Email Best Practices for Teams

[KMC]

I found this blog post at "Getting Things Done" to be useful, particularly relevant with how much of our communication is done via email. 

Email Best Practices for Teams

Despite the maturation of email as a technology I find the etiquette to still be lacking, especially with the increasing number of mobile devices.  Is this a problem in your daily work?  How do you deal with it? 

[Jessie_K]

My biggest pet peeve is people that use SMS talk in email.  "u" "r" "wif"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!  Am I the last person on the planet to still use complete sentences?

[KMC]

My biggest pet peeve is people that use SMS talk in email.  "u" "r" "wif"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!  Am I the last person on the planet to still use complete sentences?

That drives me crazy too.  If you really want to be passive-aggressive, you can insert some [sic] tags in when forwarding, though probably not the most diplomatic path forward

I think my biggest is crazy fonts.  I have someone who writes me at least once a month and uses Comic Sans; which, I mean, was totally cool in like 1997, but not really appropriate any longer.  Every time I respond I convert his email to plain text so he loses all formatting  

[Jessie_K]

I love it when MS Outlook changes people's emoticons to "J"

I was once in a long chain of emails about having the floor of my office cleaned and doing repairs with a contractor.  I was so confused as to why so many of the people had "J" scattered throughout their emails. 

Lesson learned- don't put silly smiley faces in business emails! J

[ejsmith3130]

My biggest pet peeve is people that use SMS talk in email.  "u" "r" "wif"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!  Am I the last person on the planet to still use complete sentences?

You are not- I am always checking grammer and sentance structure. Of course I also married an English Teacher so I have my very own editor for all of my important e-mails and submissions.

I get a lot of shortened replies to e-mails when it also has the disclaimer "Sent from my iPhone" or something similar. I feel like the fact that that disclaimer is there is giving us the excuses to use shorthand. When I had e-mail on my phone (something I got rid of for many reasons- a whole different thread!) I found it a pain to format proper responses, but would try my best to have professional looking format and never shortened words or used 'textspeak'.

I think that the issue of response time addressed in the article is something that I always take issue with. Perhaps because I have had e-mail for a good portion of my life, and was always excited to hear "you've got mail!",  I am more prone to check my e-mail and respond right away. It does annoy me when I don't hear back from someone for a few days. I was actually taken aback the other day when a set designer I was working with at the local high school apologised in person for 'all those e-mails I sent you today'. We had sent maybe 6 e-mails alltogether to work through some scheduling issues. I didn't think that it was a lot of e-mails at all... I guess it is all perception.

[Maggie K]

I still use complete sentences as well and always proofread.  I will reply to things on my phone if it's a short and easy reply.  Otherwise I like to wait until I can use my computer.  One thing I liked in that article was the idea of checking to see if email is the appropriate forum.  There have been any number of times during a show where there will be an ongoing email discussion that drags on for days while everyone weighs in that could have been more easily solved with a quick face to face meeting.

[KMC]

I still use complete sentences as well and always proofread.  I will reply to things on my phone if it's a short and easy reply.  Otherwise I like to wait until I can use my computer.  One thing I liked in that article was the idea of checking to see if email is the appropriate forum.  There have been any number of times during a show where there will be an ongoing email discussion that drags on for days while everyone weighs in that could have been more easily solved with a quick face to face meeting.

In my mind that was the biggest takeaway from this for me.  While I am pretty good at finding the right medium for communication, I do occasionally catch myself getting into a drawn out back and forth with someone where a phone call or face to face me be the more appropriate tool.

[babens]

There have been any number of times during a show where there will be an ongoing email discussion that drags on for days while everyone weighs in that could have been more easily solved with a quick face to face meeting.

Along those lines I have begun taking more and more to putting everyone's email address into the Bcc: field to help reduce getting caught into the dreaded "reply all" trap.  The props department doesn't need to know when there is an issue with the costume fittings that are schedule, and costumes don't need to know about contractual issues with the band, etc, etc.  Yet people seem to just instinctually hit "reply all" rather than hitting reply and adding in the names that they feel do need to get that reply if it's more than just myself they are replying to.

[On_Headset]

One obvious piece of etiquette people often miss:

If you want to be removed from a listserv, the appropriate action is never to reply to the entire listserv asking how to be removed.

[MatthewShiner]

I second BCCing.

All reports and daily calls are addressed to me, and BCC'ed the rest of the people being sent to - this also helps if you working with people who don't want their emails given out to the general public.

And it does keep the response back to the report to be sent out to the entire world.

[Bwoodbury]

I second BCCing.

All reports and daily calls are addressed to me, and BCC'ed the rest of the people being sent to - this also helps if you working with people who don't want their emails given out to the general public.

And it does keep the response back to the report to be sent out to the entire world.

Plus this is a great way to verify the report is sent through properly

[mnsalz91]

My biggest pet peeve is people that use SMS talk in email.  "u" "r" "wif"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!  Am I the last person on the planet to still use complete sentences?

People actually do that?! I abbreviate a lot socially, in my texts and with social media but never professionally. That's horrible.

[Jessie_K]

A few months ago, I was setting up internships for my trainees and one of the SMs I approached sent me an email full of "u" "cuz" etc and at the end of it asked for money.

Um, no...