Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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'Send'
August 18, 2008 4:20 PM
Will Schwalbe and David Shipley say they were so overwhelmed by the amount -- and muddled quality -- of the email they were getting...that they wrote a whole book about it. It's called "Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better."
Prompted by my friend Ashley Phillips' piece last month on email etiquette, we've done up a version for World News (webcast version HERE), and for the broadcast we interviewed Schwalbe and Shipley. They're a delight to talk with (my emails have become much more precise since I made contact with them), and they've looked deeply into what, for most of us, is an everyday subject -- until some mistake comes back to bite us.
"This fantastic technology showed up on our doorstep one day and took over our lives, and we didn't really give it a lot of thought," says Shipley, who, by day, edits the Op-Ed Page of the New York Times. “And email compels you to give it not much thought. It happens so fast, it's incredibly easy."
Remember, they say, email is not a letter, and it's not a chat, so...what is it?
"We're just now coming to agreement as to what's polite, what's rude, what's acceptable, what's unacceptable, what's pleasant and what's horrific," says Schwalbe, a former publishing executive.
This being a multimedia age, the authors have set up a website, www.thinkbeforeyousend.com. That's the closest thing they have to a mantra: think about what you're sending. Is it polite? Is it clear? Will it get you fired? How many people do we know who wanted to grumble to office mates about a rude message from the boss -- and clicked "Reply" to the boss instead of "Forward" to their office mates?
Schwalbe and Shipley invite people to forward their own worst-ever messages...like one from a person who received this email: "I NEED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN ORDER TO PROCESS YOUR REQUEST THANK YOU."
Do you have your own? One caution: once you click "Send," your message is out there -- and there's no getting it back.
August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (6)
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Ned, I saw your report on "World News" this evening and commend you for examining an issue, while not as earthshaking as others, is as necessary as any reminder about good manners. Great report!
My favorite e-mail anecdote occurred at work, when I received an e-mail with the impatient title "URGENT--REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION" (emphasis intended) from my immediate supervisor. Unfortunately. he sent the e-mail before typing any of the body of the message, so it wasn't readily apparent what was so urgent, what needed immediate action, and what exactly I was supposed to do. I thought it best to wait a few moments before doing anything, and, sure enough, a "corrected" message crackled over the wire with instructions to disregard the first e-mail. Needless to say, every e-mail I sent him for the next couple of days had a header of "URGENT--REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION" on it, replete with the body of the message. (And, no, I didn't get fired!)
Posted by: chuck | Aug 18, 2008 9:55:58 PM
HAHA! Thats awesome Chuck! Having my desk right next to my bosses office negates emails between the two of us, we just yell at each other. But I've seen some pretty nasty emails. What bothers me the most is the chat speak. You know, the lol, lmao, brb, crap. It screams "I'm an idiot!" It's not professional at all, and it alarms me to hear that kids are putting this type of language into school papers. Hopefully teachers are marking these out. If not, then we need some new teachers.
Posted by: Lawrence | Aug 19, 2008 8:50:35 AM
Lawrence
Thats a big 10-4.
It's a generation thing.
Seriously I know from personal experience just how much trouble you can get into by careless e-mail. I once sent a co-worker a sarcastic joke that she took seriously. Ever since if I send a joke or try to be funny I put LOL or a smile at the end so it wont be misunderstood.
Posted by: Quietman | Aug 20, 2008 3:35:11 PM
With tongue firmly inserted into cheek, I can say that there's a down side to this email thing. I receive a lot of email that is nothing more than a vehicle for a lot of silly photos, lame jokes and other time-wasters. Fortunately, I don't have a lot of friends, so the amount I get is minimal. My wife, however, has lots of friends, so she gets lots of things like that, many of them duplicates. Sometimes, it pays to have a very low profile, because dealing with so much mail consumes a lot of time.
Posted by: Andy | Aug 20, 2008 4:54:58 PM
Andy
Same situation at my house now. My last comment was before I retired. Now I get 3 or 4 e-mails a week (other than junk mail) and I like it that way.
Posted by: Quietman | Aug 21, 2008 12:59:06 AM
I wonder how many times McCain's been told "What the heck, we're throwing the election anyway."
Posted by: Nantucket | Aug 30, 2008 12:34:14 AM
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