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.
(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.”
- 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.” - 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!
- You have difficulty counting? How about disciplining emails to three.sentence.es?
- Fine, fine! Tweet me in 140 characters.
- Does not work for you? OK! Let’s talk; call me!
Chris is proposing an Email Charter with 10 Rules.
Mark Twain once said, “I don’t have time to write you a short letter, so I’m writing you a long one instead.”