Month: October 2016

This week, we shared an article by Scott Gerber over at business.com: “9 Most Effective Apps for Internal Communication“. Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), and he polled its members to find exciting solutions to team communications. I read the list and was surprised not by what I found, but what I didn’t find: almost any mention of email. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Email has long been the workhorse of electronic communications—saddled with all of the jobs that no one else wants to do. When a fancy new product comes along that promises real-time… Continue reading Put Me In, Coach! Why Email is the Next Great Team Productivity App

Last week, Slate ran a fun article by Katy Waldman discussing the emerging etiquette regarding all of the many, many ways we can communicate with each other in 2016. Per the author: “The avenues through which we talk to one another have forked into a dizzying multitude. Hierarchies have emerged.” She then goes into anxiety-inducing detail about those hierarchies: When possible, we convey bad news in person; a step down, there are phone calls; then email; then texting; then social media like Facebook or Twitter; then IMing; then, maybe, Snapchat. Sometimes, the line of succession wavers: A quick face-to-face catch-up with… Continue reading The Etiquette of Email

Earlier this week we shared an article from Inc.com called “Should You Reply to That Email?”, a brief article about how to read an email for clues on whether a response is needed, and if so, when and what kind of response you’d like to send. It was good advice, and a useful article. I can’t wait for it to be obsolete. “Look for clues.” The author, Stacey Gawronski, correctly identifies the trickiness of figuring out a sender’s expectations: her first tip is “Look for Clues”, because too often when dealing with the status quo, a recipient has to become… Continue reading When Email Expectations Become What’s Expected