Tips for communicating more effectively

When we converse, we expect other people to observe certain rules of behavior. The same is true for e-mail, the most popular form of online communication. Here are a few pointers to help you communicate more effectively.

Clearly summarize your message in the subject line.

Properly titled messages help people organize and prioritize their e-mail.

Don't use the CC (Carbon Copy) function to copy your message to everyone.

This is particularly true at work. These days everyone receives too much e-mail. Unnecessary messages are annoying. If only a few people really need to receive your message, only direct it to them.

Similarly, when responding to e-mail, do not respond to all recipients. By choosing Reply to All or a similar button when responding to a message, you may end up broadcasting your response to your entire company.

Use BCCs (Blind Carbon Copies) when addressing a message that will go to a large group of people who don't necessarily know each other.

Just as it's not polite to give out a person's telephone number without his or her knowledge, it's not polite to broadcast everyone's e-mail address. For instance, when you send a message to 30 people and use the To or CC fields to address the message, all 30 people see each other's address. By using BCC, each recipient sees only two--theirs and yours.

Keep your messages short and focused.

Few people enjoy reading on their computer screens; fewer still on the tiny screens in cell phones, PDAs and other mobile devices that are becoming increasingly popular. Recipients tend to ignore long messages.

Avoid using all capital letters.

IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING! IT'S ALSO MORE DIFFICULT TO READ.

Don't write anything you wouldn't say in public.

Anyone can easily forward your message, even accidentally. This could leave you in an embarrassing position if you divulged personal or confidential information. If you don't want to potentially share something you write, consider using the telephone.

Use a smiley to make sure that a statement is not misunderstood.

Smilies are typically used in personal e-mail and are not considered appropriate for business. They should rarely be used in the office. If your message needs a smiley for better understanding, most likely you should not be delivering it via e-mail. Even with a smiley, someone may misunderstand you. Similes should be used to support a statement. It's rude to write something mean or derogatory, then place a happy smiley at the end of the sentence. Refer to the Smiley article for a list of commonly used ones.

Avoid sending e-mail to large numbers of people unless you have a serious reason to do it.

E-mail broadcast to many recipients may be considered spam.

Nasty e-mail should also be avoided.

These messages have their own term: flame. Flame e-mail is an insulting message designed to cause pain, as when someone "gets burned."

As a courtesy to your recipient, include your name at the bottom of the message.

The message contains your e-mail address (in the header), but the recipient may not know that the return address belongs to you, especially if it's different from your real name.

NOTE E-mail etiquette may take a while to learn, but don't let your fear of making mistakes inhibit you. All Internet users were beginners once, so most people are quite forgiving.

Mailing List

Once you start using the Internet, you'll notice people talking about joining lists and participating in groups. While there are thousands of ongoing newsgroups and forums on different subjects, there are also thousands of e-mail list discussions as well.

What's the difference? Newsgroups and forums are public discussions that anyone can subscribe to and participate in. You read what members have written and post replies if you choose. Think of it as an electronic bulletin board. On the other hand, a mailing list is a list of e-mail addresses of people interested in the same topic.

Types of Lists

Mailing lists can be public or private, with as few as two participants or many thousands. Mailing lists are often used to provide subscribers with current information. For music fans, that might include upcoming concert dates or ticket purchasing details. Generally, there are two types of lists:

• Announcement-type lists, where you receive messages, but can't post to the list yourself.
• Discussion-type lists, where everyone on the list can participate. When a list subscriber sends a message, it goes to everyone on the list. You can reply to messages you receive, send new messages, or just read the messages without participating.

The key advantage of a mailing list over a newsgroup is that instead of having to go somewhere to read or retrieve postings, messages are automatically delivered to your e-mail box.

All of this traffic is automatically managed by programs called Mailing List Managers (MLMs). Two popular ones are Listserv and Majordomo.

Subscribing

To join a mailing list, all you need is an e-mail address. To subscribe, you send a message to the list administrator (this is usually not a person, just an automated process) and your e-mail address is added to the list. Subscribing to a mailing list is usually free. After you subscribe, you should receive a reply giving you details about the list and how to participate. Soon, you'll begin receiving mail.

To be removed the mailing list, you have to unsubscribe by sending an e-mail message to the list administrator. Typically, in the body of the message you type something like unsubscribe followed by the name of the list and your e-mail address. The process varies from one list to another, depending on what MLM is in use. Check the instructions you received.

If you don't want to be overwhelmed with a daily flood of e-mail messages, subscribe to the digest version, if one is available. A digest provides a periodic summary of the messages. Some digests are now posted on the Web so you can access them with your web browser, avoiding the traffic in your e-mail box altogether.

Some Mailing Lists Tips

• Subscribe to one or two mailing lists at a time. Wait to see how many messages you receive before subscribing to any others.
• Save the list subscription instructions. After you subscribe, you will get a response with instructions on how the list works, and perhaps most important, how to unsubscribe. Read and save these instructions. It's bad netiquette to send messages to the list requesting help in unsubscribing.
• Turn off the list when you go on vacation. It's like stopping your newspaper delivery. Some lists offer a vacation option. For others, you have to unsubscribe, then re-subscribe when you return. A high traffic list can generate hundreds of messages a day, overloading your mailbox.

For Manage E-mail click

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Stop Spam

What most annoys Internet users? The answer is a four letter word: spam, those obnoxious, unsolicited e-mail messages touting get rich quick schemes, miracle diets, amazing beauty products and pornographic pleasures. Unlike paper junk mail, which senders pay for, spammers pay almost nothing to e-mail millions of their offensive messages. It's your ISP and ultimately you that have to bear the cost of transmitting unwanted e-mail across the Net. AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Yahoo! and other e-mail providers try to block spam before it reaches your mailbox, but their efforts are only partially effective.

Some countries have laws against spam and some spammers have been fined for their actions, but the practice continues. In fact, it's increasing. Why, you may wonder, when spammers are universally despised? Because it works. Sending e-mail in bulk is so cheap that even if only a handful of people respond, there's a profitable payoff for the spammer.

Unfortunately, spam is here to stay. That doesn't mean you have to be an innocent victim. Here's how to fight back:

Protect your e-mail address.

Spammers either buy lists of e-mail addresses or use software programs that mine the addresses from the Internet. If your address is posted in discussion groups, on websites, chat rooms, blogs, etc., the chances are that it will end up on one or more of these lists. Only post your address publicly when absolutely necessary.

If you have to post your address, you can fool the mining software by writing it this way: professor(at)learnthenet.com. Instruct people who want to e-mail you to replace (at) with the @ sign.

Set up multiple e-mail accounts.

If you do participate regularly in online activities where you post your address, then set up another e-mail account. Only give it to close friends and family.

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Manage E-mail

Each day billions of e-mail messages zap across the Internet. If it seems that most of them make their way to your Inbox, you're not alone. "Overwhelming" is how many people feel about this electronic communication. The bad news is that it will only get worse as the popularity of e-mail increases. The good news is that you can avoid drowning in a sea of messages by following some simple steps.

Establish separate business and personal accounts.

Keep your personal and professional lives separate, especially since employers in many countries can legally review messages on company mail server. Do you really want your boss reading those off-color jokes? Having a separate personal account also means you aren't dealing with personal business on company time.

Develop a routine.

Answer your e-mail at set times during the day--perhaps the first thing in the morning, then mid-afternoon. This prevents incoming mail from interrupting other things you may be doing.

Set up your e-mail software for rapid review.

With e-mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook, you can customize the multi-pane display for quick viewing. Ideally you want to see who the sender is, the subject and be able to read the first few lines of the message. That way you don't have to open every message to discern its content.

Scan new messages and delete spam immediately.

Junk e-mail has become a fact of electronic life, so turn them to your advantage. Quickly review the message subject line and scan a line or two to identify spam. Now use the Delete key. Weeding out spam reduces your Inbox by half or more, providing a psychological boost when you only have fifty messages to deal with, instead of one hundred!

To further reduce the volume of mail, use filtering tools built into your e-mail program. They let you block messages sent from certain addresses, an excellent way to reduce spam. You can also automatically route messages from certain addresses into folders you set up. For instance, if you belong to a discussion group, messages will go directly into that folder, instead of your Inbox.

Organize messages into folders.

Create a series of folders to categorize your e-mail, using action items (pending, review etc.) and subjects (travel, newsletters, etc.). After you receive messages, file them away for later action and reference. Messages remaining in your Inbox are those requiring immediate action. Reply, then file them too.

Use short responses.

Everyone is pressed for time, so keep replies brief and to the point. E-mail has developed its own shorthand that doesn't require the formal response of a letter.

Prepare boiler plate responses.

You may find that you are often asked the same questions. To save time and avoid retyping the answers, just cut-and-paste a prepared reply. You can then edit it as required.

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Step to Attach File

The following steps use to attach file

Here's how to e-mail documents, spreadsheets, photos or any other type of file. We're using Microsoft Outlook, but most e-mail programs, even Web-based e-mail like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, work the same way.

Open your e-mail program, launch a new message window and compose your message

Click the attachment icon (the paper clip) or insert the file by selecting from the drop-down menu.

Browse your hard drive or removable disks to locate the file you want to attach. Click it to highlight the name, then click the Insert button

An icon or message should now appear indicating that the file has been attached

Finally, click the Send button and off it goes!

Attaching File

With the advent of an Internet protocol called MIME, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension, and other types of encoding schemes, you can send formatted documents, photos, sound and video files as attachments to your e-mail messages.

These protocols use a complex mathematical formula to convert files to text and then back to their original form. This conversion process is known as encoding and decoding. If the person to whom you are sending an attachment uses a MIME-compliant or UUencode e-mail program--and most popular programs do--it will automatically detect the attachment, decode it, and either open it or prompt the recipient to save the file. This process is mostly invisible to you.

Before you send binary files or formatted documents as attachments, make sure that the person you are sending them to has the ability to open the files. For instance, if you send a spreadsheet created in Excel, the recipient will need that program to view the file.

By the way, don't confuse encoding a file with encrypting a file. Encoding files adds no security. Anyone with the right decoding software can view it.

How to Do It

The procedure for attaching files varies depending on the type of e-mail program you use. In general, you click on an icon, such as a paper clip, located on the toolbar of the program. You then select the file you want to attach by locating it on your hard drive or on disk. Once you've selected the file, either its name will appear as part of the e-mail header, or as an icon within the body of your message. Most programs allow you to attach multiple files, but may limit the size of the files to no more than 10 Mb. Once the files are attached, click the Send button and off they go.

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