netiquette
Communicate
The Essentials Of Email Etiquette
7:00AM Azadeh Ensha | Those accidental reply-alls and empty subject fields in your inbox tell the truth—too many people still don’t know the basics of proper email etiquette. Here are eleven rules to forward on or follow. More »
Communicate
Tweak Facebook To Display Only Updates You Care About
4:00AM Adam Pash | Social network friendships are a complicated thing; it’s hard to turn down an acquaintance’s friend request, but after you’ve approved 50 of them, the signal-to-noise ratio of your homepage drops significantly. Here’s how to fix it without un-friending (or offending) anyone. More »
Communicate
Don’t Give Your Email Address And Password To Other Web Sites
2:45AM Adam Pash | From the no-kidding files: the New York Times discusses a neither new nor uncommon practice employed by less reputable web sites that ask for your email address and password, then spam every person in your contact list. More »
Communicate
Are You More Likely To Lie Via Email Than On Paper?
1:30AM Gina Trapani | A new study out of Lehigh University shows that workers lie 50% more of the time via email than in handwritten communication. “There is a growing concern in the workplace over email communications, and it comes down to trust,” says Belkin, an assistant professor of management in the College of Business and Economics. “You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over email. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception.” More »
Email Etiquette Pages Explain So You Don’t Have To
7:00AM Gina Trapani | Why waste time schooling clueless email senders one by one when you can build a web site to do it for you? A recent trend among email-overloaded web developers who don’t want to explain the basics of email etiquette to frequent senders is to set up a web page that does it instead—then reply to senders with a link to the page, or just include it in their signature. Merlin Mann’s Thanks, No turns down unwanted email; Mike Davidson’s five sentences explains why his email messages are so short; and now Brett Kelly’s BCC, please asks that bulk senders use the BCC field to hide his address from everyone else on a big list. The question is: would you ever actually use any of these explainer pages? More »
Disable your relationship status on Facebook without making the news
12:16PM Sarah Stokely | The dead tree version of Wired (March 2008 issue) has a handy hint for how to break up on Facebook without sending a news blast to your friends list about it. To change your relationship status without the press release, go to Facebook’s privacy options, deselect “Remove My Relationship Status” then, in your profile settings, change “In a Relationship” back to its default setting “Select Status”.Voila, now you won’t be broadcasting the news of your recent split to the world.The article points out that your ex’s Mini Feed will still display an update in *their* relationship status, so you can’t get away scot free. They’ll need to delete it themselves. Oh well. More » Prevent online arguments by taking conversations offline
10:40AM Sarah Stokely | Observing a heated argument taking place on Twitter prompted Coding Horror blogger Jeff Atwood to write an article urging people to consider the public nature of internet comms tools like Twitter, as well as the fact that it’s often quicker and easier to nip an argument in the bud by taking it offline.
Know when to escalate from IM to email, from email to phone, and
when to drop the ultimate communication A-bomb: a face-to-face meeting.
Sometimes people are hesitant to escalate communications even when it’s
painfully obvious that they should. Resist the urge to reply in kind,
however tempting it may be. You’ll both have a more productive
conversation when one of you finds the wherewithal to escalate to
“let’s take this to email”, “let me call you”, or even “let’s meet for
coffee”.
If your online professional conversations turn to flame wars then you
are making yourself look bad and making it harder to work well with
people. Knowing when and how to call a ceasefire can save you time and keep conversations constructive.
On Escalating Communication [Coding Horror] More » 