I was looking at a book in Chapters the other day called "Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better" by David Shipley. And I thought... we all need to read this book!! I sent out a question this morning asking if a conference call for tomorrow could be rescheduled to next week. One person responded that that would work better for her as well. One guy responded "OK, thanks"... What does that mean? I asked a question!!! "OK, thanks" is not a response to a question. Plus, it was sent from a Blackberry, which we all know means that people are using an itsy-bitsy thumb-sized keyboard... so they tend to send the shortest messages possible. But now, I'm left wondering... does the think that I actually changed the time of the meeting? Does that means... what?
Email is for information... not conversation... And if we're going to use email for information, we need to be exquisitely clear in what we mean and what we say. Off the cuff comments do not move things forward... I'm thinking that I'll be reading this book by David Shipley some time soon... That is, if the Calgary Public Library has it in stock! Given its timeliness in today's society... it might be a good read for all of us! More later...
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