Help! I am buried by emails!

(and -by the way- I happen to be stepping on that important one of yours...)

Everybody seems to have this mixed rhetoric, everybody complains about how many emails they get, but they also use it in kinda fashion of "look how important I am, I get 150 emails".

I tend to measure workload more on how many I have to send, as this is a more accurate depiction on which ones are really relevant.

The truth is, it takes up a whole lot of our time everyday to sift through those messages and respond on those that are important. Anything we can do to make this task quicker and less frequent works in our benefit.

I have some suggestions to move in the right direction, some of these things are just common sense, some of them I borrowed from RFC1855 on "Netiquette".

Here I go:

• Be conservative in what you send
• Think twice on hitting "Reply all". Be toughtfull on who you copy, move away from a "Cover your ASSets" mindset. Encourage people to do the same.
• Be a man (or woman) of word. If you keep your word, people will not feel it is necessary to leave an email trail.
• Be thoughtful on who (and how) you copy. Who should receive this email and respond to it? (To) Who should just be aware? (CC) and Who should just be aware but is not part of the conversation? (BCC) Use this last one sparingly and with respect.
• Email, even when we have the Blackberry, is not instant. Allow 2 days for a response before resending an email, if your recipient is already overwhelmed, you are just making things worse. Type "URGENT" in the subject line if it is so, or pickup the phone.
• Use descriptive subject lines. If you are replying on an old message for a new topic, change the subject line.

Email is asynchronous and for medium sized messages (one page?). Use other forms of communication when you require:

• Quick answers: IM or SMS
• Decision from a group, coordination: Conference call
• An explanation that requires feedback if you are being heard: Phone, Face to face meeting
• A very long process or other that requires documentation: Make an attachment, point to a link.

Here are some good -already- old ones:

• Remember that the recipient is a human being whose culture, language, and humor have different points of reference from your own. This is true also on the receiving end.
• Use mixed case. UPPER CASE LOOKS AS IF YOU'RE SHOUTING.
• Use smileys to indicate tone of voice, but use them sparingly. :-) is an example of a smiley (Look sideways).
• Wait overnight to send emotional responses to messages. If you have really strong feelings about a subject, indicate it via FLAME ON/OFF enclosures. For example:

FLAME ON: This type of argument is not worth the bandwidth
it takes to send it. It's illogical and poorly
reasoned. The rest of the world agrees with me.
FLAME OFF

("The rest of the world agrees with me" ...Love it!)

Last but not least: Send less, receive less...

Social Networking comes of age

I was one of the early adopters.

Maybe because I did not have to pay a premium to be one of them, as you usually have to, to be the first to get the newest gizmo. I somewhat did foresee the benefits to be able to "virtualize" our social environment. I should be able to keep in touch in my own terms and through my busy travel schedule and to sustain friendship on our new global reality, where I have more friends scattered around the world than in my hometown.

I joined LinkedIn in 2005, when it was little more than a contact manager. It has evolved to what it is now, the premium Social Networking site for professionals, with capabilities that allow to create business and employment opporutnities, as well as to maintain a peer-support system, instead of trying to make it on your own. Now I count almost 400 real connections on it.

Social Networking sites have undergone a transformation in two major aspects:

1.- SN sites are becoming more and more useful. With the incorporation of new functionalities, SN sites are now addressing real needs and reaching a wider audience.

2.- SN sites are now experiencing geometric growth. With adoption, viral expansion of the use of SN sites is something that is happening finally.

A year ago, my oldest daughter perfected her MySpace template and introduced me to this teenage-bound site. Today, Fortune 500 companies and Presidential Candidates have MySpace pages, it is no longer reserved to "indie" rock bands.
Another popular site, Facebook, opened up an API for third parties to develop Social Network-supported applications, creating a burst of creativity.

These tendencies manifest in a number of obvious ways, and at least two not-so-obvious:

- SN applications are becoming a very important content provider, creating steady, heavy traffic.

- SN applications are starting to be looked at as something that can be leveraged by the business world.

After all, people are at the heart of everything.


A quick overview of the existing Social Networking sites:
http://www.MySpace.com
This is one of the biggest SN sites, in terms of subscribers, and probably the best known. Tends to be a more "push"-like site that allows users to post info about themselves. Applications are controlled by MySpace.
http://www.LinkedIn.com
This site is directed towards the working professional. A must to be in for anyone working in a technology-related field. Application is closed-developed by LinkedIn. Has remarkably good privacy guards.
http://www.Facebook.com
Often seen as a "MySpace for grown-ups", Facebook offers the possibility of developing applications that "piggyback" on the social capabilities of the core application. For example, an external "birthday reminder" application when properly installed and authorized, willtake your birthday date and will remind all your friends linked (that have the application installed too), of your upcoming birthday! Pretty good privacy features.
http://www.hi5.com
Very similar to MySpace. So far I have experienced privacy issues.
http://www.Plaxo.com
Not really a Social Networking application, it allows to update your contact list automatically. At the end, useful to keep in touch.