Customer Reviews

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Shipley and Schwalbe focus on tone. They remind us that communication in person, and to a lesser degree on the telephone, carries with it far more information than words on a screen. Tedious volumes have been written on nuance conveyed by the angle of the speaker's eyebrows, and most people seem to have picked up the concept somewhere. To counteract email's lack of tone, though, Shipley recommends inserting emoticons, those annoying little graphics meant to suggest smiley faces or winks.

Perhaps more helpful are the suggestions to stop, read, and think before hitting the "Send" command: Check your spelling, punctuation and word choice - is your meaning clear? Cut the fluff. Consider your position in relation to the recipient. Avoid frivolous requests or demands. Understand that everything you write can be permanently saved, searched, and sent to others. Learn how to clean up your hard drive, but understand that corporate backups retain copies of every document and porno pic you've ever sent or received -- except for that one essential document you need.

S & S give much attention to the "To," "Cc" and "Bcc" lines. Here's a helpful suggestion: "Never forward anything without permission, and assume everything you write will be forwarded." When responding to an email addressed and/or copied to a group, should you "Reply" or "Reply all"? The social and political ramifications of such questions get quite a few pages.

The emotional content of email gets some ink too. Flame wars are discussed, as well as the wisdom of using email to fire employees or initiate divorce proceedings. The authors argue convincingly that some messages are best delivered in person, despite the personal risk.

They touch less convincingly on security: An "independent" business leader, subpoened to offer Congressional testimony, was discovered through Word tracking in a document file to have permitted a Bush official to edit his statement. When confronted with the truth, he said, "The real scandal here is that after 15 years of using Microsoft Word, I don't know how to turn off 'Track Changes.' " Scandalous indeed. Unfortunately, S & S go on to instruct their reader on how to turn off tracking and they get it wrong.

The book does discuss some interesting issues. Trouble is, the issues have been endlessly discussed, published, flamed and forwarded online for the past 20 years. Most corporations publish their own email guidelines, often reflecting their distinct corporate culture. I've been using email since it was first available to civilians-1980 I think it was -and for as many years have shared in the online debate. My teenaged daughter, when I asked her about email, said, "I don't know much of a world without email." I reminded her that, as a Waldorf student, she had in fact been protected from the evil influence of computers almost until high school.

She came back with a story published in Reed College's student newspaper, "The Quest": A San Francisco high school, trying to take the edge off college rejections, offered prizes to students with the most rejection letters and the worst letter. Harvard was honored with "most obsequious," Cornell with "most emphatic," but it was an email from Reed College that took "worst overall." The winner had emailed Reed's admissions office to check that all his documentation had been received. In response he got a misdirected interoffice memo that said, "He's a Deny."

So there's no doubt that Shipley and Schwalbe's recommendations remain valuable. As a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and a book that received critical attention from heavy-hitters like Dave Barry, "Send" will find its way to many hands. I bristle at the suggestion that it equals the stature and grace of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," which will occupy space on my bookshelf till my demise and beyond. But "Send" promises to reach an audience that doesn't know Usenet from fishnet. And that's a good thing.

"Send" is smart, timely, entertaining, a good investment -- and, as a reference book, a keeper. It combines the pithy good sense of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" with the tongue-in-cheek humor of H. W. Fowler's "Modern English Usage" to produce the equivalent of Amy Vanderbilt's "Etiquette" for the e-set.

While most of us take emailing for granted (and, unfortunately, never -- or only rarely -- think about how our message might be received at the other end), David Shipley and Will Schwalbe take us behind the electronic curtain to show us that digital yellow-brick roads might well conceal oodles of anti-personnel devices, most of them of our own unconscious design.

"All ye who enter here..." might do well to stand at the portal to the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, there's no such warning. And so, all of us -- too glibly, too happily, too unreflectively -- bound through without first taking the time to learn some basic do's and don't's.

Shipley and Schwalbe have compiled such a list -- and have provided anecdotes and illustrations aplenty to make digesting that list an eminently enjoyable undertaking. If, for example, you should ever experience "a sudden chill in the ether," you need only turn to page 131 to discover a possible source of the temperature drop between you and your pretended e-pal(s).

While "Five Words That Almost Everyone Misuses" (p. 121) certainly wasn't necessary to any reader who's spent a pleasantly sardonic afternoon with Mr. or Mrs. Malaprop, "This Is Annoying How" is the kind of literary circus act that leaves us gasping with delight.

If you're one of those readers who enjoyed Lynn Truss's "Eats(,) Shoots & Leaves" -- not only for its usefulness, but also for its moxy -- "Send" is your kind of book. If you're NOT that kind of reader, buy it anyway -- it may save (you) a friend.

Here's a book that has been climbing up the bestseller charts the past week or so--Send: the Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwable.

Guy Kawasaki called the book "the Elements of Style" of email. I don't believe I'd go that far. It isn't exactly a reference you can pick up again and again. There is some how-to, but don't expect to learn how to manage your email or how to use an email program. Once you read the book through, you are done. I am impressed with their blurbage on the book--Bill Bryson says, "This is just the book I've been waiting for."

There is some good information here about when to send email (and when to phone), how to write an email, the pitfalls of emotion in email, and how to avoid legal trouble. But as an experienced email user, I didn't learn anything new in the book--except that maybe I'm guilty of being a little casual in my communications. Hey! Hey! Hey! That's who I am. :-) :-) :-) :-P

The typical office worker deals with approximately 100 non-spam e-mails per day -- it is every bit as much a part of our communication mix as the phone and face-to-face, and yet it is considered by many to be the weakest. The thing is, many of the shortcomings and problems of e-mail can be addressed/alleviated with a few very simple practices, but most people receive NO training whatsoever in how to write and use e-mail effectively.

That's where this book is so important and valuable. It can easily be read in a day or two, but the practices within it, if followed, can change the rest of your career.

The book has a good mix of specific how-tos combined with real-world anecdotes. The anecdotes are hysterical and sometimes strike very close to home. I'm amazed they got so many people to open up so much with their e-mail horror stories. Also, the examples they use of various bad e-mail practices are very funny and keep the book light while still delivering a serious message.

For a little added fun, go check out the video on YouTube of the interviews they did walking the streets and offices of New York.

The one shortcoming of the book? There's not really anything in it about how to keep your e-mail well organized, especially when you have huge volumes of it to contend with, and that typically does have an impact on things like making timely responses to people, doing appropriate follow-ups, etc. For that, I recommend David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity or my book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors And Closing Deals Online.

Send is nothing but a commonplace guide on email that the marketing gurus had the audacity to compare to the "Elements of Style."

Each chapter is filled with obvious information on email: for example, "The Seven Big Reasons to Love Email" and "The Eight Reasons You May not Want to Email" are basic, skillfully written blogs of what we already know. Another chapter dedicates 24 pages to the difference between "To" and "CC": again, more information that we know. The most mind boggling chapter is titled, "How to Write [the Perfect] Email": a title that is undeniably deceitful. This fruitless chapter uses the poor writing style of a preteen as an example. To add insult to injury, the quick overviews on why to incorporate grammar and punctuation, as well as avoid capital letters and odd fonts is so 90s.

Reviewing this book any further is a waste of valuable time and effort.

Congratulations Messrs. Shipley and Schwalbe for formatting a simple editorial into a $19.95 book.

Send is an essential primer on email composition, interpretation, etiquette, and practicalities. It serves as a good refresher course for any modern professional or personal computer user, no matter how long you've been using email. Even if you already know the importance of assigning people to the to: vs. cc: lines, what bcc: does, and how to compose a signature block, the anecdotal examples and email/text/letter/phone call decision tree are of benefit to anyone.

I was most impressed by the authors' own example of email correspondence with their editor. They reprint some terse emails with their editor and discuss the two possible interpretations of his tone and wording (each author had a different interpretation; was the editor insisting that they send some progress notes immediately?). The exchange back and forth perfectly illustrates the way emails might be mis-composed or mis-interpreted, setting up the need for this primer.

Send is a short book full of funny theoretical examples such as Bill Gates composing emails from his microsoft.com address, gatesfoundation address, and his hotmail.com address. It's packed with illustrative examples and practical advice about why email is both so fantastic and so troublesome. (Did you know that 70% of calls end up in voicemail? Why not send an email? When should you call instead?) The double-edged sword of email is how fast it can be composed. Email is appropriately used for everything from informal to formal conversation, so one must be cognizant of the larger context of their email composition.

Authors David Shipley and Will Schwalbe remind us to "think before you send" and to "send email you would like to receive." The book is accompanied by an appendix on deciphering email headers, and full index, and bibliographical notes.

I could not believe how elementary, basic and useless this book is. The only people I can think of that could make any use of this book at all are folks who do not have any etiquette skills and barely know what an email is. This book makes such earth shattering suggestions as not to write threatening emails or emails about insider information. Wow, there's something I'm glad I read about. Also, A large section of the book is spent explaining what the difference between CC: and To: is. Long discussions ensue on explaining both CC: and To:. I bought this book expecting a wealth of material on emailing for the average person and have instead found not one paragraph of useful information. For the first time I am returning a book to Amazon. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. Even sixth graders are too advanced for this book's contents. I sorely wish I could give less than one star- this book has my complete disdain.

Professional, humorous discussion of how to communicate by email. Half and half style and etiquette guide, this book will help anyone be mindful of whom they're addressing and how to communicate with them effectively and courteously. My daughter may not find this to be her most exciting graduation gift, but I predict that over the years it will be one of her most useful.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It covers the important topic of better business communication through email, in a light hearted and humorous manner, drawing on real world examples. The two authors are experienced communicators, and their review of the most common errors, and suggested remedies, has the ring of truth. As writers and editors they have either committed these gaffs themselves or know someone who has.

Well told, with useful information. Problem is, will those needing the help the most read the book? The millions of emails sent every day could benefit from the simple rules they set out. I hope every major corporation sends a copy to each of their managers and communicators!

"Send" begins by telling us why e-mail is often more efficient (avoids need to take messages - often garbled- when phone isn't answered, as well as the extra minutes of pleasantries when it is; can reach 1,000 as easily as one; provides a searchable record (sometimes a disadvantage as well), allows the sender the opportunity to better think through what he/she is going to say, and revise; easily allows attachments such as photos, documents, maps).

On the flip side there are downsides that sometimes aren't immediately obvious - eg. implicitly encouraging inappropriate familiarity, sloppy writing (especially with handhelds), ease of forwarding to those not intended for (eg. a joke becomes a serious boomerang), lacks ability to communicate emotion, too easy (sender is much more prone to send a questionable message than if a cooling off period was involved to first look up a mailing address, etc.) and can bring viruses.

Shipley also points out situations that are more suitable for a phone message - eg. softening the blow of notice of an unsuccessful bid.

Much of "Send" consists of a summary of basic business etiquette and conventions (eg. being respectful, don't jump the chain-of-command, proper use of capitals, etc.) Normally these materials would be covered elsewhere - perhaps in a memo-writing book; however, despite memos becoming much less frequent, the material still needs covering.

Finally, the search-ability of e-mails merits special emphasis. It is easy to image using standard Microsoft software to search for e-mails involving certain topics; "Send" also points out the capabilities of special software to quickly look for legal problems, as well as how to trace the physical origin of a message.