I first started using email at home with a Compuserve email account (remember those?) and at work with a Lotus Notes based email account, back in 1994. Not that long ago really, although to put it into perspective; if you were born in ’94, then this year you are 16 and are just about to go to college, the Sixth Form or work!

Either way, you’ll be using email to a very large degree without a second thought and 1994 is ancient history.

Throughout the employers and businesses I’ve worked with over the years, no one has ever formally taught me how to use email. Like most people, I’ve learnt the techniques by trial and error and the observation of others as I’ve gone along.

Yes, I’ve been on numerous Outlook® training courses and in the early days, ones related to Lotus Notes Mail as well. However learning the mechanics of how the email software works is different to learning the etiquette, techniques and protocols of email when it’s used as a communication tool in daily business life.

So whilst I don’t profess to be the world’s best e-mailer by any stretch of the imagination, I have learnt a thing or two along the way. So,given that I see simple etiquette errors and many a faux pas being made everyday by people who email me on a regular basis; then I think it’s worth sharing my top twelve tips for happy and productive emailing.

Email etiquette

Why Use Email Etiquette?

Before I launch into my top twelve tips for becoming a happy e-mailer here’s a few good reasons why you should adopt some good etiquette rules for your daily emailing habits as a business professional;

1. Credibility and Professionalism: Using the correct language and tone within your email conveys a competent and professional image and keeps you from looking like an amateur.
2. Efficiency: Email is a great communication tool for quick and easy messages, so get to the point if you want to capitilise on the time saving benefits of email.
3. A Record: The benefits of email are also its dangers. So whilst email is a less formal method then writing a memo or a letter, liability traps resulting from hastily written emails have been known to land many a business and individual in court. A good email etiquette strategy helps keep those risks at bay. Remember, emails stays around on a some server somewhere, forever.

Top 12 Tips for Happy Emailing

1. Learn how to use your email software. Many people send emails that are either incomplete, contain every man and his dog in the CC field rather than the BCC field, or have key elements missing (Subject line, Signature etc) from them because the sender simply “doesn’t know how to it”. You wouldn’t drive a car without knowing how to drive, so why use software everyday without knowing how to use it? There’s plenty of learning resources around that can help on this matter.
2. Keep to a single point. People like to file away their emails according to subject matter and sender. So if you’re addressing multiple topics in a single email, then it makes it harder for your recipient’s to do this and more importantly, keep track of a conversation thread on a particular subject at a later date. It’s better to send multiple emails to the same person, each on a different subject matter than to try and cram everything into one.
3. Use the subject line. The Subject line in an email tells people what an email is about as it lands in their in-box. Based upon this information, the recipient can then decide what priority to give that email when it comes to reading it. This is an important factor if you’re receiving 50+ emails a day and need to prioritise what’s important and what isn’t. Remember not everyone reads their emails straightway so sending an email without a Subject line can send it to the bottom of the pile.
4. Make the subject line descriptive and relevant. If you’re an accountant and you receive an email from a client that simply reads “Accounts” in its subject line then that’s probably meaningless in a list of other emails from other clients who’ve also chosen to write “Accounts” in their emails’ subject line. Put your feet in the shoes of the recipient. What would be helpful to them? In this case probably a more descriptive subject line similar to “Accounts for [Company Name] 2009–2010″.
5. Use a Signature. An email signature is that little piece of text that is planted automatically at the bottom of every email that is sent out from your email client. It generally contains the sender’s contact information, registered address, website address, perhaps a short marketing message and some sort of polite sign-off such as “Regards”,“Yours” or “All the Best” etc. If you don’t how to do these, look in your email software’s help section or ask someone who does. Many a time I’ve had an email from someone and rather than reply back I’ve wanted to call them, but can’t because they don’t have a signature in their email containing their telephone number. In business you need to capitalise upon every opportunity to give people your contact details.  The lack of an email signature is a missed opportunity.
6. Use a greeting. When writing a letter, you may start off with a greeting such as “Dear [Name]”. Email isn’t that formal but it is good manners to say “Hello” in some form before you start with the content of your email. Sending an email out without a personalised “Hello [Name]” or “Hi [Name]” is simply bad manners and can come across as aggressive.
7. Limit use of the “High Priority” status. In many email client’s it’s possible to assign a status to your email before sending it out. “High Priority” and “Confidential” are the two commonly used ones above and beyond the “Normal” status. A “High Priority” email is seen in the recipients in-box with a red exclamation mark ! next to it. This technique is used to death in my book and as such, has no real value now. I personally take no notice of these priorities at all, based on the principal that if it really is important or urgent, they’ll call me using the more immediate and reactive medium of the telephone to convey their message.  I suspect others are the same.
8. Don’t write in capitals. Writing in capitals comes across as SHOUTING on both emails and websites and should be avoided at all costs and in all circumstances (including attempts to emphasize a particular phrase or sentence). Shouting as we all know is an aggressive gesture so in a medium that lacks the luxury of body language, it should not be used as it’s likely to be misinterpreted.
9. Don’t use read receipts. This will almost always annoy your recipient before they have even read your message. Besides, it usually does not work anyway since the recipient may have blocked that function (as I do), or their email client might not support it, so what is the use of using them? If you want to know whether an email was received it is better to ask the recipient to let you know if it was received.
10. Don’t email in anger. Email is one of those mediums where people will say things to one another, often aggressive and hurtful things, that they wouldn’t otherwise do face-to-face. So if you receive such an email, the temptation is to hit the Reply button and vent your anger in an emailed response. However, before you send it. Place it into your drafts and come back to it later when you’ll have a more objective view. Now’s the time to draft your response. Remember an email sent in anger, once it’s gone it’s gone and can’t be retrieved and as such could prove to be damaging or embarrassing later.
11. Limit use of the CC field. I once worked in a company where one of my colleagues used to CC everyone from the MD down on their email messages even if it didn’t concern them. When challenged about this he told me “they have it now in case they need it” which ‘they’ never did of course. In realty this was simply a CYA tactic from someone who was scared to take any decision above and beyond choosing what beverage he wanted at break time. Whilst an extreme example, this over use of the CC field in emails is a great annoyance to recipients as it does nothing more than clog up their in-box and wastes time. Only CC people you know are genuinely interested in your mail.
12. Don’t attach unexpected large files. Having met someone recently at a business networking meeting, I was a little annoyed to receive an email from them afterwards containing a 6Mb file. The attachment was their brochure in Microsoft Publisher format (which is bad enough in itself). I was annoyed, not because they had emailed me with a follow-up. Fine with that! But annoyed because I picked up the email on my Blackberry which took ages to download the file. When I opened, it was the sheer disappointment of it being a ‘trivial email’ coupled with the lengthy download time, that formed the basis of my annoyance. Learn from this experience and if you must email out large files as attachments, make sure the recipient is either expecting it or is happy to receive it. Don’t send them out unsolicited. Alternatively, why not upload them to your website or your Google Docs account and send the recipient an email containing a link to the file on the web. This gives them the choice of ‘to download or not to download’ rather than forcing it upon them.

These top twelve tips for happy emailing should get you going on the right track. If you have any tips yourself, please post them in the comments below

I am writing this blog post on a new laptop PC that I’ve had for a couple of months now. It came preloaded with a trial copy of Microsoft’s omnipotent 2007 Office™ suite of business applications which includes the likes of Word™, Excel™ and PowerPoint™ etc.

Great I thought! After all, like millions of others; MS Office is my staple office application when it comes to word processing and spreadsheet work. I’ve used it for years and have the 2003 version installed on the 3 other PCs I have in my business.

However, last week, the trial approached its end and the pressure mounted to reactivate the product by purchasing an appropriate license.

So I was faced with a choice; do I spend several hundred quid on the current 2007 version, which according to Amazon, starts at a smidgen under £300 for the small business edition. Or do I simply install another copy of Office 2003 for which I have several User licenses for?

Decision, Decisions…

A couple of my associates use Sun Microsystem’s OpenOffice as their business software suite of choice as an alternative to Microsoft’s Office. I’ve known about the product for years, so I decided to take the opportunity and follow their lead by downloading and using the application.

So there you have it. Decision made, whereupon I duly uninstalled Office and downloaded and ran, the 148Mb file needed for the installation of OpenOffice which is currently on version 3.1.

Thank goodness for broadband that’s all I can say!

First Impressions

OpenOffice Dashboard

When OpenOffice first launches on your screen you’re faced with a dashboard which asks you to choose which application you want to use. The main ones may be described as:

• “Write” — word processing app equivalent to MS Word
• “Calc” — spreadsheet app equivalent to MS Excel
• “Impress” — presentation app equivalent to MS PowerPoint
• “Base” — database app equivalent to MS Access

There’s no email client included in OpenOffice whereas MS Office has Outlook™. So during the download process Sun recommends using the freely available Mozilla Thunderbird if an email client is required. Thunderbird is made by the same people who produce the Firefox web browser and is a powerful email client so is worth investigating particularly as it’s free whereas Outlook as a stand alone software purchase, is £115.

Templates and Extensions

Along with the program list on the main OpenOffice screen, you’ll see icons for Templates and Extensions.

Templates are quite similar to the templates you get in MS Office; they are preformatted layouts and designs for various file types including everything from a basic CV outline in Write to advanced budget calculators in Calc. New templates may be downloaded directly into OpenOffice from their website at OpenOffice.org

For people who are used to the extensions in the Firefox browser, OpenOffice extensions will seem very familiar. Extensions are software components that add supplementary functionality to OpenOffice programs.

For example, OpenOffice features out-of-the-box PDF export capability (unlike MS Office), but Write can’t natively import and edit PDF documents. No problem, there’s an Extension for that, which allows you to perform line-by-line edits of PDF files from OpenOffice’s Write.

Getting Stuck In

Once inside OpenOffice I found the interface look and feel, to be very similar to that of the MS Office 2003 version I’ve been using for a while. So the transition was straight forward. However for those used to MS Office 2007 with it’s annoying Ribbon menu bar, you’ll feel you’ve taken a step backwards somewhat. But don’t be put off.

One of the great things about OpenOffice is its ability to open any MS Office file including Office 2007’s .docx Word documents.

So if anyone sends you a MS Office document but you don’t have the suite on your machine. You can still open and edit them regardless without minimal loss of formatting although I noted it didn’t seem to like MS Word macros sometimes.

Conclusion

So having used OpenOffice for the best part of a week in place of MS Office (well certainly on this new laptop anyway), would I recommend it as a credible alternative to MS Office for the budget conscious business owner?

The answer is a clear and resounding “yes”!

Pros

• It’s free and can be supplemented with loads of free add-ons (Extensions) and templates.
• Looks and works like MS Office including the same keyboard shortcuts.
• Will open MS Office documents

Cons

• It doesn’t like MS Word macros
• No email client included
• It’s a big file to download (a problem if you have a slow internet connection)

Download OpenOffice from here.