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Email - The Good, the Bad and the UglyBy Jim Frazier One of my favorite topics is email, and I wanted to talk, in some general terms, about its benefits and disadvantages. Yeah, I know the title also mentions ugly, and I have received some ugly messages in my time, but I'll stick to the good and the bad in this article. And I'll give you a few recommendations to make email work better for you. Maybe in the future, I'll share some really plug-ugly emails with you. BENEFITS Documents at the speed of light Email allows fast and easy transmission of the written word. It allows me, sitting at my computer (or Palm, or laptop, or cell phone) to send a written message to anyone in the world who also has access to email. And as email becomes ever more pervasive, I'll be able to communicate with almost anyone in this manner. In situations where putting a message into discrete characters and numbers is important, email makes the job so much easier. All you have to do is type and press the send key. Of course, that ease of use can get you into big trouble as we shall see later in this article. Group communications You not only can send written communications to one person, you can send them to EVERYONE! As opposed to hard-copy messages, phone calls, or faxes, it is as easy to send your email to one person as it is to send it to 10,000. This makes email ideal for distribution of information and for setting up communications within a workgroup, department, association, club or company. I do newsletters for several groups, and in a couple of them, we've established the policy that we will no longer send a paper version. If you don't have email, you don't get the newsletter. The cost and times savings are just that enormous. Of course, this wonderful capability to blast out an email to everyone in your address book can also get you into big trouble. That steamy message you intended for Constance but instead sent to "co." would be one example. Low cost Low cost is an understatement. In terms of cost per message, email is virtually free. While there are overhead costs, such as management, Internet access, storage, etc., the visible cost to the user is, in most cases, non-existent. So the user CAN send that message to 10,000 people without batting an eye. This allows you to communicate with others all over the world without having to pay for postage, paper, or long distance charges. However, that's also the reason "spam" is so prevalent...it is awfully cheap. Time shifting Email gives you the ability to deal with your messages when it is convenient. I can send a message to an employee in Manila, and she will receive it when she walks in the door in the morning. She can then respond and send it back to me; it'll be waiting when I come to work tomorrow. While not as fast as a phone call, it is a lot cheaper. And we can both work at the times that are best for us. In fact, one of the main benefits of commuting by train these days is that you can use your laptop to do your email on the way home. Attachments While attaching Word and Excel files to email messages carries a lot of potential risks (such as viruses), it does allow the movement of complex information over the Internet easily and cheaply. I can create a database of employees, send it to the folks in Manila, and they will have it pretty darn close to instantly. This is much better than the way we did it in the old days: by copying the database onto a disk (or disks) and sending it via express mail. Email has almost eliminated this time-consuming and costly method of moving data. Got a 200-page document that the research department has just generated? No problem, just send it as an Acrobat file to the London office. In the old days, it would have been a LONG fax or a pretty expensive shipment. THE DISADVANTAGES There is a saying that has been around the computer industry for a long time: "People make mistakes. Computers allow us to make really BIG mistakes. Fast computers allow us to make BIG mistakes even FASTER." With every tool comes the ability to accomplish more work more effectively. However, that very power allows every tool to be more destructive in a spectacularly productive manner. With a hammer, I can drive a nail. If I miss, I can injure my thumb. With a sledge hammer, I can almost drive the nail by waving the sledge hammer in its general direction. But if I miss, I will break my foot. And let's not even talk about nail-guns. My wife won't let me near one of those things. And with good reason. Email is too fast and too easy Have you ever sent an email that you regretted as soon as you clicked "send"? It happens to all of us. Sending that resume to your boss when you meant it to go to the recruiter is a pretty good way of hitting your foot with a sledge hammer. Because email is so easy to write and so fast at delivery, you can get yourself into serious trouble. Memos, written the old way, with a typewriter or pen, gave you the chance to retrieve them from the boss's in-box, or think them over while they were getting written. You had the opportunity to evaluate whether or not you really needed to send the message. The secretary forced you to proofread your memos. But with email, you don't give yourself enough time to think about what you're doing. You just type and send. It's too easy. One answer? Slow down. Save your messages in draft mode for an hour or so before you retrieve and send them. You'll be amazed at what you decide not to send. It isn't private You may think that only the recruiter can read that message. But it isn't that way. While the US Postal Service may get a lot of complaints about not delivering the mail with the speed we expect, they're never accused of opening the mail and chuckling over your love letters. And as long as it's in a plain brown wrapper, they may suspect what's in it, but they won't open it without someone with a badge and a gun looking over their shoulder. But when you send email, just about any technician with access to a server, router, or computer through which your message travels can read it. And your message travels through a LOT of computers. In addition, because it is so easy for your recipient to forward your email to someone else, you can never be certain what will happen on the other end. There's no solution to this other than to recognize that there is no privacy with email. Never write anything in an email that you wouldn't want posted on the bulletin board at the office. You're not fully communicating Verbal communication is only 50% of the total content of normal human communications. The other half is body language and tone of voice. When you're writing an email, you're only sending half the total message. Maybe if you took more time, you'd be able to "spin" the words to help them better convey your feelings. Most of us aren't patient enough writers for that. But not being careful about what you say can cause enormous problems when you're communicating with your staff, vendors, customers and your boss. A casual comment in the hallway about an employee's less than usually fantastic quality of work will make her nervous. But hearing your tone of voice and seeing your forgiving smile will soften the blow and probably encourage her to be more careful in the future. But the same comment, sent in a cold, sterile email, will probably send her logging onto Monster.com that evening. Be VERY careful about your email messages - particularly ones that criticize or express strong emotion. It's almost guaranteed the recipient will take it the wrong way. It isn't reliable There are still too many ways for email to get lost. You may have addressed it incorrectly. The email server may have crashed. The spam-filtering software may have deleted it. Your recipient's own rules may have accidently routed the message to a folder that she never looks at. You simply can't rely on the recipient to have gotten the message. However, there is one way of making sure she not only gets your message but reads it as well. Embed a request someplace near the end of the message asking her to acknowledge that she's read it. Then follow up in a few days if they she doesn't respond. Too much volume I personally receive upwards of 150 messages a day. Unhappily, most of them are NOT from potential customers. Many are from mail lists, others are industry newsletters. And you can bet that I don't read all of those messages. In fact, I may not even read the subjects of many of them. This enormous volume of messages could make my workload overwhelming and send my stress level off the chart. However, I've solved the problem by setting up rules and folders for the various types of messages I receive. Now, while I might get 125 emails, only ten appear in my regular in-box. The others are sorted into folders that are much less important, like "ecommerce list", "newsletters", "annoying people" and "spam". The technology is too integrated The reason for all of the virus scares, rogue Web sites, and other security problems is simply that the technology works too closely together. The software manufacturers, in their desire to make it easier for you to work with your computer, have also made it easier for hackers to make your computer do things you would really prefer to avoid. One solution is to use a less powerful or integrated email system. That may sound sacrilegious, but it can be very effective in helping you practice safer computing. It's virtual Email isn't real. There is no ink on paper. There is no missive cluttering up an in-box on someone's desk. Your message is just glowing electrons on a screen. This makes it easier to forget, easier to ignore and easier to lose. When you send an email that must be acknowledged or acted upon, save a copy of it so you can remind the recipient in a few days. The pace has quickened You'd think that more written communications, particularly with the ability of email to "time-shift" the conversation, would result in a slower pace of life. But we're all just too impatient when we're waiting for you to reply to our message, our voicemail, or our entreaty. And because we're sitting at a desk all day, we just can't imagine why you don't take the time to read and reply to our request five minutes after we send it. In fact, with wireless technology, you will not be able to escape those emails - they'll follow you wherever you go. But you can reduce the pace by simply setting specific times of day when you'll do email. Maybe you'll check your messages first thing in the morning, or you'll catch up on the train-ride home. Don't spoil your correspondents by responding to their email immediately. And for heaven's sake, turn off the alert feature on your email system that lets you know when you've got mail. Conclusion There are many more ways to deal with the problems that email causes. Some of them are critical to smooth operations and security. Others just help you be more polite and build your "netiquette" skills. In the coming weeks, I'll be discussing some of those specific issues. And a look at my article archives can also shed some light. Email truly is a wonderful thing. But like any powerful tool, you have to wear safety goggles.
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