Business Email Style Guide (pt 1)

I am a huge fan of using email to get things done. However, the way in which some people use it bugs the crap out of me. It's entirely possible that I'm just more anal than most, but there are some simple rules which I think bear restating:

• I don't care that you're not writing a formal letter. Using bad grammar, stupid abbreviations (such as "thanx") or incomplete sentences all make you sound like an idiot. I don't want to read your email and will probably discount whatever you have to say in it if I think you sound stupid.
• Email is a wonderful mode of communication for a few things: quick thoughts or requests, formal communication where it's important to be able to refer back to what was said at a later date and asynchronous communication amongst others.
• Email is not a good tool when a discussion about something simple drags on for more than two emails in either direction. Did everyone forget about their phones with the advent of crackberries?
• Make whatever point you're trying to make clearly and quickly. You're not writing a novel. (Or even a short story.)
• Before you carbon copy anyone, seriously consider whether they need to get whatever it is that you're about to send them. It's one of my pet peeves to get an email which I don't really care to read just because someone thinks they need to "keep me in the loop," or to receive an email with other people cc'd for the same reason.
  
• Contrary to what some other folks preach, courtesy thank you and you're welcome emails are just fine.
  
• Lastly, please don't ever send anyone an email from your smartphone which serves little to no purpose. My very informal observation is that people tend use such devices to communicate more frequently and faster, but with far less valuable thoughts than they would otherwise.

Call me old fashioned or crabby, but I hate to see the demise of the art of communication because of a collective decline in the standards we hold ourselves to.