All but the youngest of web workers grew up learning not about email but about paper correspondence, as dictated by the likes of Emily Post. I personally learned to type on an electric typewriter in high school, and can write a perfectly polite thank you notecard thanks to the schooling of my mother.

Email didn’t become a regular part of my life until well into adulthood, and I rapidly learned there were no hard-and-fast rules governing the rapidly evolving email frontier. I had to learn with the rest of the world as the rules evolved that “all caps” was the equivalent of shouting, and that it was rude to forward everything you thought was funny to your entire address book.

As email became a more integral part of my business life, the questions about what was the correct way to use it became more complex. And yet I had no Emily Post to turn to for guidance on the correct etiquette in this new form of correspondence. Or at least I didn’t, until I found “SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home” by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.

The authors of “SEND” aren’t etiquette mavens laying down arbitrary rules. Instead, what they’ve created — after years of heavy professional email usage — is actually a guide to improving the quality of communications via email. In 2007, when the book was originally authored, Shipley was the Op-Ed Page Editor at the New York Times, and Schwalbe was Senior VP at Hyperion Books. (A revised version was published in September 2008.)

“SEND” is an easy read, and makes an easy reference volume as well because of its organization. It is an essentially practical book, with advice that is easily applicable to the real world and illustrated by real world examples (with names changed to protect the innocent).

The first big question that the book discusses is deciding when we should even send an email in the first place. Many web workers tend to default to email communication for various reasons. “SEND” brings up alternatives such as fax, letter and phone, and suggests how to evaluate when they might be more appropriate.

After you’ve decided you actually should use email for your communication, “SEND” will walk you through how to best handle all the various elements of an email. In email we deal with questions of etiquette and with options that aren’t available or considered on paper. Who should we “cc:” and “bcc:?” Should we attach a file, and in what format? What should the subject line say? Should we use a read receipt? The book addresses all these questions, and more, by teaching us how to make these decisions for ourselves instead of just laying down absolute rules, because in email communication there are no absolute rules.

Besides the nuts and bolts elements of an email there is the content at the heart of it: the body. “SEND” defines six different types of emails (“The Ask,” “The Answer,” “The Facts,” “Gratitude,” “Groveling” and “Social Glue”) and discusses the particular concerns to think about when sending each one. There are also entire chapters devoted to two particularly problematic types of emails: emotional emails, and emails that could land you in jail. The latter chapter actually deals with all sorts of potential legal ramifications of emails, and gives basic advice on how to avoid them.

If you live (and work) by your inbox, “SEND” is a must-read for improving the quality of your email communication and avoiding costly missteps.

Has an email miscommunication ever caused you a business problem?

Who could forget…

Howard Dean on Women and Whites…

When Andrew Cuomo and a few other Hillary surrogates made remarks that were deemed “racist” the media went crazy.  Howie plays a race card, and insults women as an added bonus, and what happens? Saturation coverage at the same level as his “scream”?  I wonder…

Watch him embarrass himself in this clip of his remarks on Friday.  Oh, and don’t forget, the GOP is the “white” party.  I think I liked “the scream” better…

***

The “Hillary Campaign Memos” were released by The Atlantic and Tennessee Guerrilla Women had this great tidbit on Tuesday, 8/12:

Author of Atlantic’s Hit Job on Hillary Lied About Al Gore Too

Joshua Green has worked for some serious publications, like the Washington Monthly and American Prospect, where he has fed readers lies such as: Al Gore is a serial exaggerator who said he invented the internet. In fact, Green is one of the irresponsible ‘journalists’ who helped put Bush, instead of Gore, into the White House.

Joshua Green, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the latest hit job on Hillary Rodham Clinton, inadvertently reminds readers that he once wrote for The Onion (seriously) when he actually suggests (on page one) that his hit job is “empirical truth.”

I checked out Green’s bio and he has won several prestigious awards for his work. It’s pretty sad that a guy who can twist words as well as Green is considered an up and coming “journalist.”

****

Nicolas Stix Uncensored provided some interesting information in a comment about kenoshaMarge’s July 31 post last week entitled “PUT THAT RACE CARD DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DECK!.

He wrote:

I stumbled onto your site looking for an older race card round, and I’m glad I did.I was looking for an Obamanoid Timesman (if you’ll pardon the redundancy) named Shipler, but misspelled his name “Shipley,” and instead got a totally different, Obamanoid Timesman. Shipler is the guy who wrote an LA Times op-ed on April 16. Ten years ago, he wrote an unreadable book promoting “racial dialogue,” whereby groups of apologetic whites would meet with groups of inconsolable blacks, so that the whites could practice apologizing, and the blacks could practice refusing to accept their apologies.

Shipley, meanwhile, is the current op-ed editor, the guy who gave op-ed space to Obama for a free ad, while refusing it to McCain. (Note: David Shipley is Deputy Editorial Page Editor and Op-Ed Editor of the New York Times and former Special Assistant to the President and Presidential Speech Writer for Bill Clinton.  David K. Shipler wrote the LA Times op-ed piece, The Resonance of Racism, in which he opined that the word “elitist” now connotes racism.)

***

On Saturday, there was a great post over at Alegre’s Corner on the continuing intimidation of delegates.  Read it and be fed up…

And Dr. Lynette Long has launched her site, CaucusFraud. It’s a MUST VISIT…

***

Last but not least, Saturday night the Saddleback Forum hosted Obama and McCain, “on the same stage,” but not at the same time!  McCain was on for the second hour, which means Obama couldn’t do his standard “I agree with ……..” game.  I didn’t watch any of it, but caught clips. Frankly, from what I saw, I think McCain did very well and I think his maturity is a refreshing after having Obama being shoved at us non-stop.  The relaxed setting suited McCain just fine.  I find McCain is easier, in terms of style, to listen to at this point. That doesn’t mean that I’ll vote for him (I’m definitely NOT voting for Obama), but at least I can stand watching him for more than 2 minutes, unlike Obama, whom I can’t watch at all.

***

In spite of the rain we’ve had again this week, the toad didn’t reappear.  But the hummingbirds seem a lot more active now and orioles seem to have moved on. Tonight, there was a touch of fall’s coolness here in the low desert…

THE WEEK’S POSTS

*Posted by kenoshaMarge

THE PAST WEEK:Recaps and Rambling Thoughts–August 3-August 9, 2008 (Highlights: A Great Post by Soldier4Hillary on the Fall of the Democratic Party; Rocky Mtn. News Reports O’s “Dual Citizenship” and Much More! (Update 1X)

Part I: New Mexico “Progressive” Voter Registration Groups in Trouble: ACORN Again…Surprised?? (UPDATE 1X) Part II: NM AG, “Gutsy Gary” King, Fighting for Transparency re: Non-Profits Like the League of Young Voters and ACORN

*The “Meaning” of America

CHANGE–Anybody Can Do It!! (How to Buck “The System”…)

Update on Non-Profit “Advocacy” Groups in NM…AG Gary King Squelched by Richardson?

Drudge headlined the breaking story this afternoon that the NYT editorial page editor David Shipley turned down an op-ed submitted by Sen. McCain.  The article was written in response to an op-ed published in the NYT by Sen. Obama on his shifting Iraq position.  Shipley, a former Clinton White House employee, claimed the article wasn’t what they were looking for.  This is understandable.  The McCain op-ed merely expressed the views of a man who may be the next president on one of the most important issues facing the country.  Besides, publishing the op-ed would have squeezed the space available for the latest column from Bob Herbert or Maureen Dowd.

Author: Aaron

On Friday, the McCain sent an Op-ed article written by Senator McCain to the New York Times. However the New York Times told the McCain campaign that they would not publish the article since no new information was revealed in the letter. McCain sent the letter (which dealt greatly with the war in Iraq) in response to a letter that Senator Obama wrote to the Times, which of course was published.

New York Times op-ed editor David Shipley told the McCain Campaign “I’d be very eager to publish the Senator on the op-ed page. However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft. Let me suggest an approach…It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.”

Shipley would only publish an article that he approved and expressed what he thought the American people wanted to hear. Shipley did an excellent job of violating freedom of speech and in that regard violating the freedom of speech of a Presidential Candidate. Shipley clearly supports Barack Obama and therefore did not want the American people to see a constructive opinion on how to win the war in Iraq. The New York Times should be ashamed of itself and in some regard has lost much credibility in its ability to display unbiased news rather than running as a Pro Obama newspaper.

Here is a copy of McCain’s op-ed that wasn’t published.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies. – John McCain

Text Taken From Fox News

Benjamí Villoslada ens parlará de “Rick Roll” el fenomen d’enviar un enllaç fals a algú que apunti al vídeo “Never gonna give you up” de Rick Astley. El vídeo duu ja més de 7 milions de visites en el YouTube i no es pot afagir a cap web, per decisió dels que el penjaren.

També parlarem amb Alberto Gómez Font, Coordinador General de la Fundación para el Español Urgente (FUNDÉU), de Enviar. Manual d’estil del correu electrònic traduït del original de WILL SCHWALBE i DAVID SHIPLEY.

Replet de trucs i instruccions pràctiques, Enviar és una font inesgotable de recursos per a qualsevol persona que usi el correu electrònic a casa o en l’oficina.

L’efecte de desinhibición que té la xarxa ens ha dut a tots alguna vegada a enviar missatges inadequats, massa familiars o formals, i fora de to.

En l’època que s’escrivien cartes ―una pràctica en vies d’extinció―, teníem tot el temps del món per a rellegir i reescribir abans de tancar el sobre, i les cartes incendiàries eren molt menys freqüents que els correus electrònics ofensius.

Aquest enginyós manual proporciona les orientacions essencials per a problemes tan vitals com l’ús del «enviament de còpia», l’elecció entre «respondre» a seques o «respondre a tots», el perill de l’assumpte «urgent» (que acaba recordant al conte de Pedro i el llop) i la selecció del títol adequat, la salutació, el comiat o la manera disculpar-se… En resum, una obra absolutament essencial per a comunicar-se correctament en qualsevol situació a través del correu electrònic.

Benjamí Villoslada ens parlará de “Rick Roll” el fenomen d’enviar un enllaç fals a algú que apunti al vídeo “Never gonna give you up” de Rick Astley. El vídeo duu ja més de 7 milions de visites en el YouTube i no es pot afagir a cap web, per decisió dels que el penjaren.

També parlarem amb Alberto Gómez Font, Coordinador General de la Fundación para el Español Urgente (FUNDÉU), de Enviar. Manual d’estil del correu electrònic traduït del original de WILL SCHWALBE i DAVID SHIPLEY.

Replet de trucs i instruccions pràctiques, Enviar és una font inesgotable de recursos per a qualsevol persona que usi el correu electrònic a casa o en l’oficina.

L’efecte de desinhibición que té la xarxa ens ha dut a tots alguna vegada a enviar missatges inadequats, massa familiars o formals, i fora de to.

En l’època que s’escrivien cartes ―una pràctica en vies d’extinció―, teníem tot el temps del món per a rellegir i reescribir abans de tancar el sobre, i les cartes incendiàries eren molt menys freqüents que els correus electrònics ofensius.

Aquest enginyós manual proporciona les orientacions essencials per a problemes tan vitals com l’ús del «enviament de còpia», l’elecció entre «respondre» a seques o «respondre a tots», el perill de l’assumpte «urgent» (que acaba recordant al conte de Pedro i el llop) i la selecció del títol adequat, la salutació, el comiat o la manera disculpar-se… En resum, una obra absolutament essencial per a comunicar-se correctament en qualsevol situació a través del correu electrònic.

The New York Review of Books has an interesting review of *Send:The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home*, which discusses the importance of e-mail etiquette, some horror stories about e-mail (resulting from lack of etiquette), and suggested paradigms.  The review is called “Pandora’s Click.” (9/27/07).

Janet Malcolm, the reviewer, deems the book essential and likens e-mail to power tools where only the most lucky and skilled have used without telltale scrapes, bruises, cuts, or severed limbs, shocks, burns, etc.

“Incautious emailing has cost jobs, ruined friendships, threatened marriages, subverted projects, even led to jail time. ‘On email, people aren’t quite themselves,’ David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, the book’s authors, write. ‘They are angrier, less sympathetic, less aware, more easily wounded, even more gossipy and duplicitous. Email has a tendency to encourage the lesser angels of our nature.’ It also has the capacity for instant retribution. In one of their cautionary illustrations, Shipley and Schwalbe hold up an email exchange between an executive and a secretary at a large American company in China. The executive nastily wrote:

You locked me out of my office this evening because you assume I have my office key on my person. With immediate effect, you do not leave the office until you have checked with all the managers you support.

The secretary wrote back:

I locked the door because the office has been burgled in the past. Even though I’m your subordinate, please pay attention to politeness when you speak. This is the most basic human courtesy. You have your own keys. You forgot to bring them, but you still want to say it’s someone else’s fault.

“She then performed the two-click operation that sent copies of her and her boss’s emails to the entire staff of the company. Before long the exchange appeared in the Chinese press and led to the executive’s resignation.

“Another anecdote that Shipley and Schwalbe tell to illustrate email’s special killer combination of winking at our bad behavior and horribly punishing us for it also involves a boss and secretary. In this case, the secretary spilled ketchup on the boss’s trousers, and he wrote an email asking for the £4 it cost to have the trousers cleaned (the company was a British law firm). Receiving no reply, he pursued the matter. Finally he—and hundreds of people at the firm—received this email:

“Subject: Re: Ketchup trousers

“With reference to the email below, I must apologize for not getting back to you straight away but due to my mother’s sudden illness, death and funeral I have had more pressing issues than your £4.

“I apologize again for accidentally getting a few splashes of ketchup on your trousers. Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is greater than mine as a mere secretary.

“Having already spoken to and shown your email…to various partners, lawyers and trainees…, they kindly offered to do a collection to raise the £4.

I however declined their kind offer but should you feel the urgent need for the £4, it will be on my desk this afternoon. Jenny.”

Shipley and Schwalbe (authors of *Send*(note that): The email era has made necessary a special type of apology, the kind you have to make when you are the bonehead who fired off a ridiculously intemperate email or who accidentally sent an email to the person you were covertly trashing. In situations like these, our first inclination is to apologize via the medium that got us into so much trouble in the first place. Resist this inclination.”  And they note that the more grievous the sin, the more an e-mail apology trivializes the omission.

“The young make different mistakes on email than the middle- aged and old do. College students who send outrageous email requests to their teachers (addressed “Hiya Professor!”) or college applicants who write long, self-satisfied emails to admissions officers ’seem painfully unaware that the person they are writing to (and annoying) is the same person who could be offering them a place in a freshman class or grading them at term’s end.’ The poor lambs don’t know better, and Send is good at setting them straight.”

E-mail suffers from two problems relative to letters: 1) that it lacks anything distinctive (like tone, or stationery, or penmanship) that might soften or humanize it and thus provide a blank screen onto which the reader projects a tone; and 2) that it can so easily be sent on to others that the writer never imagined when he/she sent it.  Thus Shipley and Schwalbe recommend a universal and almost unnatural niceness as an e-mail style. 

The reviewer notes: “Keep letting your correspondent know how much you like and respect him, praise and flatter him, constantly demonstrate your puppyish friendliness, and stick in exclamation points (and sometimes even smiling face icons) wherever possible. ‘The exclamation point is a lazy but effective way to combat email’s essential lack of tone,’ Shipley and Schwalbe write. ‘I’ll see you at the conference’ is a simple statement of fact. ‘I’ll see you at the conference!’ lets your fellow conferee know that you’re excited and pleased about the event.”

While some of the same concerns plague letter writing as well, many letter writers spend far longer formulating their words than e-mail writers and generally spend longer considering whether they want to send the message.  And those who later have second thoughts can often retrieve these letters from the mail table in a way that they can’t from the *sent* e-mail file.

“‘ We don’t think of ourselves as old, but we recall when the phone was a big deal,’ the fortysomething authors write. It won’t be long before email, too, stops being a big deal. The people who now use email to fire employees or propose marriage or disparage friends will realize that they were doing the equivalent of throwing fragile silks into the washing machine. As email’s novelty wears off and its limitations become clearer, we will revert to the telephone when something complex, intimate, or low-minded needs to be communicated. We will use email for straightforward business and social arrangements.”

For further discussion of how the Internet is a hard medium in which to build social capital, see Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, pp. 174-180.

See: Pandora’s Click (full review)