The ABCD of good emailing.

Email pre-dates the internet; originally started as an effort to allow remote login via terminals to main frame systems. Today email has (almost) replaced postal mail as a preferred communication means. Almost all organizations communicate via email. Services such as banking, stock market trading, healthcare and many others rely heavily on email to get the message across. Fast.

Speed, efficiency and low cost are the main factors behind email’s rise in preference. It is almost instantaneous, allows for a plethora of delivery options and is virtually free other than the cost of being able to access an internet enabled computer. Most people just do it from their phone (when the plane taxies to the gate, most passengers have already sent out emails from their smartphones, or at least checked their inboxes).
What made email great, also made email unnerving. High speed, ease of use and low cost have enabled people with loads of time on their hands to constantly abuse this utility. Lets learn how not to abuse it.
Now there are probably millions of guides on how to use email, most of them covering what you are about to read and more. However it seems to me that many people who regularly email me haven’t read these. Hence here it is. A guide on how NOT to be a virtual-unemployed-idiot.

A. Don’t abuse email. Email is a communication tool. Not a gossip tool. Most people in the world who have serious jobs and a real life are not interested in teddy bears hugging, glittering text, emoticons, miraculous healing, kidney stealing or how anyone found their true love in the rain after wishing for it on Mt. Does-Not-Exist. Most religions existed before email and thus it would be unfair to everyone before the time of email if God started handing out blessings for forwarding emails. If you genuinely believe you get brownie points for forwarding an email, then you obviously don’t believe in a fair God. No company pays anyone for forwarding emails. If there ever was, people would write a script to do it, and become millionaires. I would sell such scripts and become a billionaire.
If you have fancy text, or a smiley, or this jpg of the worlds rarest lizard, please put it on your myspace page where it belongs, and I promise I will look at it. In fact chances are I will love it and link it in my status on myspace. But don’t clutter my mailbox with it.
Most people use the same mailbox for work and pleasure. Once you start spamming it with junk, they label you in their minds or in their mailboxes as people not to be taken seriously, and you will land up in their bulk mail or trash folders. So unless you are absolutely sure a person wants junk or has a mailbox dedicated to junk, don’t send it to that person.

B. Learn how to forward mail using the ‘bcc’.Most of your forwards will cease if you “Don’t abuse email” like I mentioned earlier. Some email may still need forwarding though. Don’t just click the forward button, select everyone in your address book like a jackass and send it. Would you like your email address to reach every tom, dick and harry on all your contacts list’s contacts? Or would you like to open 107 outlook windows with forwarded attachments? (Previously outlook opened a forward in a new window, making nested forwards very annoying – even if that doesn’t happen, I hate scrolling 4000 lines before I see a message. Not to mention my phone only downloads snippets.) No. You don’t want your email broadcasted out like a celebrity wardrobe malfunction image, and you don’t want to scroll forever to read a message. Neither do I. So take a minute, and prune your message. This will not only make your email more readable, but also prevents your recipients (who haven’t read this) from getting their hands on your senders email address. Should you feel the need to send this to multiple persons in your contact list, use the ‘bcc’ feature. It is amazing, and probably one of the best features of email. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Carbon_Copy) The email will hide any addresses in the bcc list from others. Now that you have stopped mindlessly forwarding, you can put all that time towards your family, and doing these 2 simple steps in the rare event that you need to forward. (If you forward this article, remember to prune it and bcc your recipients)

C. Do NOT use that reply all button.Before I even get started on this, here is the gist of a conversation in my mailbox.

[Person A] -> [many recipients] : [Some forward about pandas and polar bears]
[Recipient X] -> [Reply all] : [Please don’t send me unimportant forwards]
[Person A] -> [Reply all] : [Hey, you don’t have to be sure rude about it in reply all]
[Recipient X] -> [Reply all] : [I wasn’t being rude. I just don’t want that kind of spam]
[Recipient E] -> [Reply all] : [Hey A and X, can you take this fight elsewhere]
…. And more.

Did you see that? E used reply all. And A used reply all telling X not to be rude in reply all. Makes me want to gouge my eyes out at the combined intelligence of A, X and E. (Yes I love AXE. It really works. The commercials don’t lie.)
Most people blindly use the reply all feature without any consideration about how many email addresses they are sending that email to. Just give in some time and understand who your email is going out to. Not just the person who sent you something in the first place but everyone else on the original senders list. The only reasonable use for it in my opinion is when you are collaborating stuff at work and need to keep multiple persons in the loop. If you have to use reply all, wait, take a moment and think. Does every recipient need to see every other recipients email address? If not, then use the best feature ever – bcc.

D. Do NOT add everyone on a mail list to your contact book.
Most email providers have an unnecessary and mostly horribly misused feature of adding all email addresses in an incoming mail to the address book. Do NOT add people you don’t know or don’t need to email to your address book. The math is very simple -> More strangers on your address book = More strangers you will spam when you forward everyone in your book = More strangers that will hate you = Higher probability that your virtual life will be destroyed by one of these strangers you angered. Not to mention they might be morons and will add you too, and spam you as well.

Hopefully everyone I know will read this, and if they did not follow these practices earlier, they will start now. And remember, all of these are to be used in combination with each other.