When using e-mail you should never mention anyone that you would not be happy to show the content of the message to.
Such is the warning from Will Schwalbe and David Shipley, authors of a new e-mail etiquette guide, which last week shot to the top of the American bestseller lists.
The book, Send: The How, Why, When – and When Not – of E-mail, topped the ten bestsellers of The New York Times just 48 hours after it was released.
According to The Observer, it is due to be published in Britain next month, where it is expected to be equally well-received among net evangelists and users of corporate e-mails systems.
“Companies seem to feel especially exposed by e-mail,” Schwalbe told the Sunday paper.
“After all, it just takes one person to leak a careless e-mail from inside a company for the whole organisation to be dragged through the mud.”
Readers will learn when not to ‘copy someone else in’ to a discussion, as well as how to avoid the backlash from wrongly addressed messages, particularly if the content is amorous.
Contrary to popular belief, the use of exclamation marks in e-mail is to be encouraged, the authors say, because it brings warmth to a medium typically read only for informational purposes.
However it cautions against typing messages in anger – ‘flaming’ and denounces the use of capital letters, because it implies the sender is shouting, or at the least patronising.
Overdone sincerity can also be misinterpreted, while users learn they can unknowingly irritate the addressee by starting an e-mail in the subject field.
Typing a whole brief message within the subject field, in contrast, is to be commended, as is the premise of sending out better - more concisely written – and fewer e-mails, as a way to get e-mail returned in the same way.
Apr 17, 2007
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