Email etiquette

If you type in all caps, you are screaming at me.

If you don't take the time to punctuate with any semblance of effort, you are saying you have more important things to do than communicate with me.

If I ask two questions and you only answer one, I know you didn't take time to read my email, and probably should be skeptical of the one answer you did give.

If I copy someone on an email to you but you only reply back to me, it looks like you're hiding something (or, again, aren't paying attention).

Email's great and email's fast, but email also says a lot about how you value me.

Cut through the clutter

The spam filter on my email is pretty good, so most of what ends up in my spam folder is from companies I've signed up with or bought something from.

Most of the time I don't read the solicitations from Crate and Barrel and Macy's and all the airlines that end up in my spam box. They have long titles that all blur together, because of course they know I'm not going to open their email, so they feel they need to cram as much into that subject line as they can.

An email in my spam box today cut through the usual clutter. An email from the Hard Times Cafe had an extremely compelling subject line: "You are awesome!"

Well, thank you. You're too kind.

There was no special deal or coupon in the email, just an invitation to come into their place of business and watch the Redskins game this weekend. To come be a part of the gang in your friendly neighborhood wings-and-beer place. And I opened the email, and considered a restaurant I hadn't thought about it a while.

And why? Because they appealed to the one thing that everyone cares about - their own sense of self worth. Everyone wants to be liked, and people like people who like them.

So go out there and like your customers. They'll appreciate it, and you'll probably appreciate the results.

Quote of the day

The Democrats believe in government when they have a choice. Republicans believe in people when we have a choice...The Republican Party is the part of the people. The Democratic Party is the party of the government.

That's from Rudy Giuliani, in a speech he gave this week. He may be the most morally questionable candidate and I know there are some questions regarding his fiscal disciple towards the end of his tenure as mayor, but none of the other candidates are anywhere close to articulating the message above as well as he is doing.

Republicans can't win the White House again by talking about unsexy issues like tax cuts or by being against all the government-expanding ideas the Democrats throw out. Republicans have to offer a bold vision of a better tomorrow and inspire Real People to believe that a better future isn't given by government, it's made by the people, the communities, the businesses, and the families of this nation.

Focusing on the Customer

I was trying to poke around on Craigslist this evening, but then got a page that wouldn't load. I clicked on another page and got this message:

Craigslist and many other sites are having issues at the colo facility.
Please sit tight, and try again later.
We are aware of the situation, and the happy craigslist elves are scurrying to make it better, even now.

They could have said just said there was an error and left me to wonder if it would ever be fixed, if anyone even knew - just like sooooo many other companies would do.

But they let me know they were on it. We're cool. Everything's going to be fine.

They've got elves working on it.

If you know there is a problem with your product/service/candidate, acknowledge it. Let it be what it is - and, to the best you can, fix it.

Thinking big outside the box

At the end of a History Channel program about the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, they made a very interesting point. When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was a shocking design, completely out of keeping with French design at the time. Now of course the Tower is the very icon of all things French. The commentator noted that, had the tower been built in London (or in Barcelona, as originally intended) then we would see the Tower as a truly British piece of architecture today.

Sometimes the things we see as dramatically different and unthinkable will appear, after a time, to be common and unthinkable only in the sense of it not being there. Many ideas we have are borne out of the past. Sometimes they need to be borne out of the future.

Are you sitting on a Big Idea just because it's out-of-keeping with common standards? If you follow through with it, it could become the common standard.

[side note - read the wikipedia article on the Petronas Towers (or watch the History Channel show on it) to see the value the builders gained from having competing teams working on each of the two towers. A project of this size can almost be assured of coming in behind schedule, but competition led to an on-time completion]

Georgia Public Policy Foundation

One email I look forward to each week is the Friday Facts email from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. The email always highlights interesting things.

I also like it because I think it's an excellent development (in the fundraising sense of the word) tool. It keeps the organization in the mind of donors and makes them feel connected to its work. And, also notable, is that it frames GPPF as a dispenser of knowledge. They don't have to create all the information that's there, and that probably makes it even more effective because donors and activists can see GPPF as finding these interesting things for me - they are doing me a favor! - and so I'll pay attention to those things of theirs that they highlight.

Here are a couple items from today's Friday Facts email, both of which happen to be environmentally focused:

• Warming by worming? Open University researcher Jim Frederickson reports that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material instead of putting it into landfills. The German government wants 45 percent of all waste to be composted by 2015. The Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined. Source: Materials Recycling Week
  
• Those so-called Lexus lanes – high-occupancy toll lanes – save motorists more than time during rush hour. The Wall Street Journal reports that a Minneapolis worker who uses the 11-mile express lane on I-394 to get home quickly to her disabled husband has paid as much as $6 in tolls in brutal traffic. She discovered another benefit: She burns about a quarter of a tank of gas a week in the express lane, down from a half-tank in the slower-moving regular lanes. Source: Wall Street Journal

You can get on the mailing list at their website at www.gppf.com.

Inconvenience stores

A new coffee shop has opened in my office building. Across the street is a well-entrenched Starbucks, so this new little place does not have an easy life ahead of itself. Somehow it has to be different. But how is it going to do that? I looked around the store and tried to figure it out. They offered a lot of premium beverages - just like Starbucks - and lots of snacks and breakfast pastries - just like Starbucks.

What they did seem to have was lots of coffee canisters around for folks who just wanted a straight cup of coffee - and the cups were out, so you seemingly could serve it yourself and bypass the line (assuming one day there will be a line) of folks waiting on fancy drinks. That's pretty clever!

But nowhere in the store could I find the price of the cup of straight joe. And nowhere did it tell me I could just go grab a cup, fill up, cream-and-sugar to my liking, pay and go. Their best feature - and they make it difficult!

When I looked at my Far Side calendar for today, it shows a little boy in a massive, barren store where the only shelves are ten feet above his head, and the guy behind the register is just reading a newspaper. The caption says "Inconvenience stores." I should take it to the friendly lady at the new coffee place.

Are you running an Inconvenience Store with your job/organization/relationship?