Email – The long and short of it

Last week, I was intrigued by this and other articles reassessing the length, style and overuse of emails. A brief overview of new email think.

1. (methinks this all started when) Gmail introduced the People Tab, to provide “contextual information about people you’re interacting with,” and justified it by *gag*, “Email is just as much about the people you communicate with as it is what you’re communicating about.”




2. As if on cue, Chris Anderson, curator of TED conferences, railed against the evils of email.
   “we’re drowning in it,” he cried. “Every year it gets a little worse. To the point where we can get trapped spending most of our working week simply handling the contents of our in-boxes.”

Chris is proposing an Email Charter with 10 Rules.



3. Ok fine; you think these rules are equally verbose? How about twitter for Email? Shortmail restricts your email messages to 500 characters! Send ME your 500 character manifesto!




4. You have difficulty counting? How about disciplining emails to three.sentence.es?
5. Fine, fine! Tweet me in 140 characters.
6. Does not work for you? OK! Let’s talk; call me!

Mark Twain once said, “I don’t have time to write you a short letter, so I’m writing you a long one instead.”