? First, there is the everlasting hope of something new and exciting.

Our work and home lives can be pretty boring, and we're always hoping that something will come across the ether that will liven things up.

If I turn up the filtering on the spam filter or turn off the smartphone, I might miss out on an email promising a new job, a text message offering a new relationship, an RSS feed with a new news item, and so forth.

Every new communication offers the frisson of a possible life-changing information event, though it seldom delivers on the promise.

Read full article.

Save e-mail for low-energy periods

2009-11-26T08:01:00.003-04:30

Boost your productivity: Do high-yield activities while your energy is highest and save e-mail for low-energy periods. It is the main idea from Marsha Egan's article published on WomenEntrepreneur.com.

We can all point to specific periods of the day when we have great energy; times when we feel sharpest or are most productive. You might feel most productive in the morning--or you might be a night owl who does your best work after dark.

Studies have verified that our bodies behave in biochemical, physiological and behavioral cycles called circadian rhythms. "Circadia," literally translated from the Latin, means "around the day."

So if our bodies work in cycles, how can we make the best of them, rather than ignore or fight them? The challenge is to harness those windows of time to do and be our best. This is where self-knowledge becomes our greatest ally. The key to managing ourselves, our work and our lives is to truly know our style and understand what works for us, our strengths and our work cycles.

Keep reading...

Social networking has crept into the enterprise with little oversight

2009-11-19T09:31:00.001-04:30

Beyond labor productivity...

(Excerpt from article by Forbes.com)

If the multibillion-dollar e-mail security industry has been built to prevent information from seeping out through personal communication, how is social networking in the workplace still going unchecked?

After all, consumer social apps such as Facebook and Twitter provide the same information-leakage threat as unsecured, personal e-mail--possibly more, thanks to the viral impact of broadcasting news tidbits to one's network of friends in real-time.

This question of enterprise social networking security has played out repeatedly in recent months as I watch Facebook and Twitter cross the digital divide from personal to business communications tools.

For the most part, social networking has crept into the workplace with very little oversight by IT because people are gradually--and often stealthily--discovering a second purpose (business) for their personal accounts.

More...

Brief essay about personal marketing through e-mail

2009-11-15T12:17:00.002-04:30

How e-mail affect your personal image and reputation?

So, If you want to improve your chances for professional growth, you need to be more aware of the importance of your permanent marketing as an individual.

The same marketing techniques companies use to create a commercial brand, so consumers perceive it in a positive light and prefer it, can be used by professionals when they look for a job or in their work experience:

Personal marketing through e-mail

View more documents from Juan Carlos Jiménez.

Email signature etiquette

2009-11-06T13:46:00.000-04:30

(Fragment of article by Shelly Palmer)

Almost every email program lets you automatically add a signature to the emails you send. I'm sure you seen all kinds of interesting ones: flowery ones, very dense ones, and the horrifying and aesthetically offensive ones. What should yours look like? Here are a few simple guidelines:

First, every single email you send should have a signature. It should be plain text, so that it will look the same no matter what device or software is used to read it. When I say plain text, I mean just type (for geeks, ASCII text), no pictures, no logos, no html code, nothing but text.

Why? More than half the corporate world uses BlackBerrys to communicate. Depending on the vintage, they handle HTML over a wide range from, very poorly to marginally poorly.

The operating word here is "poorly," so why set up a signature that's guaranteed to torture a large number of corporate users. Overly ornate signatures will produce highly unexpected, and possibly unreadable, results on a BlackBerry.

This is also true for the body copy of the email. Tabs, bullets, any kind of alignment is all thrown out the window and HTML looks like jumbled computer code when it is displayed as text.

Another, and possibly more important, reason to use plain text is the wide range of spam filters that are currently deployed. Many of these filters look at the ratio of text to graphics as a test.

If you're email is already in HTML format, a logo or a combination of logo and your picture may kick you email into the corporate trash.

Like I said, signatures should be simple, complete and be in plain text.

Read full article

Is Twitter the new face of spam?

2009-10-24T12:32:00.001-04:30

(Excerpt from article on AwarenessNetworks.com)

With Twitter being the hottest online space at the moment, marketers are trying to crack the code on getting to twitter users.

Lets face it, Twitter is broke, and in the exact same state email was at in the early days. Why not try to exploit it.

We tolerate a flow of junk because its new and cool. We can easily point to a relevant tweet to justify our obsession.

Spammers see an opportunity too and are mirroring genuine behavior. I see a number of tactics in use.

Don't be offended if you personally use these tactics for your own personal tweeting. Spammers want to look like you.

However, ask yourself if you use these tactics because you are trying to get the most out of the conversation, or are you personally trying to attract followers? You may be a spammer.

Read full article...

Like it or not, email is the nerve system of modern business

2009-10-19T15:03:00.002-04:30

Compared to the phone, it is asynchronous and provides a written record to the sender and recipient for follow-up action or later reference. In this respect, it is much more useful than instant messaging or social networks.

It can be frivolous or deadly serious – it’s possible to be fired via an email, but also due to an email. Many vital decisions are made by email exchange, and the implication of our usage findings is that these may be made on the move, on tiny screens, and when otherwise off-duty.

Whether within their own office or between organizations separated by thousands of miles and many time zones, the sender will assume that all sent emails are received, and that they are read.

They will frequently expect a response within hours, let alone days. All this despite the ease of misaddressing, the hit-or-miss nature of mobile synchronization, the spam filters, the reply-to-all clutter, and the mass deletions required to stand any chance of keeping one’s inbox usable.

For many information workers, the email client is their primary business application. They spend many hours of the office day reading, responding and collaborating via emails.

The email history created by these responses and interactions is so poorly maintained, and the ability of knowledge workers to search for important content within current and past emails – their own and those of their colleagues – is so poor.

In a large organization, several millions of emails are handled each day. Most are of no lasting consequence, but each day there will be a significant number of important emails involving the organization in obligations, agreements, contracts, regulations and discussions, all of which might be of legal significance.

In this report of AIIM we discuss how these important records are being dealt with, what policies are in place, how aware staff are of the issues, and which technologies are in use.

Association for Information and Image Management, AIIM

2009-10-15T14:26:00.002-04:30

AIIM is the community that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control, and optimize their information.

For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes.

AIIM is also known as the enterprise content management (ECM) association.

AIIM is international in scope, independent, and implementation-focused. As the industry's intermediary, AIIM represents the entire industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel.

As a neutral and unbiased source of information, AIIM serves the needs of its members and the industry through the following activities:

* Provides events and information services that help users specify, select, and deploy ECM solutions to solve organizational problems.

* Provides an educational roadmap for the industry.

* Creates opportunities that allow users, suppliers, consultants, and the channel to engage and connect with one another - through chapters, networking groups, programs, partnerships, and the Web.

* Acts as the voice of the ECM industry in key standards organizations, with the media, and with government decision-makers.

Resources about email managment on AIIM website.

Social media drives increased email use

2009-10-12T07:41:00.001-04:30

Despite an initial hypothesis that increased time on social networks might be taking Americans away from their email, a Nielsen research analysis found that the heaviest social media users actually use email more, perhaps because of the steady stream of messages that social networks dump into participants’ inboxes.

Nielsen then examined the amount of time that each group spent on email in the year before the study, and subtracted the email consumption of those who do not use social media from those who do in order to account for possible external forces.

Study found that social media use appears to makes people consume email more, not less, particularly for the heaviest social media users.

In other words, findings make sense because social media sites such as Facebook send numerous and periodic status-update and notification messages to social media users’ email addresses.

See chart on MarketingCharts.com.

Information overload affects us all

2009-10-08T07:31:00.003-04:30

(From Guy Kawasaki's article on Open Forum)

Kem Meyer is the communications director at Granger Community Church. Her book, Less Clutter. Less Noise, helps churches, businesses, schools and not-for-profits find ways to get the word out and, simply, do better. In this guest post, she explains how to simplify your marketing.

Information overload occurs when we receive more information than our brain can process. Even if it’s good information, too much of a good thing isn’t good anymore. Whether you’re an information addict or Zen advocate, information overload affects us all.

If you’d like to contribute something of real value that improves quality of life, it’s as simple as dialing back your own volume...

Life is overwhelming enough as it is. Your business, church, school, or social cause shouldn’t be piling on more and adding to the confusion. Look at your own emails, mailings, brochures, web site, and identify where you need to turn down your volume. It’s the right thing to do for everyone.

Here are five ways you should be looking to help reduce the stress for your customers...

Ways information overload may be causing you harm

2009-10-07T07:01:00.002-04:30

Increased stress, impaired cognition, information addiction...

Most of us already know from experience that the abundance of information we enjoy today comes at a price.

Less apparent is the tremendous hidden cost information owerload imposes on the organization as a whole. But, incidentally, you can calculate the costs involved in the individual management of e-mail.

The possible link between information overload and suicides among employees at France Telecom may be spurious.

Research indicates that information overload can have a negative effect on such activities as organizational decision making, innovation, and productivity.

Time lost to handling unnecessary e-mail and recovering from information interruptions cost Intel nearly $1 billion a year.

Surprisingly few companies even acknowledge the problem, much less make any attempt to do something about it.

Read interesting article by Paul Hemp, on Harvard Business Review Editors' Blog.

But organizations could save a lot of time and money facing internal spam messages, by training their workers to approach written communication dynamic integrally.

If professionals learn when e-mail is better than others communication channels, why, and how to use it in those cases, they can reduce many of the inefficient information flow present today at work.

Yes, I know that it's only part of the challenge. But the amount of productivity related on internal spam is significative. An this is one of the contributions I want to do with my book Email at the workplace.

Questions about information overload at workplace

2009-10-04T09:05:00.002-04:30

Is it a maligned phenomenon?

Is it a cultural crises?

How much distracting information decreases organizational productivity?

How it affects you personally and your proffesional image?

How many information overload can leave you feeling overwhelmed?

Are you going to read all email messages you receive?

Is today’s onslaught of information a bane or a boon?

What’s so bad about information overload?

Interesting conversation with Xerox CEO.

But... Among other things, you can face information overload understanding its dinamic. So, you can prevent a lot of messages that you produce without realizing.

Can information overload produce death?

2009-09-30T16:37:00.000-04:30

The flood of information that swamps your job daily seems to produce more pain than gain.

It’s not just amount of of e-mail messages that cause you grief. It's also the vast ocean of information that invite you to go out and explore in order to keep up in your job.

Researches suggests that the surging volume of available information—and its interruption of people’s work—can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making, innovation, and productivity.

People took an average of nearly 25 minutes to return to a work task after an e-mail interruption. That’s bad news for business.

Innovative tools and techniques promise relief for those of us struggling with information inundation. Some are technological solutions. Others prevent people from drowning by getting them to change the way they behave and think...

The fact that anyone can be an editor today is a kind of curse?

More @ Harvard Business Review article...

Leave the funny out of email

2009-09-25T04:19:00.003-04:30

Anyone who has sent a humorous email that has confused — or worse, offended — someone knows the danger of trying to be funny in an email. Email does not convey tone.

How your message sounds to you when you type it has no relation to how the reader will interpret it.

Keep business email straightforward.

Pointing out that something's funny by using an emoticon can appear juvenile.

If you need to share your irresistible sense of humor, save it for phone calls or in-person meetings where tone can be more easily understood.

More info on Harvard Business Publishing

Tips for writing better email

2009-09-16T08:12:00.001-04:30

Given the number of emails you send every day, you should be an email-writing expert, right? In case not, here are a few tips for effective messaging:

Ask for something. All business writing includes a call to action. Before you write your email, know what you're asking of your audience.

Say it up front. Don't bury the purpose of your email in the last paragraph. Include important information in the subject line and opening sentence.

Explain. Don't assume your reader knows anything. Provide all pertinent background information and avoid elusive references.

Tell them what you think. Don't use the dreaded "Your thoughts?" without explaining your own. Express your opinion before asking your reader to do the same.

Read the David Silverman's article...

When a phone call or face-to-face communication is better than an email?

2009-09-11T12:33:00.002-04:30

How will you decide in the workplace when to use email, phone calls, or a quick meeting?

Remember these cases, where email is not the best mean (the most efficiently means to obtain the best result at the best price):

* To urgent messages (unless there is a previous and explicit agreement with the recipient).

* To discussions or arguments (unless you have large literary skills, in which case you will require much more time writing than a phone call).

* To clarification of meanings or intentions from messages previously sent.

* To messages filled with strong emotions.

* To ironic messages (the irony basically contains nonverbal communication codes).

* To reprimand employees or fellow team members.

You know almost always in these cases, you end up calling your recipients or in a meeting with them.

And I know that every day there are many temptations to write messages of this kind, but believe me, it is much better not to.

In all situations above (without exception), you will get better results using the phone or a conversation face-to-face. Besides, you will save a lot of time and money, and you will protect your relational capital.

Emails versus phone calls or face-to-face communications

2009-09-02T11:01:00.001-04:30

A British study in a company show that 56% of employees thought that e-mail was overused, since a telephone call or a personal communication could have been better.

In other words, could we says that around 50% of the e-mails managed daily in a company can be ineffective (from a communication point of view)?

When we use an e-mail to request information that is very important for us and we don’t receive an answer, we usually call by phone to make sure that the recipient is aware and provides a response.

Isn’t this a way of acknowledging that the e-mail we sent didn’t fulfill its objective, or that it potentially failed?

If we call a meeting via e-mail and the people don’t go, it is obvious that the communication objectives of this e-mail were not achieved. Therefore, many of our written messages are followed by "follow-up" telephone calls which at times become like a hunt.

Many people get anxious not knowing if the recipients understood the message, or if they grasped its urgency. This almost always translates into re-work because the sender invests additional time to call the recipient to see what he/she understood.

In situations like these, I suggest that you act carefully, no matter how anxious you feel, because in some cases a telephone call can be perceived as excessive and inappropriate pressure or that you are indirectly telling them that they are incompetent in their management of e-mail.

The stress produced by the great number of e-mails is part of a communication overload, with serious negative consequences on the productivity of work teams.

Actors in this drama are: Multiple phone calls (at the office, on the cell), text messages, the “Blackberry”, chats, and Skype calls.

See the study A simple approach to improving email communication...

Increased data loss risk for companies

2009-08-29T07:09:00.000-04:30

Proofpoint, Inc. found that US companies are increasingly concerned about a growing number of data leaks caused by employee misuse of email, blogs, social networks, multimedia channels and even text messages.

According to the June 2009 study of 220 email decision makers at US companies with more than 1000 employees, organizations continue to embrace preventative measures -- some more drastic than others.

The pain of data leakage has become so acute in 2009 that more US companies report they employ staff whose primary or exclusive job is to monitor the content of outbound email (33 percent, up from 15 percent in 2008).

In addition, companies are regularly ordered to produce employee email as part of legal actions, exposing its contents to outside scrutiny.

Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of large US companies report that employee email was subpoenaed in the past 12 months.

When US companies investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via email, blogs, multimedia channels, and/or social networks, the end result for the offending employee was generally very bad news.

Email still the #1 threat: 43 percent of US companies surveyed had investigated an email-based leak of confidential or proprietary information in the past 12 months. Nearly a third of them, 31 percent, terminated an employee for violating email policies in the same period (up from 26 percent in 2008).

Read an executive summary of Proofpoint's 2009 Research.

Watch out media multitaskers: Your brain is in danger

2009-08-25T08:40:00.005-04:30

The increasing number of sources from which we get information at the same time, however, may be compromising our ability to focus on any of it and could actually be making it harder for us to multitask effectively.

With e-mails, phone calls, text messages and online social media all competing for our attention, often against a background of television, radio or music, our brains can reach information overload, research has suggested.

This appears to distract us from concentrating on particular activities, and also limits the ability to switch from one job to another — a key element of the multitasking that media omnivores often claim as their great strength.

The study, led by Clifford Nass, of Stanford University in California, is among the first to investigate whether cognitive abilities might be affected by the range of media that people regularly use. The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“With the diffusion of larger computing screens supporting multiple windows and browsers, chat and SMS, and portable media coupled with social and work expectations of immediate responsiveness, media multi-tasking is quickly becoming ubiquitous,” the scientists wrote. “These changes are placing new demands on cognitive processing, and especially on attention allocation.”

More info from TimesOnLine.com->

If you want to improve written communication skills

2009-08-22T09:34:00.000-04:30

A decade ago it seemed an exaggeration to say that a person without a minimum of knowledge in Office (Microsoft) would have many difficulties finding a job; today this is a reality.

Perhaps it also sounds exaggerated to say that in five years it will be difficult to find a job if we don’t have excellent written communication skills (remember that knowing how to write doesn’t mean knowing how to communicate).

It is essential to expand our vocabulary and improve the way in which we structure and present information.

Go to writing courses and seminars. If you can, get a post-graduate degree in social communication, with emphasis in written journalism: given its objectivity and amplitude, the journalistic style is a good writing example to follow.

Have practical books and writing guides on hand. When we write, it is always useful to have references to look for synonyms or to be sure about the meaning of certain words.

Resources I recommend:
* http://dictionary.reference.com
* http://www.wordreference.com
* http://education.yahoo.com
* http://www.merriam-webster.com
* The Element Of Style
* The Associated Press Stylebook
* The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

By constantly expanding our vocabulary we avoid "fillers" and common place words, and dodge being repetitive or rhetorical. In other words, the larger is our vocabulary, the less "blah blah blah" we write.

But be careful: some people use their vocabulary to write in an incomprehensible manner. The purpose of having a broad vocabulary is not to show-off our knowledge, but to have the resources to communicate in the simplest, more efficient way possible.

If you want to improve your professional reputation and have better sales opportunities, you need to be more aware and observant of your permanent personal marketing process through e-mail.

Senders must constantly cultivate trust and credibility

2009-08-18T09:27:00.002-04:30

If people make a special effort in their written communications, they can nourish enough trust, and create a wide contextual framework so that e-mails convey the affinity necessary to be effective, as in fact occurs in many of our e-mail communications.

But for this to happen, senders must constantly cultivate trust and credibility with their interlocutors (key elements of personal marketing), and improve their writing skills so that they can compensate for the non-verbal components of interpersonal communication.

On the other hand, the quality of attention that our e-mails receive, and the attitude of our recipients when they read them are for the most part values determined by the positioning we cultivate as professionals and users of e-mail.

Our positioning (or reputation) as senders determines our capital of credibility, trust, and ability to generate positive responses to our requests, and the quality of our written messages increase or reduce that capital.

As with products, services, companies or institutions, people are more prone to respond positively to people that make them feel better through e-mail, due to satisfactory and positive experiences in the exchange of information.

What is the positioning we form of a person who sends many messages every day, or of the person who never responds?

What is our opinion of co-workers whose messages are difficult to understand, or who send lengthy messages, or always send "chain letters"?

Each e-mail affects your personal reputation...

Essential requirements for written messages

2009-08-13T09:18:00.002-04:30

Body language references are essential to understand the foundations of an effective "mediated communication" through e-mail, a challenge we face to convey affinity and empathy in writing.

The absence of non-verbal and physical clues in written communication makes it substantially more difficult for the recipient to receive the sender’s key information regarding emotions and attitudes. This determines the perception and final interpretation of the written message.

When we communicate by e-mail with people we know, the process is different than with strangers.

Knowing our recipients and senders provides more contextual information about their personality, affinities, communication styles, and intentions.

Therefore, e-mail exchanges have a social and relational framework that facilitates understanding and effective communication.

But there are many cases of misinterpretation, confusion, and misunderstanding of written messages between people that know each other well.

Even people who care for each other can easily badly judge the implicit intention of a written message.

However, people can adapt to the media and make it efficient. There are social-emotional and relational expressions that not only depend on non-verbal communication clues.

That is why many people can in many cases use e-mail very productively as a communication channel. They adapt their language and verbal style to the demands of written communication, according to their intentions.

Do's for email productivity (best managment practices)

Improving e-mail usage at the workplace

2009-08-08T12:12:00.003-04:30

Million American adults use e-mail at work, and email use has become more pervasive with each passing year.

Most work emailers use e-mail daily to communicate and share information with colleagues and clients.

While email use is necessary and often beneficial, many organizations fail to see the serious dangers email poses when employees aren’t trained to handle e-mail professionally.

After all, every e-mail sent from a work email account reflects directly on the organization and remains on servers and networks even after it is deleted from an Inbox.

Inappropriate e-mails —whether sent intentionally or forwarded to an unknown and unintended audience— can mutilate the reputation your organization’s worked so hard to establish.

Believe it or not, your e-mails and those of your employees reflect directly on the sender and his or her employer.

Email at the workplace explains the best practices that will ensure professional and effective email communication.

It also covers the dangers and pitfalls of improper or haphazard email use and instructs employees how to craft precise and purposeful business emails.

Email at the workplace provides the basis for an effective email usage policy for your organization, and lets you easily and quickly:

* Prepares employees to craft effective & purposeful emails.

* Show the factual consequences of e-mail misuse.

* Illustrate how to handle e-mail professionally.

* Teaches how to avoid common e-mail blunders & oversights.

Buy now on Amazon.com.

It is more difficult to master written communication

2009-08-03T11:57:00.000-04:30

There is no doubt that e-mail provides transcendental advantages as a tool for communication, work, study, research and filing, and its influence is growing in all aspects of people’s lives, in all countries and cultures.

However, the process of assimilating e-mail has occurred with insufficient preparation. In some cases, training is provided on a specific e-mail program (for example "Outlook").

In others, there are "policies" on the use of e-mail, but they mainly have to do with the need for security and control of computer systems.

We assume that to know how to write is to know how to word things correctly, and that it is enough to communicate efficiently in writing.

Other times we think that if we write as we speak, we will be understood. However, it is more difficult to master written communication than verbal and non-verbal communication.

E-mail has a great influence in our personal image. The number of messages we send, the way we write them, their length, and even the time when we write them says a lot about the quality of professionals we are.

How fast we respond to messages, if we read them carefully, and even if we send a copy to another recipient, are some of the aspects that contribute to create a public reputation of our work performance.

Read more about e-mail productivity...

Frequent complaints with e-mail at the workplace

2009-07-28T11:31:00.001-04:30

"It seems that Peter has nothing else to do than send e-mails. I get his messages all the time. They are very long and difficult to understand".

"Mary is very inconsiderate: She keeps sending chain letters. Doesn’t she know that I’m very busy and have no time for those foolish things? They also fill up my inbox and prevent other important messages from arriving".

"Joe always copies messages to the boss: He cannot be trusted. I know we must document our work, but why didn’t he call me first? We would have clarified the situation and then write a message with what we agreed on".

If to this we add the great number of "spam" messages we receive, and the number of copied messages that are useless to us, we can understand the increasing stress that managing e-mails produces in our work.

The productivity of this tool is greatly associated to our personal reputation. That is, our effectiveness in managing e-mail is reflected by whether we achieve the purpose of a message or not.

For example, if we write "too many" e-mails, it is likely that recipients will start to ignore them, particularly those that are in the "Cc" field.

If we want to improve our effectiveness in the use of e-mail, we need to understand how they act, and what do recipients value more in our written messages, in order to positively affect their perceptions and attitudes.

Likewise, we must deal with each recipient in the most personal way possible, taking into account the emotional impact that written words have and the structure of the e-mail.

Planning e-mail personal marketing

2009-07-20T11:19:00.002-04:30

First of all, we need to be more aware of the fact that we are always marketing ourselves as individuals.

This means that we need to take more into account the fact that we are always affecting the perception others have of us. We are always influencing that perception positively or negatively.

We affect others with what we do or don’t do, and also with what we say or don’t say. So, we start defining our personal marketing and communication plan with the following questions:

* "How do I want to be known and remembered as a professional?"

* "With what values do I want others to associate me?"

The answers to these questions provide the guide we need on the type of actions we must take to positively affect others and obtain the professional perception we desire.

Second, we need to have a wide perspective of who our "clients" are. This can efficiently be established answering the following question: "Who can speak about me, positively or negatively, as a professional and as a person?".

Our marketing strategies and tactics must be oriented towards all of them. Our clients are the individuals with whom we interact directly or indirectly, who are important to us professionally, and who can recommend us to others.

In a society where jobs are so interconnected, "external clients" are just as important for our personal marketing as are our co-workers, including bosses, staff in other departments, and suppliers.

Yes, this answer is very broad because the most frequent marketing mistakes are made in part by underestimating the range of influence that the public or audience with whom we interact as clients have.

Finally, being more aware of our personal marketing implies being more aware of the tools we use to communicate our skills, competencies, values, and benefits. That is, we need to keep our interpersonal communication channels and media fine tuned.

These are made up by all our interpersonal communications, whether face-to-face, telephonic, or through e-mail, and by the form and content we convey through these means. That is, our body and our behavior are like our mobile marketing channels, with verbal and non-verbal messages.

In this context, e-mail increasingly has a greater impact on the professional image we project as individuals.

Therefore, a better understanding of the factors that make written communication effective will allow us to assertively manage those aspects that determine our reputation through this means.

Our poor brains are definitely suffering information overload

2009-07-16T11:12:00.002-04:30

Scientists fear that a digital flood of 24-hour rolling news and infotainment is putting our primitive grey matter under such stress that we can no longer think wisely or empathise with others.

Researches suggests that we may have reached an historic point in human evolution, where the digital world we have created has begun to outpace our neurons’ processing abilities.

The concerns have been raised by published studies which indicate that streaming digital news may now run faster than our ability to make moral judgments.

Rapid info-bursts of stabbings, suffering, eco-threat and war are consumed on a “yes-blah” level but don’t make us indignant, compassionate or inspired. It seems that the quicker we know, the less we may care — and the less humane we become.

One fear is that habitual rapid media-browsing can, ironically, block our ability to develop wisdom.

Researchers at the University of California, announced recently that they had compiled compelling evidence that even the universal traits of human wisdom — empathy, compassion, altruism, tolerance and emotional stability — are hard-wired into our brains.

In Archives of General Psychiatry, Professor Dilip Jeste says that neurons associated with those attributes seem to be sited primarily in areas of the prefrontal cortex — the slower-acting, recently evolved regions of our brain that are bypassed when the world feels stressful and our primitive survival instincts grab the controls.

“Constant bombardment by outside high-intensity stimuli is not likely be healthy. It may prevent people from having an opportunity to digest the information, match it with culturally resonant reactions and then execute well-considered behavioural responses.”, Jeste says.

This concern is reflected in research by scientists at the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute.

Their brain-scan studies show that, while we pick up signs of other people’s pain and fear in a flash, it can take significantly longer for our minds to develop socially evolved responses such as compassion.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, used real-life stories to induce admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain, in 13 volunteers.

Brain imaging showed that the volunteers needed six to eight seconds to respond fully to stories of virtue or social pain — far longer than their brains needed to react at an unemotive level.

“The rapidity of attention-requiring information, which hallmarks the digital age, might reduce the frequency of full experience of emotions, with potentially negative consequences,” the research paper cautions.

Our information flood is about to become a dam-burst. In 2006 the world produced 161 exabytes (an exabyte is one billion billion bytes) of digital data, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. That is three million times the information contained in all the books ever written.

By next year, the total is expected to reach 988 exabytes. Personal data-consumption is growing exponentially: while Westerners continue to watch an average of eight hours of television each week, the time that they spend online rose by 24 per cent between 2006 and 2007, according to a study by Compete, the online market researchers.

“Our poor brains are definitely suffering information overload,” says Felix Economakis, a London-based chartered psychologist who specialises in stress.

“Technology is making quantum leaps, bombarding us with new things to focus on, but we have not been able to catch up and adapt. Our brains’ attention levels are finite. When everything is screaming at us, we start withdrawing so that normally nice people become unempathetic.

“The primitive fear centre in the brain, called the amygdala, operates in terms of fight or flight. Information overload makes it feel under threat and it shuts down higher brain regions that deal with empathy. You end up less likely to support others — but because you feel stressed, you want to be supported by the people around you. They are feeling stressed and withdrawn, too. Everyone is demanding support and not giving it. The irony of high-speed modern mass communication is that no one is actually communicating.”

More info from TimesOnLine.co.uk

Each e-mail affects your personal reputation

2009-07-13T10:48:00.003-04:30

Your success with e-mail is a result of your personal reputation.

How much attention does your messages receive?

How many of them are opened and read?...

And from messages read, how many of them are misunderstood or need a phone call to be explained?

How many of the answers you suppose to get you really get?

All these evidences of your effectiveness with your electronic mails are subject to your personal reputation.

Personal reputation depends on trust and credibility that we have planted in our addressee. So, reputation is a personal capital and competitive advantage.

If you want to be more efficient with your e-mails you should cultivate and protect your reputation as a sender.

Your reputation is the sum of your "hows". In your e-mail at the workplace, reputation is build it on your frequency, style, structure, grammar ... And on the use of best practices in written communication.

E-mail reputaion leads: Arrives to the inbox before your messages, and remains there after your messages are deleted, either enhanced or decreased.

Your reputation records your past, but also creates expectations for the future.

So, after sending an email, what happens to it depends on the image before they grow.

Communication and attention are the essential components of relationships

2009-07-06T10:13:00.000-04:30

We feel we are truly communicating with someone when we get their best attention and they listen to us. But when we feel we are not being paid attention, we feel ignored.

So, when we communicate, what matters is what we make our interlocutors feel with the way we communicate, which explains that people can more easily forget what we say or give to them, but not what we make them feel.

The way to give a correct message can have counterproductive effects, particularly if it is in writing, so many of the unproductive e-mail discussions that take place in companies could be avoided.

People are willing to accept many of the issues they receive in writing if they were delivered orally.

Of course, I imagine that right now you are thinking that those e-mail discussions are justified because they also cover the company’s need to leave a written record of what is said, and you are right, because many times it is essential to document communication processes. 

However, e-mail communication in companies would be more efficient if work teams emphasized documenting the agreements and learning experiences that were obtained more quickly through telephone or face-to-face conversations.

In order to have productive and efficient written discussions or clarifications, people must have better writing skills to compensate the non-verbal clues that we normally use in face-to-face or telephone communication.

Our sensitivity towards written words...

Don't underestimate impact of what you write

2009-06-30T10:04:00.001-04:30

We are the owners of what we keep to ourselves and the slaves of what we say. But with e-mail at the workplace: We are the owners of what we say orally and slaves of what we write.

Oral messages can make us feel bad momentarily, they are forgotten more easily than written messages. Nevertheless, written words remain as if carved in stone. They fire up our feelings more strongly than oral messages. Also, we relive those feelings every time we read them. They are files that remember what was done to us and what that made us feel.  

This allows us to understand why most work discussions via e-mail can be so unproductive, particularly if we want to convey emotions and messages that are difficult to communicate, even orally.

If we complain in writing to a workmate, it is very likely that the relationship will suffer. Recipients tend to interpret the feelings they read and speculate about more strongly, thus making them perceive as a scream what would have been a perfectly tolerable observation.

When I ask what bothers people more of a work-related reprimand via e-mail, they always answer: "That it was in writing. Why didn’t she come to my post, or why didn’t he call to talk about it? Don’t they trust me or aren’t I worth a more direct communication?"

Communication is the main tool to build trust among work teams, but it can also destroy it. It is very difficult for people to flow in their team if they feel mistreated in their communications.

People will give their best effort if communication with the team is productive.

More about it...

Start managing e-mail more efficiently

2009-06-25T09:49:00.002-04:30

Every day we get more e-mail than the day before: more urgent bussines communications, and more spam (external and internal). So, e-mail can easily eat up your whole day if you let it.

Here are some tips for managing your e-mail more efficiently:

1. Too much spam at workplace? Check with your IT department. They should be running software that removes most of these annoying messages before you see them. Not having to delete these e-mails or decide whether it’s safe to open them can be a huge time saver.

2. If you don’t need it, don’t keep it! Mailbox inflation is a real problem. If you don’t need a message, read it and delete it. The same holds true for replies. You should regularly go through your sent mail folder and delete what you don’t need.

3. E-mail systems are clogged with endless duplication of documents, particularly e-mail chains that get longer and longer with every version.

4. A lot of e-mails should never be sent in the first place. E-mail is not a particularly secure way of communicating. Sending sensitive information always is risky.

For some subjects, a phone call might be better; for others, a face-to-face talk might be the best solution.

Right messages is not enough for email productivity

2009-06-18T16:05:00.001-04:30

Why some written messages sent to clients, providers or work mates always required verbal explanations or clarifications, although the e-mail contained all the information and was well written?

Why some e-mail "discussions" weren't completely satisfactory until there was a face-to-face conversation between those involved.

In 2004 I started to perceive the negative effects of e-mail, while providing consulting services to a technological corporation on the quality of their customer services.

Although the employees were specialized engineers with excellent education and were highly skilled in technology, they had difficulties writing e-mails to clients that didn’t require telephone or personal "clarifications".

In some complex cases of services provided to clients, the company’s credibility and trust was satisfied only after verbal communication, and not with a written message.

People may have a good technical education, but they have a hard time realizing that in some cases e-mail is not the best communication media to get credibility and trust.

For them, it was the most comfortable medium, but it wasn’t the most efficient one for their clients.

They liked the benefit that they could write messages whenever they had the time, and not immediately, and that they didn’t have to listen or see the client in a difficult service situation. But they knew -paradoxically- that sooner or later, they would have to confront the client.

Always keep in mind that e-mail may not be the appropriate channel to communicate with clients in some situations. Particularly, the situations that involve strong emotions, and any degree of conflict

Email and website navigation merit different design tactics

2009-06-11T07:48:00.002-04:30

Though many online marketers send emails that are very similar to their websites in terms of navigation and linking, major differences in the way consumers view emails vs. websites indicate that emails should be designed differently to achieve the best results, according to a recent report from Smith-Harmon.

The report, which is based on an analysis of website and email data for 100 top retailers collected in March and April 2009 by the Retail Email Blog, found that horizontal navigation bars, emails with fewer links, HTML coding (vs. images) and special tactics to highlight sales, seasonal specials and featured departments work best in emails.

Key highlights from the study:

* Horizonal navigation bars more visible: The study found that horizontal navigation bars are much more common in emails than vertical ones, which are used by fewer than 5% of retailers. This is because horizontal navigation bars are more likely to be seen in their entirety because of preview panes.

* Fewer links work better: Differences between email and website navigation and the length of time consumers view email generally mean fewer links should be included in email navigation than in website navigation. Rather than loading up a navigation bar with too many links, it is more effective to pick the top five or six best-performing site destinations and include those.

* HTML preferred for nav bars: It is better to use HTML so the links are be readable by the growing number of viewers who block images in emails by default. Currently 28% of horizontal email navigation bars use HTML text, up from just 15% last year.

* Other navigation links helpful: Using navigation links to help email viewers find other parts of a retail site and locate items of interest quickly - such as sales, stores, featured departments and seasonal merchandise is often an effective tactic.

See the report.

Internal marketing of e-mail company guidelines

2009-06-03T10:14:00.001-04:30

Do not communicate and promote e-mail company guidelines (e-Standards) only through e-mails, or as a labor formality.

Use all communication channels available inside the company to sensitize and reinforce employee's commitment on this issue.

Don’t expect them to learn how to use better e-mail only with the manual of norms and procedures.

Employees need ample and detailed training on its risks, their rights, responsibilities, and the consequences of the improper use of this communication tool.

They need to know as well how much is the impact of some witten messages. Discussions or "clarifications" among teamwork could take many more time (and costs) than a phone call or a face-to-face meeting.

Don’t expect a single individual or department to be responsible of overseeing compliance to corporate policies on the use of e-mail. This is not strategical.

All managers and supervisors must provide support to monitor and model employee’s behaviors because otherwise good practices will not be adopted in a good will manner.

Remember, some bosses usually are the main rule-breakers, and their inconsistency doesn’t make it easy for employees to adopt e-Standards.

Bosses and others supervisors levels have to be first accomplish e-mail company guidelines. They are responsible for setting good examples.

Confronting the information overload

2009-06-02T15:12:00.002-04:30

The average email user received more than 160 emails a day in 2008, according to figures from market research firm the Radicati Group.

A study by the University of California at Irvine tracked 36 office workers and found that employees spent just 11 minutes on a project before an email notification, phone ring or knock on the door interrupted them.

One tool to deal with information overload is a new plug-in for Microsoft’s email program Outlook 2007, called Email Prioritizer.

It lets you choose not have any email delivered to your inbox for a specified period of time or until your current meeting ends and lets you rank the importance of incoming email messages with zero to three stars.

Other products include Google’s Email Addict service; Xerox’s Hybrid Catgorizer that automatically scans, sorts, extracts and reviews electronic documents; and website monitoring technology such as WebSite Watcher and Copernic Tracker.

Read the complete article by Mark Frary for TimesOnline.com.

The good, the bad, and the ugly about email managment

2009-05-30T14:49:00.003-04:30

AIIM’s research…

The survey was taken by 1,109 individual members of the AIIM community between March 23rd and April 3rd, 2009, using a Web-based tool. Invitations to take the survey were sent via e-mail to the AIIM community of 65,000.

On average, our respondents spend more than an hour and a half per day processing their emails, with one in five spending three or more hours of their day.

Over half have hand-held access by phones, Blackberries and PDAs. Two thirds process work-related emails outside office hours with 28 percent confessing to doing so “after work, on weekends and during vacations”.

“Sheer overload” is reported as the biggest problem with email as a business tool, followed closely by “Finding and recovering past emails” and “Keeping track of actions”.

Email archiving, legal discovery, findability and storage volumes are the biggest current concerns within organizations, with security and spam now considered less of a concern by respondents.

Over half of respondents are “not confident” or only “slightly confident” that emails related to documenting commitments and obligations made by staff are recorded, complete and retrievable.

Only 10 percent of organizations have completed an enterprise-wide email management initiative, with 20 percent currently rolling out a project. Even in larger organizations, 17 percent have no plans to, although the remaining 29 percent are planning to start sometime in the next 2 years.

Some 45 percent of organizations (including the largest ones) do not have a policy on Outlook “Archive settings,” so most users will likely create .pst archive files on local drives.

Only 19 percent of those surveyed capture important emails to a dedicated email management system or to a general purpose ECM system. 18 percent print emails and file as paper, and a worrying 45 percent file in nonshared personal Outlook folders.

A third of organizations have no policy to deal with legal discovery, 40 percent would likely have to search back-up tapes, and 23 percent feel they would have gaps from deleted emails. Only 16 percent have retention policies that would justify deleted emails.

Download the entire, 17-page report, containing 21 graphs and charts.

Why do companies need e-mail use guidelines?

2009-05-26T14:07:00.002-04:30

At the workplace e-mail is a resource that belongs to the company. But sometimes people forget that because of labor rutines, work overwhelming, or because individual professional effort is so personal.

e-Standards could helps people have a better idea of the formality of using e-mail in the workplace, as documents that have direct legal implications for the company and for each employee.

In other words, companies needs more employees with more awareness of the consequences messages can have and a better effort to use the good practices of written communication.

To achieve this goals, companies must permanently and didactically show to each employe best practices using e-mail, and what behavior is expected from he or she, as a senders or receivers of digital messages.

Most people assume writing e-mail as something "natural", and take for granted that if you can write (if you know write) you can communicate efficiently by e-mail.

But with no doubt is harder to communicate by written than face-to-face. Written messages don't have the communicational advantages of body language, facial expression or tone of voice, which are part of a regular face-to-face communication.

If people at workplace suppose that they execute their responsability by sending e-mails, they wouldn't take in consideration the negative potential impact of certain written messages. So, they wouldn't care e-mail is not the propper means for team work in many cases.

That is why e-mail companies guidelines can help employees a lot. I offer you many ideas and electronic mail good practices in my book.

Other conditions for e-Standards success at the workplace

2009-05-18T13:05:00.001-04:30

Standards on the use of e-mail (e-Standards) can be part of a document that also includes policies on computer security and the correct use of software and surfing Internet.

From a communication and practical point of view, we must remember that each topic will be dealt with more effectively if we approach them in a segmented way. This must be taken in consideration for the internal marketing of e-Standards.

e-Standards must be reviewed carefully with every employee at all levels in the company: newly hired as well as more experienced personnel, managers and supervisors, full-time, part-time, or temporary workers.

In many cases, it is also convenient to inform or update all suppliers of the company on the policies of the use of e-mail.

Since the company is interested in conveying the importance and formality of this issue, each employee should sign a copy of the e-Standards as proof that they have read and understood them. Although this adds commitment, training and internal information programs are also necessary as backup.

Since e-mail is a resource that belongs to the company, you must permanently and didactically remind employees of the company’s right to monitor and review the use of e-mail and Internet, whenever it is deemed necessary. Work tools and work information belong to the employer.

Companies should promote e-Standards

2009-05-12T16:59:00.003-04:30

What does e-Standards means? Good practices using e-mail. Not only "norms" or "policies".

e-Standards are comprehensive written guidelines on the corporate use of e-mail, to advise positively employees on the behavior expected from them whem are using e-mail at the workplace.

e-Standards must not only establish what people "shouldn’t do" and the sanctions involved, as usually happens. They must neither be biased by the technological or security issues of e-mail.

When speaking of the duties of employees regarding e-mail, e-Standards must highlight individual advantages for fulfilling them (essential key for the success of their marketing inside the teamwork).

The following are ideal conditions for company’s e-Standards to be more effective and taken in consideration by employees:

* Explain their origin and purpose as widely as possible. People will be more sensitive to the subject if they know details about risks, costs, good practices, real cases, and possible consequences.

* This shouldn’t be perceived as an issue only for the legal, security or human resource departments. e-Standards involves everybody in the company, and they are a bussines priority. So, the commitment must start at the upper management.

* Bosses and employees must follow the same e-Standards, a minimum consistency expected by employees in order to believe and implement them.

* The dissemination of these e-Standards must be done in a constant internal marketing and training plan. The effectiveness of this induction depends on the proper company’s initiatives to maintain them in the long term.

Hey you, supervisor, don't use e-mail in this situations

2009-05-11T08:20:00.000-04:30

I can tell you many others situation which e-mail is not the best means for communicating with your team players, but these are the practices that you have to avoid using e-mail at the workplace as supervisor:

1. Don’t use e-mails to give bad news or fire an employee.

Remember that this channel doesn’t have the communicational advantages of body language, facial expression or tone of voice.

Employees feel more respected when bad news are given in person.

Face-to-face meetings give employees the chance to ask questions, “digest” information better, and identify their options.

2. Don't use e-mail to discuss the performance of an employee with other managers.

It is a matter of simple professional courtesy, and there is no risk that the information will become public.

The best way to have these kind of conversations is in personal, closed-door meetings, or through a telephone call.

Written negative comments about an employee can later be used against the manager to erode team spirit and the feeling of identity with the company.

3. Don't minimize face-to-face contact in your daily work.

E-mail is a fantastic resource that allows us to save a lot of time, and although some work mates feel fine with having almost all communication electronically, many others feel devalued if they don't also receive personal attention.

E-mail must not replace the personal contact between supervisors and supervised.

Even in the Internet age, nurturing healthy human relations is still an essential skill for the success of all types of businesses.

E-mail doesn’t communicate: It is only a media

2009-05-06T15:48:00.003-04:30

With e-mail as a tool, informing doesn’t automatically mean that we are communicating with our recipients. Communication occurs when our recipient reacts in accordance to our purposes and intentions. E-mail does not communicate, you communicate (or not).

All the fields in an e-mail have meaning for the recipient, from the time the message was sent, to the way in which it was signed (Too formal?... Informal?... No signed?).

Each e-mail element affects our perception of every message pertinency, which in turn reflects the level of effectiveness of our communication effort.

The sender has the responsibility of generating bidirectional written communication through the computer. It is the position where the interaction condition is created and stimulated. With e-mail, everything start at the fingers of senders.

The chances to be effective are very low if we send e-mails covered by the investiture of a corporate position. And the opposite happens when we communicate trying to nourish the legitimacy of our personal leadership, because we write with more humbleness and assertiveness.

The e-mails we send most positively affect our recipients when we write them using a perspective that is committed to excellence in customer care and service. This approach provides a more creative view to give responses (written or not) geared to help our interlocutors.

Are we technology abusers?

2009-04-30T14:34:00.003-04:30

Daily e-mail at the workplace volume for many people is the main source of stress and lack of productivity.

Of course, e-mail is one of the most wonderful communication tool ever invented. There are no doubts about its benefits. But the amount of digital massages that you maybe have to handle each day could be unmanageable.

No few workers erase their entire inboxes. Many admit the difficult to set up priorities or distraction facing big email quantities makes it near impossible to get work done.

Several professionals confess that they turns off their computers and BlackBerrys to get their "real work" done. It's amazing, isn't?

But the real challenge is that people can't deal with all the information in their inboxes. A lot of times it's very hard to remember and find what folder you stored that e-mail or who sent you that message.

Companies are trying some answers to the e-mail overload issue. For example, discouraging the use of the "replay all" feature, wich generates lots of extra messages. This is a good idea.

But teamworks must promote spaces for meeting and exchange, where teammates can voice their concerns as senders and recipients, establish opportunities for improvement, and receive opportune coaching.

Everybody at the workplace need to develop an awareness in the use of e-mail. Otherwise, the benefits of this communication channel will disappear due to the irrational and indiscriminate number of messages send. It is only a matter of time.

So, you must implement specific training and coaching programs on e-mail communication. Training is urgently needed on the factors that determine the productivity of e-mail, as well as on good writing skills.

Workplace email productivity

2009-04-24T07:18:00.003-04:30

There is no doubt that e-mail provides transcendental advantages as a tool for communication, work, study, research and filing, and its influence is growing in all aspects of people’s lives, in all countries and cultures.

However, the process of assimilating e-mail has occurred with insufficient preparation. In some cases, training is provided on a specific e-mail program (for example "Outlook"). In others, there are “policies” on the use of e-mail, but they mainly have to do with the need for security and control of computer systems.

We assume that to know how to write is to know how to word things correctly, and that it is enough to communicate efficiently in writing. Sometimes we know how to word things well, and this is enough to communicate efficiently in writing.

Sometimes we think that if we write as we speak, we will be understood. However, it is more difficult to master written communication than verbal and non-verbal communication.

The productivity of this tool is greatly associated to our personal reputation.

That is, our effectiveness in managing e-mail is reflected by whether we achieve the purpose of a message or not. For example, if we write “too many” e-mails, it is likely that recipients will start to ignore them, particularly those that are in the "Cc" field.

If we want to improve our effectiveness in the use of e-mail, we need to understand how they act, and what do recipients value more in our written messages, in order to positively affect their perceptions and attitudes. Likewise, we must deal with each recipient in the most personal way possible, taking into account the emotional impact that written words have and the structure of the e-mail.

This is my email survival guide, full of personal solutions and tips.

E-mail has a great influence in our personal image

2009-04-20T07:08:00.002-04:30

The number of messages we send, the way we write them, their length, and even the time when we write them says a lot about the quality of professionals we are.

How fast we respond to messages, if we read them carefully, and even if we send a copy to another recipient, are some of the aspects that contribute to create a public reputation of our work performance.

Here are some expressions that are increasingly frequent in the work place:

"It seems that Pedro has nothing else to do than send e-mails. I get his messages all the time. They are very long and difficult to understand".

"María is very inconsiderate: She keeps sending chain letters. Doesn’t she know that I’m very busy and have no time for those foolish things? They also fill up my inbox and prevent other important messages from arriving".

"José always copies messages to the boss: He cannot be trusted. I know we must document our work, but why didn’t he call me first? We would have clarified the situation and then write a message with what we agreed on".

If to this we add the great number of "spam" messages we receive, and the number of copied messages that are useless to us, we can understand the increasing stress that managing e-mails produces in our work.

So, be aware about what personal image you are building right now with your worplace email.

See common mistakes in email managment.

When not to use email at work

2009-04-14T07:09:00.006-04:30

If you don't want to waste time (and money):

1. You suspect your written message may be misunderstood or misconstrued.

Emotional written messages are likely to be interpreted according to the mood of the recipient and not by the intention of the sender.

2. You want to deliver bad news or discuss an emotionally charged matter.

Without the benefit of facial expressions, intonation, and body language, hurt feelings could ensue and flame wars could erupt if you deliver bad news electronically.

3. You hold a give-and-take conversation or want to conduct negotiations.

Dialogues that call for back-and-forth discussion are best be held on the phone or in person. Examples: To negotiate a price reduction with a supplier or persuade your supervisor to give you a pay raise.

4. You want an immediate or urgent answers.

Remember, unless a prior agreement, your recipients are not there, waiting for your emails.

5. A message is extremely important or confidential, and you cannot risk a breach of privacy.

E-mail is not a secure medium. So, never use this channel to communicate sensitive corporate information. There are millions of hidden readers and dastardly hackers lurking in cyberspace.

More suggestions on how to save time and money in my book Email at the workplace.

Steps to maximize email efficiency

2009-04-08T11:17:00.001-04:30

The first challenge is to acknowledge that you can't absorb everything you think you need to know. Once you master that mental obstacle, things get easier.

You will be able to prioritize, delegate and just let things slide. You don't have to answer or even read everything that comes your way.

The idea of eliminating information is barely thinks. But this is about self-preservation.

Second, as you limit content, you'll learn to savor it more. Be ruthless as you can through all the "e-noise" and clear your decks for the important stuff.

Get started by spending sometime deciding what sources of information and intelligence are critical for you and your job. What are "must" reads?

Boil it all down to the highest-quality stuff, and read that first. Cancel or get rid of what's only marginal.

When you're the one doing the communicating, be more economical in everything you write, publish, broadcast and post online.

Read more on Forbes.com

The productivity of workers is jeopardized by too much e–mail

2009-04-02T20:05:00.000-04:30

A downside of cheap communication, like the email, is that there is way too much of it.

The sheer volume of e-mail information flow seriously, threatens theirs advantages as knowledge workers suffer from a chronic state of mental overload, reduced productivity and a declining sense of well–being.

E–mail is becoming a tragedy, encouraging casual placement of corporate spam in the in–boxes of all.

Information overload exists for all business communication channels.

Instant messages, system alerts, phone calls, visits from co–workers and even self–interruptions occur so frequently that workers rarely have more than five minutes of focused work before an interruption occurs.

If users take an average of one minute to read and respond to each message, the current volume consumes more than a quarter of an eight–hour day.

With projected growth of incoming messages, workers could spend 50 percent of their workday managing e–mail by 2009. How much of that time is and will productive?

It's true, many of that time has profit value. But how many hasn't?

In order to establish parameters to measure the productivity related to e-mail, see this method: Costs of reading e-mails in companies.

"Lack of time" classic example with the email at workplace

2009-03-31T06:25:00.005-04:30

Considering the negative effects that some written messages can have on productivity in the workplace, we could say that communication through e-mail can sometimes be rather "non-communicational".

In one of my consulting jobs on the strategic management of communication in customer care, I mentioned an alternative to be more proactive in the recurrent crisis that occurred when a massive technological service stopped working.

The technical support team could detect the technical shortcoming before clients did. So I told them to send an e-mail to those affected, warning them about the inconvenience, and informing them about the actions they would take to solve the situation.

In this way they could avoid surprises and clients wouldn't be annoyed by the service interruption and wouldn’t call to find out what was happening.

Although they fully agreed with our recommendation, and confirmed they could implement it, they didn’t. Sending that anticipated e-mail helped them avoid a lot of additional pressure caused by angry clients. However, they didn’t send it for a very simple reason: They didn't have the time to do it.

These were very smart and technically skilled people, so I had a hard time understanding why they didn’t take the initiative to send such a strategically important mail.

I continued investigating their daily activities, and found something that was surprising at the time, but later I realized it happened in many cases in this and almost all companies.

Being a mass consumption service company, it wasn't strange for them to receive some e-mails from angry clients who were dissatisfied by the quality of the technical support or attention they received.

Many of these messages were written in critical, demanding or "harsh" language (commonly used by clients complaining because they are disappointed with the attention they receive).

However, the source of this "lack of time" began when the recipients of those written complaints unconsciously added emotions that made feel offended by the client's message and took those criticisms and demands personally.

As a result, they ended up investing considerable amounts of time to respond to what they assumed was an offense, to "put the client in his/her place"... And... Guess how much time they used to do that?

This is a very common situation at the workplace. Therefore, a lot of personal time is unproductive and wasted.

So, if you want more time you need to improve your professional managment of email. See my survival guide.

Don’t forget the cost of spam

2009-03-23T07:55:00.001-04:30

Even the small percentage of spam that gets through to workers can cost companies thousands, according to a report from security firm McAfee.

Though malware and preventing breaches hold the headlines – and the attention of many IT departments – spam can still be an issue.

Spam is not going away. Spammers are always thinking of new and innovative ideas.

While McAfee suggested those lost minutes could cost a firm of a thousand workers some US$182,500 in lost productivity, it’s always difficult to put a number on it.

McAfee says there is a difference between spam filters that offer 95 per cent coverage and 99 per cent. The cost could be as high as $41,000 for every percentage point.

For every one per cent getting through, that is costing an organisation. Lost productivity isn’t the only cost, as firms must also pay for security and archive more email because of spam.

We are always marketing ourselves

2009-03-19T18:52:00.002-04:30

Where to start been more effective with e-mail at the workplace?

First of all, we need to be more aware of the fact that in all areas of contemporary society, we are always marketing ourselves as individuals.

This means that we need to take more into account the fact that we are always affecting the perception others have of us. We are always influencing that perception positively or negatively. There is no such thing as “no influence” or “neutral influence”.

We affect others with what we do or don’t do, and also with what we say or don’t say. So, we start defining our personal marketing and communication plan with the following questions:

* "How do I want to be known and remembered as a professional?"

* "With what values do I want others to associate me?"

The answers to these questions provide the guide we need on the type of actions we must take to positively affect others and obtain the professional perception we desire.

Second, we need to have a wide perspective of who our "clients" are. This can easily and efficiently be established answering the following question: "Who can speak about me, positively or negatively, as a professional and as a person?".

Our marketing strategies and tactics must be oriented towards all of them. Our clients are the individuals with whom we interact directly or indirectly, who are important to us professionally, and who can recommend us to others.

In a society where jobs are so interconnected, “external clients” are just as important for our personal marketing as are our co-workers, including bosses at all levels, the staff in other departments, and suppliers.

Yes, this answer is very broad because the most frequent marketing mistakes are made in part by underestimating the range of influence that the public or audience with whom we interact as clients have.

Finally, being more aware of our personal marketing implies being more aware of the tools we use to communicate our skills, competencies, values, and benefits. That is, we need to keep our interpersonal communication channels and media fine tuned.

These are made up by all our interpersonal communications, whether face-to-face, telephonic, or through e-mail, and by the form and content we convey through these means. That is, our body and our behavior are like our mobile marketing channels, with verbal and non-verbal messages.

In this context, e-mail increasingly has a greater impact on the professional image we project as individuals. Therefore, a better understanding of the factors that make written communication effective will allow us to assertively manage those aspects that determine our reputation through that medium.

"Email at the workplace" on Amazon's Kindle

2009-03-14T20:21:00.002-04:30

Now, you can read the book "E-mail at the workplace. Survival Guide. Solutions and Tips", on your Amazon's Kindle.

You only need this device, which let you read e-books (special formatted to Kindle). Then, you have to download the book electronic file on Amazon.com.

Beside you can see more information about the content of this book thanks to Google Books's service.

Personal marketing through e-mail

2009-03-09T21:40:00.002-04:30

Your professional opportunities depend on your reputation.

If you want to improve your chances for professional growth, you need to be more aware of the importance of your permanent marketing as an individual.

The same marketing techniques companies use to create a commercial brand, so consumers perceive it in a positive light and prefer it, can be used by professionals when they look for a job or in their work experience.

Brands of products, services or companies create a unique image and use it in a planned manner to attract and maintain clients and consumers. Professionals can also plan their image to attract the ideal employers or to have better job opportunities.

Commercial marketing is the challenge brands face to communicate their values and benefits, presenting an image that differentiates them from the competition and makes them desirable brands.

Isn’t this the same challenge we face when we look for a job or when we want to improve our possibilities in our present positions?

The concept of “personal brand” is not common for people who are not in the arts, sports, or other professions where the public opinion is relevant. However, if people looking for a job or planning their professional development in a company don’t build a strong positive image, it will be more difficult to attract attention to their qualities, values, and particularly, the benefits they offer.

The personal brand is the quantitative and qualitative addition of your professional career in an integrated manner, and the image of the person that constitutes it. Therefore, planning and developing a personal brand has significant advantages:

* It helps us generate professional interest and positively catch the attention of clients, bosses, colleagues, friends, and potential employers.

* It allows us to focus on what we want people to remember most of our personal and professional qualities.

* It makes it easier to obtain trust and credibility, as a result of our coherent and consistent professional performance.

* It allows us to differentiate ourselves as workers.

Just as with the marketing of a product, if we don’t work on our own professional brand image, others will create one for us, and it is quite likely that it won’t be what we want or what we are interested in projecting.

Take care of the tone of your email at the workplace

2009-03-05T05:33:00.006-04:30

Who hasn't experienced having someone we e-mailed misinterpret our intent or tone? An inappropriate tone can cause a reader to ignore, delete, or overreact to your message.

All business e-mail writers must be able to control the tone of their writing so their e-mail messages will have the results they intend. Using e-mail at the workplace, how you say it is as important as what you say.

Tone is the quality in your writing that reveals your attitude toward your topic and reader. Tone comes from your choice of words, the structure of your sentences, and the order of the information you present.

Some studies show that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time. But they don't. When emotions are present they fail half of the time, because there are a lot of non-verbal clues involved on interpersonal communication.

For example, it is extremely difficult to identify the sarcasm in a written message. So, is better to avoid any type of irony in a professional email.

It's easy for e-mail writers to let their tone slip from professional to edgy or sarcastic. E-mail emboldens writers to express thoughts they would never say to a reader's face. And e-mail is written quickly, then sent.

Most e-mail writers don't review their messages as carefully as they should. When they do review messages before sending, they're looking at the content, not the tone.

But tone is important. A flippant tone that the reader doesn't find funny, or an angry tone can damage a relationship as well as progress on a company project. The key is to make sure that you do not contribute unknowingly to incorrect perceptions and inaccurate impressions.

Read more on MoreBusiness.com

How does functional illiteracy affects the effectiveness of e-mail?

2009-02-23T10:25:00.002-04:30

Illiteracy is the condition of not being able to read or write. Even though, functional illiteracy refers to the inability of an individual to use properly reading, writing, and computational skills in everyday life situations.

One who is functionally illiterate has a basic grasp of literacy (reading and writing text in his/her native language), but with a variable degree of grammatical correctness and reading comprehension.

Since the computer and the Internet developed, some have asserted that the definition of literacy should include the ability to use and communicate in a diverse range of information technologies.

Illiteracy has long been viewed as a social and educational issue. But we have been challenged to understand the economic consequences of the lack of literacy skills. So, functional illiteracy has a significant impact on companies productivity.

A study done by the Northeast Midwest Institute and The Center for Regional Policy found that business losses, attribute to basic skill deficiencies, run into the hundreds of millions of dollars because of low productivity, errors and accidents.

How many times companies must face daily written endless debates through e-mail, because poorly written messages?

How many e-mails at workplace everyday are misunderstood because the message was poorly structured or for low levels of reading comprehension?

A research in a british company with 2.850 employees, show that 45% of e-mails were not easy to read or to interpret, by deficiencies of writing or because they were not clear on what the recipient had to do with them.

Does this percentage seem too high? I invite you to verify it with your own emails. I have seen this amount of messages deficiently written in many other businesses, larger and smaller.

The lack of abilities for written communication largely is a consequence of the lack of reading habits. Who has the habit to read thinks more and know himself better. This allows him to reflect on his reality and needs with more references. And this also lets him obtain enough resources to express himself by writing fullness.

We are facing an important quality reduction of written communication, and good part of the remedy has to do with stopping underestimating this situation.

We need to approach this subject at workplace promoting learning spaces where the employers and employees take conscience on the matter. They must assume the responsibility to improve their abilities to communicate better in writing.

If you would like to improve your e-mail efectiveness or to know more about this subject, consult my book at Google Books.

That e-mail could embarrass you?

2009-02-21T12:49:00.003-04:30

Before you send out or forward any e-mail message, ask yourself if the contents of that message will become a boomerang for you or your company.

Subjects that are usually discussed in whispers at the office are best kept out of an e-mail.

Rumors, gossip, and other issues not directly related to the organization's business should be kept out of an e-mail.

Before you send out that e-mail, ask yourself "If this email were accidentally sent to everyone in the organization, would I be in some kind of trouble?"

When you send an e-mail to someone outside of the company, keep in mind that you represent the organization and not just yourself, and your company may be held responsible for your actions.

Remember: Any bussines or professional e-mail is a document with 100% of posibilities to be public. Be aware of this risk always.

Don't loose your time and money clarifiying messages. Pick up the phone or go face-to-face.

Treat email as a traditional printed document

2009-02-17T07:38:00.002-04:30

Likely the ease to send e-mails also makes us feel that they are somewhat "informal", making us believe that this attribute "lightens" the weight of emotionally charged messages.

An e-mail can be perceived as informal and harmless but it is basically a document, and as such, it has the potential of becoming public.

We might not think about this when we write an e-mail, but it is in our unconscious and sometimes it emerges when we find ourselves in front of the computer thinking "Is this too strong?", or "How will they take these words?"

What we say verbally, face-to-face, or by phone almost never has a formal backup, but what we write always has. This is a potential risk that influences the way we read what we receive.

It may lack the formality of a memo with a company letterhead, but an email can be just as legally binding as a traditional printed document.

There is no "secret" messages on e-mail. Every word that can be printed has pottential to be public. So, if you feel a publishing risk -even the smallest- in your e-mail, be already warned.

Some people even believe that the "coldness" of "strong" messages helps recipients process them better, because they can analyze their content "without thinking that it is something personal". However, the results indicate otherwise.

What we say verbally, face-to-face, or by phone almost never has a formal backup, but what we write always has. This is a potential risk that influences the way we read what we receive. That is why the content of some e-mails can “echo” before our eyes, whereas spoken words "are carried by the wind".

If you consider this you will write as better as less e-mails. As a result, you will receive less messages, and you will win a lot of time.

We are very little aware of how we use e-mail

2009-02-10T09:49:00.002-04:30

In my seminars on how to optimize the use of e-mail, I ask to participants "which are the most important benefits from using e-mail?".

And after their answers I make another question: "what don’t you like about e-mail?".

This exercise is very interesting, because the answers are closely related.

For example, as senders, we like sending messages to many recipients at the same time, but we don’t realize that this is precisely part of the origin of the "chain mails" that are so annoying.

We also like sending as many e-mails as we want, but this is also part of the origin of the "spam" that causes so many headaches.

Every day there are more professionals that feel overwhelmed by the number of e-mails they need to read at work, but we are somewhat unaware of the abuse we ourselves make of e-mail, which in a way also generates the same volume that overwhelms us.

We also enjoy the possibility of responding whenever we want, but it also bothers us when our recipients don’t respond at the speed we want them to.

We also like having the possibility of sending attachments like pictures and videos, but many times feel annoyed when we receive those kinds of messages.

The same happens with the written record that e-mails leave. We like using them as a formal back-up in some circumstances, but at times we are annoyed when we receive messages from workmates that were written just to "cover their backs", and feel even worse when these mails are copied to the bosses.

It seems then, that we are unaware of the negative effects of e-mail that result from our own abuse of this medium. Not many people are able to see how they contribute to increase the same thing that they don't like...

Less than 9 percent of emails in 2008 was non-malicious

2009-02-04T16:50:00.001-04:30

Out of 430 million email messages analyzed, 89.88 percent were spam and 1.11 percent were infected with some type of malware.

For companies, spam is more than just a nuisance: It consumes bandwidth, wastes employees’ time and can even cause system malfunctions. In the end, it all results in a loss of productivity.

According to data compiled by TrustLayer Mail, the clean mail managed service from Panda Security, sexual performance enhancers and pharmaceuticals were the most common subjects used by spam in 2008.

Spam relating to the economic situation also grew significantly throughout 2008. False job offers and fraudulent diplomas accounted for 2.75% of all junk mail in the year, while messages promoting mortgages and fake loans were responsible for 4.75%.

Spam promoting fake brand products, such a swatches, was responsible for 16.75% of the total. This last category nevertheless, dropped from 21% in the first half of the year to 12.5% in the last six months.

See more...

Top communication executives also misunderstand risks of online messages

2009-01-27T12:30:00.003-04:30

On Internet there is not "inocent" business messages. But it is incredible how proffesionals espcialized on corporative communications make big mistakes as a rookie.

This is the James Andrews's story, a vice president at Ketchum, PR agency in Atlanta.

Andrews flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of the agency’s biggest clients, to talk with the corporate communications team about social media.

Upon landing in Memphis, Andrews posted this message on Twitter: "True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here."

Do you want to know what FedEx people did after finding the Andrews's post? Read here...

Are you honest trough e-mail?

2009-01-23T11:34:00.002-04:30

People are far more likely to lie in e-mail communication than in pen-and-paper communication, despite the fact that e-mails are harder to erase or keep from being distributed.

According to study set out to determine whether people felt more or less accountable for information shared in different forms of text communication.

The authors asked a group of 48 MBA students to divide US$89 among themselves and a fictional party, where the fictional party did not know the amount of the payout and had to accept whatever was offered to him or her.

An astounding 92 percent of the MBA students using e-mail misreported the size of the pot in order to keep more of the payout for themselves, versus less than 64 percent of students using pen and paper.

In a subsequent experiment, the authors tested to see whether students would lie as frequently to people they know. Their findings suggest that students would lie with the same frequency, but the magnitude of their lies would decrease.

Findings looks like people are more comfortable lying via e-mail than in pen-and-paper communication, despite the ease with which e-mails can be stored and searched.

Managers should pay close attention to workers who use e-mail to negotiate with partners or ensure that both forms of text communication are used for important negotiations.

Email productivity paradox

2009-01-14T07:09:00.002-04:30

Americans largely hold positive views about the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in their lives.

They cite the benefits of increased connectivity and flexibility that the internet and all of their various gadgets afford them at work.

However, many workers say these tools have added stress and new demands to their lives.

On the upside, workers note big improvements in their work lives due to the influence of technologies such as the internet, email, cell phones and instant messaging:

* 80% say these technologies have improved their ability to do their job.

* 73% say these technologies have improved their ability to share ideas with coworkers.

* 58% say these tools have allowed them more flexibility in the hours they work.

At the same time, workers also note various negative impacts of communications technology on their work life:

* 46% say ICTs increase demands that they work more hours.

* 49% say ICTs increase the level of stress in their job.

* 49% say ICTs make it harder for them to disconnect from their work when they are
at home and on the weekends.

Perhaps, this paradox explains partially why the workers are not aware of what are the risks for not use properly tools of written communication.

Are you an emailaholic?

2009-01-07T12:27:00.002-04:30

Check these ten symptoms out:

1. Do you check your email every 10-15 minutes (or less)?

2. Do you constantly postpone important things in your life and work to look over your email inbox "just for 2 minutes more"?

3. In the middle of doing something else, do you repeatedly "refresh" your inbox to see if someone has something to say?

4. Do you have your email program running automatically to alert you new arrivals?

5. Do you have more than 2 personal email accounts actives?

6. Do you wake up to go pee in the middle of the night and "take advantage" to check your email?

7. Do you feel an unstoppable need to check yor email when you visit friends or relatives, or before going to bed?

8. Do you frequently fall asleep on your computer keyword because the amount of emails you have to check?

9. Do you feel that you have a kind of relationship with your inbox?

10. Do you yhe need start going to "EA" meetings?

Please, let me know if you have other symptoms... And, maybe you need to read this...

New-Generation workers don’t adhere to IT policies

2009-01-03T07:55:00.000-04:30

Generation students and employees aged 14 to 27 expect to use their own technology and mobile devices for work, according to a survey released today by Accenture.

60 percent of them are either unaware of their companies’ information technology policies, or are not inclined to follow them.

Perhaps it is about a generation of disrespect and anarchy?... What are companies doing to promote their IT policies among employees?

Some survey’s findings are very shocking because its implications: Lack of workplace education on corporate policy:

• Only 40 percent of all respondents said that their employers have published detailed policies related to posting work or client information on public websites.

• One-third of respondents said they don’t know if their company has such a policy.

• 17 percent said their employer hasn’t published such a policy.

• 6 percent said that whatever policy their company has published is too complex to understand.

• 6 percent said they will post work or client information on public sites regardless of any policy, at least when communicating with colleagues.

What do you think this situation impact the e-mail productivity ate the workplace?

Emailaholic or responsibility?

2008-12-26T12:07:00.002-04:30

According to Pew Internet Project, 25% of employed email users say they check email "often" even when they have taken a sick day, compared with 17% who say they often check their inboxes before they go to work for the day, and 19% who frequently check their email after leaving work for the day

Fully 22% of employed say that they check their work email accounts “often” during the weekend, compared with just 16% who reported doing this in 2002.

34% employed email users in jobs earning 75,000 USD or more say they check their work email often on the weekends, while just 17% of those earning under 50,000 USD do so.

34% of employed email users say they will at least occasionally check their email on vacations; 11% say they do so often, 14% say they sometimes check in and 9% rarely log in to their email while taking a vacation day.

50% of corporate employees check their email constantly

2008-12-19T12:20:00.001-04:30

Half of work emailers who are currently employed at large corporations check their email constantly, compared with just 32% of those who work for small businesses.

Indeed, there is a considerable amount of overlap in the patterns seen here with wages and job types; as mentioned previously, many of those who earn less than $30,000 work in the service industry, skilled and semi-skilled jobs-professions that are not associated with high levels of internet or email use, according to Pew Internet Project.

Effects of information overload

2008-12-16T17:15:00.002-04:30

A sustained negative neurological effect of information overload has been identified by psychiatrist E.M. Hallowell. He has called this effect Attention Deficit Trait (ADT).

It isn't an illness; it's purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live. When a manager is desperately trying to deal with more input than he possibly can, the brain and body get locked into a reverberating circuit while the brain's frontal lobes lose their sophistication, as if vinegar were added to wine.

The result is black-and-white thinking; perspective and shades of gray disappear. People with Attention Deficit Trait have difficulty staying organised, setting priorities, and managing time, and they feel a constant low level of panic and guilt.

Attention Deficit Trait extends to people working in knowledge environments, which in today is a large portion of the workforce. A Basex survey showed that 28% (2.1 hours) of a knowledge worker’s day is consumed by interruptions. In the United States alone, this translates to 28 billion lost working hours and $588 million in lost profits every year.

Other studies have also shown negative consequences as a result of information overload, such as ignoring anything past the first few options, making mistakes, having difficulty relating the details to the overall issue, wasting time, and needing more time to reach decisions. Read more...

Employees occasionally check their personal inboxes?

2008-12-10T17:25:00.002-04:30

According to Pew Internet Project 54% of employees with personal email accounts say they occasionally check their personal inboxes while at work. Were they completely honest about this issue?...

In the other hand, 39% of all personal emailers say they check their personal accounts at least once a day at work, while 15% report checking in less often than that. Just 7% admit to refreshing their personal inboxes at work constantly, and 4% say they check in several times an hour.

Read more

The wired world may be changing the way we read

2008-12-04T07:16:00.003-04:30

Some scientists think. There are no firm answers yet. But Gary Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA, argues that daily exposure to digital technologies such as the Internet can alter how the brain works.

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.

So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.

More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates warned about a different information revolution — the rise of the written word, which he considered a more superficial way of learning than the oral tradition. Read more abou it...

In a depressed economic situation...

2008-12-01T10:27:00.002-04:30

Business productivity and saving has become more important. If you are concerned with these issues, E-mail at the workplace is an uselful book for you.

Email overload has become a kind of epidemic in the workplace. In average, employees spend over 40% of their time managing email. Nearly half of that time is lost, it is unproductive. But, there is a lot you can do to improve you email managing skill.

If you want to improve e-mail performance in your workplace, creating more efficient messages and meeting your business communication goals more effectively, this book is for you. Visit www.emailattheworkplace.com. Inside you will find recommendations on how to structure e-mails content, differentiate your subjects better, understand writing communication principles, increase e-mail comprehension and obtain more effective answers.

E-mail at Workplace provides practical guidance for managing writing messages and recipients perception of them, taking into consideration emotional impact that written words have as well as the habits of reading e-mails.

E-mail at the workplace in Amazon.com.

E-mail overload: Epidemic at workplace?

2008-11-28T18:44:00.002-04:30

In average, employees spend over 40% of their time managing email. Nearly half of that time is lost, it is unproductive. So, inappropriate use of email in the workplace severely affect the profitability of businesses, both as professional reputation.

Most of the unproductive habits with e-mail management are due to a lack of global perspective on the various issues related to written communication, above and beyond language use or the mastery of technological resources.

According to a report published by Cisco Systems in September 2006, "The Psychology of Effective Business Communications in Geographically Dispersed Teams", e-mail users can spend 4 times more to exchange the same number of messages compared to when they communicate face-to-face.

In the present depressed economic situation, companies face a financial challenge: Managment of e-mail. What can you do?

Websites time wasters plaguing workplace productivity

2008-11-25T10:57:00.002-04:30

According to InternetSafety.com, a company focused on safety products, there are 10 kind of websites that currently diminish employee productivity at the workplace. The listing demonstrates the diverse range of online distractions at workplace that tempt workers from 9 to 5:

• Social wetworking sites, as MySpace.com or Facebook, amomg others (over 170 million people are active users).

• Online videos sites, as YouTube or Google Videos (over 100 million YouTube videos are watched each day).

• Adult sites with sexually-explicit content.

• Shopping sites (70% of all online purchases occur between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm).

• Vacation planning sites, as a stress reliever or because of job dissatisfaction, they remains a top pastime at work.

• Job searches, as Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com and Jobster.com.

• News and blogs, as Gizmodo.com, Perezhilton.com, Engadget.com and Blogger.com.

• Online auctions in sites such as eBay, uBid, and auctions.yahoo.com.

• Online games, as games.yahoo.com, congregate.com, popcap.com, and forumwarz.com.

• Gambling sites (60% of all U.S. adults have gambled in the past year).

What time waster website do you prefer?

What does deteriorate senders reputation?

2008-11-18T12:33:00.002-04:30

Wether senders send e-mails very frequently, recipients might feel that they are being inconsiderate towards them an the work they are doing at the time. Therefore, they “charge extra” by not paying attention to those messages.

Remember also that senders positioned as people that permanently send chains, jokes, accusations, or messages to cover their backs and/or justify themselves also have a high cost in the attention of recipients, and they are also perceived as inconsiderate.

In the long run, these practices only deteriorate the reputation of senders, and recipients end up thinking that it isn’t worth investing time in those messages, erasing them without reading them.

Some people write messages that are extremely dense and difficult to understand, and it is difficult for their recipients to pay attention to those messages. These are the cases where the recipient got more work, having to phone sender to get the message quicklier, and saving time “digesting” the information.

Americans employee with an email account: 81%

2008-11-11T08:07:00.001-04:30

Among those who are employed, 96% are in some way making use of new communications technologies- either by going online, using email or owning a cell phone. This group includes employed respondents who are either internet users (86%), have a cell phone (89%) or an email account (81%). Additionally, some 73% of workers use all three basic tools of the information age: they use the internet, have an email account, and have a cell phone, according to Pew Internet Project.

Internet traffic from search engines in October

2008-11-07T12:01:00.000-04:30

Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. According to Hitwise, traffic from Google and other search engines to specific Web categories in October 2008 is as follow:
Health and Medical: 44.92%
Travel: 35.71%
Online Video: 31.83%
Shopping and Classifieds: 25.14%
Entertainment: 23.57%
News and Media: 20.90%
Business and Finance: 18.61%
Social Networking: 18.61%
Sports: 12.01%
Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users.

US adults have both personal and work email accounts

2008-10-28T19:03:00.000-04:30

More than half of working adults (53%) have both personal and work email accounts. And while 22% say they only maintain personal addresses, just 5% say that their email use is limited to a work account (of course this is what they will say).

54% of employees with personal email accounts say they at least occasionally check their personal inboxes while at work and most do so on a daily basis. Personal email spills over to the cell phone and Blackberry, too: Among employed respondents who actively use their cell phone or Blackberry for email, 44% say that most or all of the messages they send and receive are personal, while 32% say that most or all of the messages are work-related.

Another 25% say their email use is equally split between personal and work-related messages. 37% of those with work email accounts check them constantly, up from 22% in 2002, according to Pew Internet Project.

The future of enterprise information governance

2008-10-26T17:53:00.000-04:30

Information is the lifeblood of any modern-day business. Companies succeed and falter based on the reliability, availability and security of their data.

A corporation's capacity to handle information depends upon a variety of factors, including engaged executives and a company culture that supports collective ownership of information.

However, strategically created enterprise-wide frameworks that define how information is controlled, accessed and used are arguably the most critical elements in a successful information management programme.

The mechanisms that enforce those frameworks, are referred to as information governance.

A survey undertaken by the Economist Intelligence Unit say that only 38% of companies have a formal enterprise-wide information governance strategy.

Fewer than half of all respondents feel that information governance is important to their company’s success today, suggesting complacency or ignorance about the need for governance structures to manage corporate information.

There are several reasons why proper information governance remains elusive, but the biggest challenge worldwide is identifying the cost/risk/return tradeoffs of managing information company-wide (40%). Enforcing policies company-wide (39%) and gaining support from department heads and line-of-business managers (35%) are also obstacles.

22% of Americans have to reply to work e-mails away from work

2008-10-24T10:01:00.000-04:30

The off-hours checking of work-related email is not an act generated solely by the volition of the employee.

Some 22% of employed email users say they are expected to read and respond to work-related emails, even when they are not at work.

Blackberry and PDA owners are more than twice as likely to report that their employer expects that they will stay tuned in to email outside of the office.

Fully 48% say they are required to read and respond to email when they are away from work, according to Pew Internet Project.

How many Americans believe that using email increased their workload?

2008-10-20T10:51:00.000-04:30

Most employed email users do not believe that using email has increased the amount of time they spend working overall. Just 17% attribute some increase to email, while 6% feel as though email has actually cut down the amount of time they spend working.

About the same modest number report some increase in the amount of time spent working specifically at home (16%), while 5% note a decrease. A smaller segment (10%) note an increase in the amount of time spent working at the office, while nearly the same number (7%) say email has cut down the time they spend at the office, according to Pew Internet Project.

Are you agree with these opinions?... Had email increased the amount of work in your case?

60% of users use e-mail on a typical day in 2008

2008-10-18T18:49:00.000-04:30

In 2002-2008 the use of email on a typical day rose from 52% to 60%, for a growth rate of just 15%.

These new figures propel search further out of the pack, well ahead of other popular internet activities, such as checking the news, which 39% of internet users do on a typical day, or checking the weather, which 30% do on a typical day, according to Pew Internet Project.

E-mail at workplace downside

2008-09-30T18:21:00.002-04:30

A study published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that workers in general have mixed feelings about the increased use of e-mail and the Internet in the past few years.

In a survey of 2,134 adults in March and April, 96 percent used e-mail, the Internet or cell phones. Of them, 80 percent said these technologies nhave improved their ability to do their jobs, and 58 percent said these tools have given them more control over when to work.

But 46 percent also said these devices increase the demands that they work more hours, and 49 percent said that the technologies make it harder to disconnect from work when they should be off.

Half of the respondents who were employed and had e-mail said they check their work e-mail on weekends, and a full 22 percent said they checked office e-mail "often" on the weekends, up from 16 percent who said the same thing in 2002. Read more...

Common mistakes in email managment

2008-09-29T11:07:00.002-04:30

Top 5 defects that impact the attitude of the recipient when reading e-mails, affecting their attention and interest, their understanding of the message, and their motivation to respond:

1. An e-mail that is not easy to understand or recognize, because the content isn't clear or the information is vague.

2. The title of the e-mail is indistinct or too generic, making it difficult to identify or to follow-up related messages.

3. The sender cannot be identified, because the name of the sender is an entity or department, or because the name of the person does not appear, only his/her e-mail address.

4. An e-mail that contains too much information on different topics is more difficult to read and to understand, and it is more complex to answer.

5. The content is too long, particularly if there are too many mails to read (and longer messages tend to be irrelevant).

Read more...

What Americans do online

2008-09-24T11:59:00.000-04:30

* Use an online search engine: 89%
* Check weather reports and forecasts: 80%
* Get news online: 73%
* Visit a state or local government website: 66%
* Watch a video on a videosharing site like YouTube: 52%
* Look online for information about a job: 47%
* Send instant messages: 40%
* Read someone else’s blog: 33
* Use a social networking site like MySpace: 29%
* Make a donation to charity online: 20%
* Downloaded a podcast: 19%
* Download or share files using peer-to-peer networks such as LiveWire: 15%
* Create or work on your own blog: 12%

Source: Pew Internet Project (1553 cases).

US adults still use e-mail for sharing information

2008-09-17T09:46:00.000-04:30

US adults still depend on personal email as a main source of receiving shared content: 69% still rely on email to share content and information, Forrester Research reports.

Personal emails made up 56% of shared content received; however, more than 50% of youth use instant messaging, videos from YouTube, and wikis to share content, while notes on social networks and text messages on cell phones equates respectively to 30% and 41% for how this demographic receives information.

Power Sharers are a new category defined as individuals that share content at least weekly and share with 11 or more people through at least one channel.

Adult Power Sharers represented 35% of the online population, and Youth Power sharers make up 62% of the online population, showcasing how each of these groups feed the viral cycles and influence networks.

92% of adults trust an email from someone they know, while 70% trust messages through someone they know through a social site. 64% of adults and 60% of youth still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information. (More...)

Qualitative shortcomings of emails at workplace

2008-09-10T17:10:00.000-04:30

According to the study called "Quality improvement of e-mail communication in work groups and organizations by reflection", the most frequent qualitative shortcomings that recipients must face in managing the number of e-mails received were:

• Receiving multiple e-mails with the same or similar information, from different sources.

• Receiving incomplete or poorly written messages means that they will immediately receive more messages on the same subject to complete the information or to clarify it.

• In some cases it is difficult to understand to what specific activity or job the mail corresponds to.

• Receiving e-mails from unknown senders.

• Receiving e-mails where the purpose of the sender isn't clear.

• Receiving incomplete messages that require clarifications by telephone.

• Receiving messages where it is difficult to establish the importance and/or urgency.

Read more...

Best practices for email in the workplace

2008-08-30T06:48:00.002-04:30

What may be appropriate when emailing family and friends may not be appropriate when emailing co-workers, clients or providers.

You may think that the appearance of an email has any impact, when in fact it can affect the efficiency of your message.

These are some best practices to ensure the look of your emails do not negatively influence their effectiveness, and to ensure you are getting the right message across:

1. Your name and your recipient name must be visible. It is the first step in order to receives attention and trust.

2. Use a subject line that gives the recipient an idea about the content. Otherwise, it may be ignored or end up in a spam folder. The subject line is a key to differentiate your email.

3. Start your email with a greeting. A proper greeting sets the tone for your message. Messages lacking a greeting may come off as rude. A simple greeting such as Dear, Good afternoon, or Hi is appropriate.

4. Include the recipient name in the greeting. Is the key to get his attention on the message.

5. Include the most important information at the beginning of the message to get your recipients attention. And keep your emails to the point.

6. Avoid using slang terms. Slang may be appropriate for emails outside of the workplace. Your recipient may not understand slang terms. They could be even offensive.

7. Follow good manners. If you are requesting something from your recipient, include "please" and "thank you".

8. Use proper grammar and spelling. Bad grammar and spelling may create the impression that you, the sender, are careless, sloppy, and do not pay attention to details.

9. Avoid typing in all uppercase letters. Typing in all UPPERCASE is the equivalent of yelling. Instead, stick with the basic rule of basic sentence casing.

10. End your email with a closing. Just including your name may come off as being abrupt. Try including a simple closing such as "Regards", "Sincerely", or "Thank you".

How many Internet users buy from spam emails?

2008-08-24T18:43:00.000-04:30

29% of Internet users buy from spam emails. The most commonly purchased items include sexual enhancement pills, software, adult material and luxury items such as watches, jewellery and clothing, according to Marshal.

Botnets are networks comprised of thousands of infected personal computers, controlled remotely by criminals. They have enabled spammers to push down their costs through economies of scale and eliminated the need for spammers to host their own spam servers as they simply take control of other people’s computers instead.

Recent FBI prosecutions of bot-herders and investigations of message-boards used by spammers, suggests the going rate for spammers to send a mln spam messages is as little as $5-10.

Read more...

Amount of e-mail spam from January to June 2008

2008-08-15T10:39:00.000-04:30

74% of all e-mail in Q2 2008 was spam. Turkey became the country with most zombie computers (11% of the global total), followed by Brazil (8.4%) and Russia (7.4%). The USA, which in the Q1 2008 accounted for 5% of all zombies, is now in ninth place with just 4.3% of the total.

Google Adwords has been at the center of one of the most notable attacks over the last quarter, PandaLabs says. This Google service had been used previously to launch phishing attacks and the trend continues. This type of attack uses social engineering to trick users into revealing confidential details (bank account numbers, passwords, etc.).

Using company and professionals's e-mail

2008-08-05T07:20:00.001-04:30

Using email at the workplace has its own special concerns for the user.

When you send an email message on behalf of an organization, or when you receive any email at an account controlled by your company, you should be aware of some of the realities of using email in the workplace.

For example, you must know the rules for using email on your organization. Everyone that uses email should have some kind of "e-policies" that covers how that resource can be used.

Ideally, that organization's email use policy is written down and everyone in the organization is made aware of the policy.

If there is no explicit policy, then review policies concerning the use of the organization's resources and use your judgment as to what is proper conduct.

Before you send out or forward any email message, ask yourself whether the contents of that message will come back to haunt you.

For instance, matters that are usually discussed in whispers at the office are best kept out of an email. Rumors, gossip, and other issues not directly related to the organization's business should be kept out of an email.

Before you send out any email, ask yourself the following question "If this email were accidentally sent to everyone in the organization, would I be in some kind of trouble?"

Top 10 online time wasters workplace productivity

2008-07-20T12:48:00.000-04:30

InternetSafety.com, an Internet safety solutions company, announced it has compiled the "Top 10 Online Time Wasters" that currently diminish employee productivity at the workplace.

"Surfing the web for personal reasons while at work continues to compromise the effectiveness of American workers", said Shane Kenny, President and COO of InternetSafety.com. "Billions of dollars in lost productivity are the result, which is why courts are upholding employers’ rights to terminate employees for excessive web browsing. It’s important for everyone-companies and workers alike-to understand the drain that results from casual Web use."

See their list top 10 online time wasters.

Neurological effect of information overload

2008-07-11T11:38:00.001-04:30

They are numerous studies to suggest that information overload makes us dumber: Persons exposed to excessive amounts of information are less productive, prone to make bad decisions, and risk suffering serious stress-related diseases.

University of London researcher Glenn Wilson showed in a 2005 study that people taking an IQ test while being interrupted by emails and phone calls performed an average of 10 points lower than the baseline group without those interruptions.

A frightening footnote to this study is that another test group had been tested after smoking marijuana, and they only performed an average of 4 points lower than the baseline group – from which one might reasonably conclude that persistent interruptions have a two-and-a-half times more detrimental effect on the brain than smoking marijuana.

Some studies have shown that sufferers of information overload:

* Suffer distraction, inner frenzy, and impatience.

* Have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time.

* Become highly selective and ignore a large amount of information or give up and don’t go beyond the first results in many cases.

* Need more time to reach a decision.

* Procastinate.

* Make mistakes.

* Have difficulties in identifying the relationship between the details and the overall perspective.

* Waste time.

Read more...

Lost in e-mail at workplace: Facing a self-made beast

2008-07-02T13:40:00.001-04:30

Cellphone calls and e-mail and instant messages is fracturing attention spans and hurting productivity. It is a common complaint. But now the very companies that helped create the flood are trying to mop it up.

Some of the biggest technology firms are banding together to fight information overload.

Recently they formed a nonprofit group to study the problem, publicize it and devise ways to help workers cope with the digital deluge: Information Overload Research Group.

Their effort comes as statistical and anecdotal evidence mounts that the same technology tools that have led to improvements in productivity can be counterproductive if overused.

Many people readily recognize that they face continual interruption, but the emerging data on the scale of the problem may come as a surprise.

A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times, and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure by RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits.

The company, which draws its data from 40,000 people who have tracking software on their computers, found that on average the worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.

Companies are also realizing that there is money to be made in helping people reduce their digital gluttony...

There is a vernacular forming around information overload. Silicon Valley denizens speak of “e-mail bankruptcy,” or getting so far behind in responding to e-mail messages that it becomes necessary to delete them all and start over.

Another relatively new term is “e-mail apnea,” which refers to the way that people, when struck by the volume of new messages in their in-boxes, unconsciously hold their breath.

But the problem, researchers say, is not just volume but also etiquette. Bad actors hit “reply all” on a message instead of responding to an individual, or forward jokes to big groups.

Some say the problem has a psychological dimension in that e-mail messages provide an insidious feedback loop.

See more on The New York Times.