Resources for email terminology and laws

A quick reference from the makers of LISTSERV

L-Soft, the organization that invented LISTSERV back in the 80's, offers a thorough glossary of email terms on its site. So if you've ever wondered what the difference between a "hard" and a "soft" bounce is within the context of email, you'll find:

Bounces: Email messages that fail to reach their intended destination. "Hard" bounces are caused by invalid email addresses, whereas "soft" bounces are due to temporary conditions, such as overloaded inboxes.

Find out accepted definitions for click-through rate, double opt-in and more. The glossary doesn't include bacn, one of the newer categories of low-priority email, but it's an excellent resource nonetheless.

And if you've ever had questions about email legal issues, check out their excellent reference on the CAN-SPAM Act.

Twitter-pated.

Twitter chirps the future of business communication.
If you've got a child under age 12, chances are you've encountered the word "twitterpated" at some point. In Disney's classic Bambi, the wise old owl teaches Bambi, Thumper and Flower why the forest animals are acting a little strange:

Flower: [about two birds fluttering around] Well! What's the matter with them?
Thumper: Why are they acting that way?
Friend Owl: Why, don't you know? They're twitterpated.
Flower, Bambi, Thumper: Twitterpated?
Friend Owl: Yes. Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: You're walking along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. Woo-woo! You begin to get weak in the knees. Your head's in a whirl. And then you feel light as a feather, and before you know it, you're walking on air. And then you know what? You're knocked for a loop, and you completely lose your head!
Thumper: Gosh, that's awful.

Of course, the forest animals are falling in love. But their antics are so strange that Bambi, Thumper and Flower swear it will never happen to them ... then, of course, it happens to them.

Today's Twitter-pation.
If you haven't checked it out yet, Twitter is a free and simple (two things that help it succeed) way to let people know what you're doing. In fact, that's exactly all there is to it. In 140 characters or less, users answer one question, "What are you doing?" Users enter anything from eating hot dogs to standing in line. Enable your mobile device and you can attach pictures of whatever is going on around you. Whatever you are doing now becomes a "tweet" (the name for your entry) on Twitter.

At first blush, I felt like Thumper. "That's never going to happen to me," I said. After all, who needs Twitter when I can just email, text or call to find out what someone is doing? Then, it happened (as you'll see on the right-hand side of this column). I'm Twitter-pated.

Why Twitter works.
You've emailed, called and sent three text messages, but the person you're trying to get in touch with just won't connect. What's going on? Technology has promised us instant access, right? Then why won't they connect? This expectation of instant connectivity can be the root cause of many communication breakdowns. And it's exactly the kind of breakdown Twitter helps us to avoid.

With Twitter, you might see that I'm in a meeting, on vacation, watching a movie, teaching a workshop, writing a blog entry, or any number of things that might keep me from connecting instantly. Instead of no reply, voice-mail or a generic "out of office" message, you get some idea of what's happening, when you might get in touch with me, or what channel might work best. And since I can update my status from my phone, it's a cinch for me to keep everyone informed.

The Twitter-enabled office.
Apply this concept to the workplace. More of us work remotely, increasing the need for consistent, quality communication. All too often this justifies a landslide of emails and a constant chatter on mobile devices. But with all this email discussion, when is there time to actually work? There isn't. So we stay late, go in early and work weekends because it's the only time we're not "communicating" that we're working.

Imagine a Twitter-enabled office. You "tweet" that you're working on an important report all day. Your colleagues understand the delay in communication. Your stakeholders know the report is on its way. Your inbox looks a little lighter than it did before? Yeah, maybe so.

The workplace aspect of Twitter has the potential to eliminate a lot of wasted email, phone calls and — most importantly — time. And as younger generations take leadership roles, expect to see it (or it's counterparts) find a place in day-to-day organizational communications.

Consider that Facebook and MySpace have similar functionality. The folks at Yahoo! mail and Gmail are considering adding similar options. The personal use of this communication method has seated itself comfortably in the minds of an entire generation. The workplace is a logical next step:

• Twitter-like features would expand the user-friendliness of Instant Messaging (IM) applications, allowing you to report that "you'll be back in three hours" instead of just noting that you're "away" or "busy".
• Incorporating this feature into the sidebar of standard business email applications could reduce server volume and wasted messages significantly.

Already there are Widgets and plug-ins for a range of software and cell phones, but at the moment Twitter appears dominated by non-work activity. As the line between personal and work space continues to blur, as more of us work remotely and email volume hits critical mass, expect Twitter (or something like it) to find a pivotal role in business communication. So as our spring-time office evolution matures to the heat of summer, don't be surprised to find yourself Twitter-pated.

Where'd email training go?

Over 10 years ago half of all employers trained on the best use of email. Today the burden is greater, but less than a fourth provide help.

The salesman watched you sign the last form to purchase your new car. But before he lets you walk away with the keys, he's going to "introduce" you to the features found in your vehicle. Patiently, you sit through a 30-minute introduction to each button in the vehicle.

Does this make you an efficient driver?

Hardly. But sadly, this is similar to the type of training you've probably received on email communication. Statistically speaking, when it comes to "driving" email, we're all over the road. Wasted email costs us money ($530 billion), time (15-20 days a year), bandwidth (server space, backup cost, etc.) and increases legal exposure. Until we change the culture of communications in a digital environment like email, we're just car salesmen — handing over the keys to an expensive car and expecting everyone to know how to drive.

From bad to worse.

In Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) article titled "The Internet: access grows, policies lag" in HR Magazine, Dec, 1997, Mike Frost reported that training on the effective use of email (i.e. how to write and communicate effectively, not just use the buttons) was dangerously low. Frost adds that "only half (of employers) provide training on the proper use of email." According to the research, over 20 percent of the respondents logged complaints about inappropriate emails and very few had an email use policy in place.

But that was 1997. Things must be better now, right?

Sorry.

In a similar survey this month, SHRM and the privately-operated Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP) announced that only 24 percent of survey respondents were trained on proper use of email.

The likely culprit.

How did we go from bad to worse? One factor is that email sits in the twilight zone of corporate training. Mike Song and Tim Burress' white paper titled "Who owns email anyway?" illustrates how most training doesn't happen in business environments where IT, HR and administration departments feel it's the other departments' responsibility. Consider the rapid growth of email use in an environment that requires ownership from all three departments, and you can begin to understand an important factor in the decline of email training.

The beginning of a solution.

The solution is part policy, part training, part culture shift, and it begins with a conversation between each stakeholder. Here are some resources that might help:

• Sample email policies from About.com Having a policy does not equal efficiency, but acts as more of a legal tool. Consider adopting one but don't expect it to make people more efficient email users.
  
• 10 email guidelines from HR Magazine These 10 tips can provide helpful discussion points in a meeting. You might also consider reading The Hamster Revolution, by Burress and Song.
  

Follow up with the right training. New users will need a course on the software you're using (show them the car). Follow up with training on information management (show them how to drive). Training that combines writing skills with the digital tips that make this information stream more manageable provides the best opportunities for lasting change and efficiency.

Virgin Trains makes the big list in a bad way.

An email list error accidentally invited 75,000 people to a golf outing.

An email invitation intended for 75 elite British customers of Virgin Trains (the same company who owns Virgin Records, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Phones, etc.) accidentally included 75,000 of the company’s customers, reports the UK’s Telegraph. It’s a common error that often runs its course with very little consequence — only this time — the company was inviting the group to a complimentary golf outing.

Though Virgin isn’t explaining how the error occurred (yet), we’ve experienced this type of email oversight as a by-product of group mail lists with very similar names. It’s possible to rearrange your groups in Outlook 98 and 2000, but the process is clumsy at best.

Simpler solution: add numbers to the beginning of each group’s name. It’s a quick way to distinguish those important groups from the others.