Write Really Effective Email Messages...

Situation: You Need To Hone Your Email Skills a Bit.

I just finished SEND, the Essential Guide to Email for the Office and Home.  It's a great little book that reveiws email fundamentals and delivers a few interesting facts that not everyone knows.

In terms of fundamentals, the authors turn the word SEND into an acronym describing what you should consider before hitting that "send" button.

S stands for Simple
E stands for Effective
N stands for Necessary
D stands for Done.

This makes for a nice, easy to remember checklist to follow anytime you send a message out.

Here's a couple other interesting tips that not everyone is aware of.

- If you are switching email addresses, change your "return address" in your email client to your new address for while before you  actually cut over.  That way replies all go to your new address and the transition will happen more smoothly.

- Replies from handheld devices, like blackberrys usually carry a small "e" in the "Re:", versus the capital "E" in "RE:" that you see in replies made from Outlook or other desktop clients.  This is just one more clue that the reply is from a mobile device and perhaps you should be a little more tolerant of its contents.

There's quite a bit more advice in the book - which makes it a great gift for the email-challenged co-worker in your life.  Since that covers most of the people on the planet, I think I smell a best-seller!