How to Write an Email

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Ask the following questions:

1. Who has ever written an email?
2. Who has ever read an email?
3. Who has enjoyed every email they have ever read?
4. Who has enjoyed most emails they have read?

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Say these things out loud. 'I stay busy' or somesuch.

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Crack a joke about being tired. Make it snappy.

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• I am not an expert (do those exist)
• I speak from experience and frustration
• Trust me as much as you like, I encourage a second opinion.

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1. Talk about problem
2. Fix problem
3. Talk about how the fix is more than just for email

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This is the part of the presentation where I talk about why email is so awful

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Before I state the problems with email I would like to acknowledge that it has it's strengths:

1. It's convenient. It is readily available on pretty much every platform. It's in the browser, on your phone, and it's pretty secure for those that need it to be.
2. It's ubiquitous. Everybody uses email, everybody has email, everybody reads their email at least once a week.
3. Because everybody uses email we can depend on it. If you send someone an email you can assume they read it - or at least blame them for not reading it when they drop the ball.

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Remember how we all raised our hands at the start? Right. We all use email. Many people use email.

The biggest problem with this is that many people who do not know how to write, or when to write well, use email. Individuals who are able to get their thoughts into text, but do not structure it in such a way that the reader is able to understand it well, or even at all sometimes.

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Steps for writing an email...

Communicating over an Instant Messaging System (slack)...

I can only read ~10 emails per day effectively.

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Everybody uses it, so I end up getting too many emails.

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Here are some tips for making email suck less.

Spoiler alert, the secret is to write emails that suck less.

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Having a purpose helps tie things in as I go through my slides.

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Know who you are in relation to your audience.

Be sure that your audience is the right audience. Should they know this, do they kneed to know this?

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This is just a silly joke... hopefully people laugh.

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None Jump right into what you should not to. Momentum permitting ask people why. This is a wall of text. Fuck walls of text.

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Organization. This email is too short. It may serve purpose but as it takes up space I feel like it's a waste of my time. If you really only have that much to say does it need to be said? Can you say it somewhere else (slack, irc, etc)

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Organization. This message isn't too long, it's not too short. It clearly has something to say and I don't feel like it's a waste of my time.

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Organization, ease of information. This email has a clear structure, it preambles what it's about to tell me, then goes into detail, and reminds me what it just said with a conclusion. Most importantly it's easy to process.

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Organization, ease of information. If your email necessitates it use a bulleted list! People love lists.

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Attention. This is mostly used to grab attention. You may not want to include this in an email about budget cuts but it's perfect for an un- to semi-professional email about an upcoming event.

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Just as a quick review. We slowly worked toward these goals.

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Sometimes we don't need to send an email?

It might be better to send it over Slack or IRC. If you don't have an email alternative in your situation, start a movement, make it happen.

If you are lamenting all the emails you receive, everybody else is probably feeling the same way.

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You ought to use a medium to the best of it's abilities. People use mediums (facebook, twitter, irc, etc) because of what it does well.

Using a medium to it's strengths respects the wishes of the people that use the medium. It maximizes the impact of your message.

There are nuances. It is hard. It is worth it in my experience.

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If you invest in your message, instead of phoning it in, it will show.

If you make every word count, give each line purpose, the reader will appreciate this and will care more about your message.

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The medium is very important. The real lesson I'm trying to get across in my talk is not that email is terrible but that email is used improperly. If you consider what a medium is useful for then you can use it more effectively.

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Protip, if you think about who you're talking to and put yourself into their shoes things get a lot easier. This step is often overlooked when producing any media, including emails!