Email has long become the established means of communications for the global community. Its "free" (after the input device and Internet connection), works on almost universal standard, and fairly flexible (HTML format, plain text, attaching files, etc.).
However there are competing communications technologies and formats,including IM , SMS, blogs, and new entrant Twitter. Each have their own customs, rules, and etiquette. Sometimes we forget that an email is not an IM, or SMS. We rush to answer, to show that we are part of the 24/7 generation (the Blackberry Effect) that is always "on."
For the past few days I have watched a conversation play out between partners of a venture fund in the US and one of our portfolio companies. Now, the partners in the US are firing off questions by email, and the CEO of our portfolio company is answering either on his Nokia E61 (full QWERTY keyboard) or his laptop. He is answering at the speed at which the questions come in, which I think is a mistake. Email is meant to be what is says it is, electronic mail, and mail should be an exchange of letters, hopefully that each sender develops with thought, and is treated the same by the recipient.
Unfortunately we are juggling these different formats and slip from one to the other and sometimes they blend, so that emails look like SMS (my 14 year old daughter uses SMS abbreviations in email, telling me LOL after I send her some witticism). Obviously the rapid fire approach does not lend itself to sufficient investment of time and/or thought when answering, and often we press send way too early in the process. [Perhaps Mr. Gates should introduce a warning after pressing Send -- ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO SEND THIS EMAIL??]
I came across this spot-on commentary to emails [click here ]...worth looking at, but keep in mind, as you watch, that the review process is very important in communication, and we should resist the slippery slope into IM life. Not everything is meant to be instant, certainly not answers to questions about the very fundamentals of your business.
I'm a 50 year old attorney. I use email a lot.
I completely agree with you about the misunderstanding about the use of email. For a long time, email has been used in lieu of SMS or IM. Unfortunately, I get about 150 to 200 hundred emails a day most of which should really be SMS or IMs. They really clutter up my in box. Unfortunately, in the non-tech business world, no one has any idea how or what IM is; they think of it as merely something for kids.
Also, people send off too many thoughtless emails. I have all my emails on a 60 second delay, so that I can revise or pull them back if I press "Send" too quickly.
Posted by: Jeffrey Rabin | July 23, 2007 at 06:02 AM