Some small things to remember about e-mail
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Actually, the first thing I'd like to touch on cannot exactly be called a small matter. To make my point clear, here's an e-mail message that arrived in my Inbox recently: "Please send information about your Linguist CD-ROM, the English- Indonesian Dictionary. Thank you." There was no greeting, no introduction, no signature, no name. I only know that the sender was somebody who called himself (or herself) "V----- L".
What was this? Since when have I been the salesman of a product that I've reviewed in this column? And who was this person to give me such a terse order? I couldn't agree more that our friend Bill Powell from Ciptasoft has a useful product, and I'd be more than happy to forward any inquiry concerning his CD ROM-based Linguist dictionary to his e-mail address. However, the discourteousness of this e-mail really shocked me and turned me off.
I have answered dozens of inquiries from my readers, and the majority of you who have received my responses would immediately see how gladly I answer your questions. That's because you show respect for me in your messages, and I always try to reciprocate. But this one was quite different.
Still, I replied to the sender, whose full name I never knew, and gave him (or her, I had no clue) Ciptasoft's phone number. This person came back to me with the message: "We asked for info about 'Linguist'... your reply was `Ciptasoft, 4287-0136'. Please explain. Thanks." Well, sorry, I had a lot of work to finish.
Courtesy applies
E-mail is undeniably one of the greatest productivity tools that the Internet has brought us. However, face-to-face communication should also apply to e-mail exchanges. The tone of our e-mail messages should not be different from our printed correspondence. In the 19th century, the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in his Idylls of the King how a great man would be characterized by a great courtesy. The same thing still holds true in today's digital era.
And it is not difficult to be courteous. Like in a written letter, we should introduce ourselves at the beginning of our first e-mail message. Next, we may want to let the recipient know how we got his name and his e-mail address -- although in my case you may skip it as I usually place my address at the end of my articles. Then we can proceed with our clear but succinct inquiry, and finally close the e-mail with a signature.
I used Altavista to search for materials on the proper way of using e-mail, and I was really amazed to find out how the Internet has a lot of resources that deal with the so-called Netiquette.
A good place to start is Arlene H. Rinaldi's Netiquette Home Page at the Florida Atlantic University (www.fau.edu/netiquette/netiquette.html). Arlene seems to be regarded as the authority in the field.
Those who rely heavily on e-mail in their business correspondence will benefit from the website of Business Netiquette International (www.bspage.com/1netiq/Netiq.html). Another comprehensive guideline, written by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood, is available at http://enterprise.powerup.com.au/htmlxp/pu/emailhow.htm, and here's another that you can use: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/index.html.
For establishing the rules and regulations on the use of e- mail as well as your organization's computing resources, you can look at Murdoch University's http://wwwcns2.murdoch.edu.au/security/sg_users.html.
Stop dumping
Another thing that happened to me just last night reminded me of how easily we can cause terrible inconveniences to other people without being aware of it. First, I got a message with three attachments. The total size of the e-mail was 930 KB. Understandably, they clogged my e-mail box at CBN's server. It took me three attempts to download the file. Fortunately, It was not so bad after all, because it was a job that one of my clients in Bandung wanted me to work on. But, half an hour later, an unsolicited quarterly financial report from a state-owned enterprise arrived at the server, and the size of its attachment was a whopping 3.2 MB. There was no way I could download it. I had to go to CBN's website and manually delete the monster. I was lucky I noticed the problem immediately and knew how to solve it. Just imagine if I had not been there when this behemoth arrived. All subsequent incoming messages would bounce because the allocated storage for my e-mail account was already filled up. It could have meant lost business opportunities for me.
So, if you send attachments, make sure they are not extraordinarily large in size. Compress the files with the WinZip utility before you send it so that it would not overwhelm your recipient's mailbox. Use Adobe's Acrobat Distiller if you need to send brochures or white papers that are full of graphics and diagrams. Acrobat can reduce the file size down to only 10 percent of the original without sacrificing quality.
If, despite your best efforts to avoid it, you still have to send a very large file, call the person first and notify him so that he can download it right away in order to avoid a traffic jam on his ISP's server.
Dedicated folders
Honestly speaking, I must also admit that, like many other e- mail users, I have committed a lot of e-mail sins in the past. Some of you might have sent me e-mail messages and I failed to reply to you. I might have planned to respond to your questions later. However, your messages got buried under dozens of others that drop into my Inbox every day, and it was subsequently lost. Here's a solution that I have just devised, and I think the idea is worth sharing with you.
As shown in the accompanying picture, I have created two subfolders under the Inbox folder. One of them is where I will drag and drop correspondence that I cannot answer right away. The other is where I keep longer-term assignments. The two new folders should be as close as possible to Inbox, so the drag and drop maneuver wouldn't have to be an exercise in dexterity.
And what I have to do now is go over the list in these folders regularly. It's easier said than done, I know. But, then again, it's part of online courtesy, and I'm still learning, too.