After listening to Jeff Atwood rant about email on the most recent Stack Overflow Podcast I thought I would write a quick guide to creating an effective business email. I am defining “business email” as email designed to garner information needed to perform some larger, work related task. Business emails tend to be a constant stream of communication between two parties over an extended period of time. This quick guide should eliminate 90% of problems related to those emails. We now resume our regular “How To Fix” formatting:
The Problem: People send email to occupy time and simulate forward motion, and in some cases convey information, but they seldom use email to elicit information from co-workers. Attempts to elicit information are likely to transmit anxiety from sender to receiver rather than triggering a useful response from receiver back to sender. Continue reading →
