emails: the good, the bad and the ugly – by sonia vohnout

E-mail or email, is an abbreviation of Electronic mail. Email is a method of exchanging electronic messages between people.

So, is email a good thing or a bad thing?  Depends on when, why, and how you use it and what you write. As it turns out, you can write an email where you can make someone feel really good, yet in another email, you can just plain hurt the reader or even yourself. Once you press the send button, that message is gone for ever and ever and you will have absolutely no control over who sees it in the future.

Like anything, email has its ups and more than its share of downs. This week I had my share of bad and ugly emails. I let an email get the best of me and I responded and pressed send!  Oops! …. Too late, I can’t take it back, the message is gone.

You can then get into the endless back and forth responding and sending emails to see who wins making their point, without ever resolving the issue and just getting deeper and deeper into trouble…. Not a good strategy.

The pros (good):

• Email is easy to use. All you need is the appropriate software that runs on your computer.  Email requires less physical effort than sending a letter. It means there is no need to buy stamps or envelopes or for a trip to the postbox.
• Email is extremely fast. No matter where you’re sending your message, whether it’s on the other side of town or on the other side of the world.
• Email is inexpensive or free of charge. Outside of your normal online connection charges, Internet email costs precisely nothing and you save on long distance bills.
• Email messages are easily stored (also a con, see below). The electronic nature of email means we use less natural resources and we don’t have to bother with things like fax paper.
• Email is practically universal. Not only do millions of people on the Internet use email, but every major email system in the world allows their users to send messages to and receive messages from the Internet.
• With email it is easy to send the same piece of information to several people simultaneously.

The cons (bad and ugly):

• Email is impersonal.  Impersonality of email leads to a big problem, where we forget that, most of the time, a live human being will be reading your message. Once the email is sent, there’s no way to retrieve a message that was written in a fit of anger or emotional distress.  Sometimes folks use email when they do not want to have a difficult face-to-face conversation.
• Email can take over your life. Before you know it, you can spend most of your day just reading and responding to emails.  Most business employees today spend from one to two hours of their working day on email for reading, ordering, sorting, and writing email. The use of email is increasing due to increasing levels of globalization
• Email is not as private as a regular letter. As your email messages are on their way to their destinations, they have to pass through other, public, systems.
• Email messages are easily stored, all of them including the good, the bad and the ugly. If you say nasty things in a message, a saved copy could easily resurface and come back to haunt you sometime in the future. A good rule to follow is to assume your message will be read by the general public and to write accordingly.

So, when should we use email and when should we not?

Use email when:

• It is important that your audience gets your message
• You need to deliver a message to more than one person
• You want a quick but not an instant response
• Your audience is at a distance
• You want time to compose your message: Use email in preference to a phone call or in-person meeting
• You require a record of your message

Don’t use email when:

• It is not essential that all of your audience gets the message
• You need an immediate response: If you’re in a real hurry, use the phone or walk to the person.
• You are delivering sensitive information: At worst the recipient needs to hear the tone of your voice and that means getting on the phone . Much better is to say it in person, when your body language can do most of the talking.
• Text is not a powerful enough medium: If you need to convey complex processes or principles, to grab attention or influence attitudes, then text is unlikely to be enough.
• You are agitated: Sometimes it’s more tempting to say what you think in writing than on the phone or in person. Don’t.  It’s e-rage (for electronic rage) and it’s not good for your career or your soul or even your heart. If you are agitated, it’s better not to communicate at all, go do some meditation, exercise or yoga. It will help you relax and think before you write and click.

Bottom-line: next time you chose to use email make sure you understand why you are using it and read twice before you press SEND.

Until next time!

sonia

Advertisement