How not to be read...

re: How not to be read...

Melissa — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 01:55:33 GMT

One other tip for not being getting your message across:

If you want to maximize information loss, say two unrelated things in the same message. Want to have a party where no one comes? Easy, send a message entitled "Out of Town!" and then say "I'll be out of town for the next two weeks. I get back on the 27th. When I get back, we'll have a big party at my place.". Most readers will read/think "Out of town, yeah, I know, yadda yadda" and skip the rest. Make your email message about just one thing. If you want to say two things send two messages.

Unless, that is, its your Christmas update letter to your relatives and they're hanging on your every word.

Why I am the one doing this ?

James O'Neill's blog — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:51:46 GMT

A draft post which ended up going on the spike referred to Lyn Truss's book "Talk to the Hand: the utter

re: How not to be read...

AdamV — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:20:27 GMT

A really useful post. More soft-skills for the techies to master.

I find if I am writing an email for consumption by end-users (eg about a planned server downtime) I think very hard about how to write it in the least ambiguous way. For this specific type of email to be read and understood:

Avoid any misunderstanding about when - "tomorrow, Tuesday the 7th of October at 7 pm BST..." (tomorrow / today etc are too easily misunderstood when read at the 'wrong' time)

Tell them what is affected (but also confirm what is not) - "Email will be unavailable through Outlook, web access or mobile / PDAs. All other services are available including file access, printing, apple scrumping and caber tossing".

If relevant, include "where" facts as well - people sometimes can't grasp that the email server being turned off at head office also affects them in their regional location (or conversely that it does not, if they have a local server - how are they to know the infrastructure you have in place?)

Highlight all the most important facts in bold to assist the skim readers - not shouty capitals nor colour which may not be visible on all devices or printers (for the 5% of people who feel the need to print it for reference).

Use an expiry date on the email so it can be ignored by anyone returning to work after the event.

A [non-IT] colleague once asked why I put in so much detail in these emails. I pointed out that half an hour before, someone had asked me why I did not put in more information, and than no matter how much or little I always had at least one person asking something which was either plainly stated or easily inferred ("So after you turn off the email server for half an hour on Saturday, will I still be able to save files on Monday morning?").

There is no perfect way to keep everyone happy, just ways to inform as many as possible and deal with as few queries as possible.

On Writing. And formats for storing writing. Via sockpuppets

James O'Neill's blog — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:11:58 GMT

I mentioned the post that I lost last night and that it referred to Clive James, a writer whose words

Quality assurance Vs Quality improvement. Which thinking do you want ?

James O'Neill's blog — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:15:14 GMT

One of the Microsoft internal discussion lists has had an interesting thread over the last couple of