Pick Up The Phone
If you had written an entire book about email, you'd think suggesting people use the telephone would be a poor marketing strategy. Yet that's exactly what Will Schwalbe and David Shipley, authors of "Send" are doing in their tome about email etiquette. They've managed to garner a mention in the New Yorker, so the marketing strategy is working.
You can listen to an interview with the two authors online (or download to your MP3 player) and read an excerpt about improving your email skills. The excerpt is notable for the following, aforementioned, passage about not using email.
Seven Reasons to use the Telephone instead of Email:
- When you need to convey or discern emotion.
- When you need to cut through the communication forest. Remember that meeting that had already taken up sixty-seven emails? In three phone calls, it's all set. (Date, time, location, roster of participants, who's having what for lunch.)
- When you need to move fast. (Yes, it's true—even with cell phones, you can have trouble finding someone, or you can get stuck in voicemail. Still, the phone is faster and more reliable than anything else. When you've actually found someone, you know it.)
- When you want a remote communication to be private. (Unless you're being recorded or speaking really loudly—and rudely!—in a public place.)
- When you need to reach someone who doesn't check their email.
- When you want people to be able immediately to engage and respond. The fact that we can talk at the same time and interrupt each other means that we can communicate the way we do in person. The phone allows our words and ideas to overlap, mingle, and amplify one another. Instant messaging and texting mimic this—but it's not the same.
- When you need to send a harsh email, you can soften the blow (or distance yourself from it) by calling first with advance warning. ("I just wanted you to know that I'm going to be sending you a formal email letting you know that your bid wasn't successful. I value our relationship and hope that we can speak tomorrow, after you've read it.")
And yes, Amazon has the book in stock.
