I love Matthew Stibbe’s blog Bad Language because it is so crisp and clean and useful.
He has an excellent post on writing emails that you should all check out. It does not contain earth-shattering information that you have never heard, but it is crisp, clean and useful. Kind of like your emails should be but aren’t.
A favorite line:
"Don’t drunk-mail. Don’t email when angry. Don’t argue by email."
Thanks for the pointer, Pam. In addition, I found a lot of good advice in the book “The hamster revolution,” including their A-B-C tool for content (structure each message in this order: Action summary, Background, and Close) and their 1-2-3 tool (ask: 1. Needed? 2. Appropriate? and 3. Targeted.)
When I was writing it I kinda knew that everything was sort of self-evident and yet I’ve probably broken all of my own ‘laws’ at one point or another. I know other people have broken my laws and they will feel the power of my righteous justice! 🙂
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Common sense is rarely common practice, is it Matthew? I babble in my emails too sometimes, but truly appreciate a well-written one.
-Pam
Man! I already have “no drunk dialing” on my master NOT to do list, now I have to take that over to my email too? You’re killing me! 🙂 Something to aspire to, I suppose. I take it this should also be applied to “no drunk blog posts or blog comments” as well?
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That’s right Suz, no drunken blogging!!!
Wherever will you get your inspiration now? 🙂
-Pam