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Avg. Customer Rating:(based on 46 reviews) Sales Rank: 55475 Category: Book
Authors:David Shipley, Will Schwalbe Publisher:Knopf Studio:Knopf Manufacturer:Knopf Label:Knopf Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published) Media: Hardcover Edition: Revised Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 288 Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3 Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 1.2
Send?the classic guide to email for office and home and an instant success upon its publication in 2007?has become indispensable for readers navigating the impersonal, and at times overwhelming, world of electronic communication. Filled with real-life email success (and horror) stories and a wealth of useful and entertaining examples, Send dissects all the major minefields and pitfalls of email. It provides clear rules for navigating today?s hot-button issues, from bccs and salutations to emoticons and subject lines. It offers essential strategies to help you both better manage the ever-increasing number of emails you receive and improve the ones you send.
In this revised and updated edition, David Shipley and Will Schwalbe have added a new introduction and two new chapters??Handheld Etiquette? about BlackBerrys, iPhones, etc., and ?Secrets to Keep Email from Taking Over Your Life,? an important issue for more and more people. Send is now more than ever the essential book about email for businesspeople and professionals everywhere.
Amazon.com Review An April 2007 Significant 7 Editors' Pick: Funny, engaging, and oh-so-practical, Send is the ultimate etiquette handbook for email, making David Shipley and Will Schwalbe the "Miss Manners" resource for the digital age. Full of practical insights, Send is an invaluable resource for anyone who uses email, and is guaranteed to help you "think before you click." We are not the only fans of this important book. We asked psychologist, science journalist, and bestselling author Daniel Goleman to read Send and give us his take. Check out his exclusive guest review below. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses, and is the author of many bestselling books, including Emotional Intelligence and most recently, Social Intelligence.
Poor Michael Brown. During the darkest days of the Hurricane Katrina debacle, Brown, then director of FEMA, the agency that so badly bungled the rescue efforts, sent this email: "Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?"
Emails can come back to haunt us--any of us. Few among us have mastered this medium, and only slowly are we realizing its dangers.
From the earliest days of email people "flamed", sending off irritating or otherwise annoying messages. One explanation for the failure to inhibit our more unruly impulses online is a mismatch between the screen we stare at as we email, and the cues the social circuits of the brain use to navigate us through an interaction effectively: on email there is no tone of voice, no facial expression. When we talk to someone on the phone or face-to-face these circuits would ordinarily squelch impulses that will seem "off." Lacking these crucial cues, flaming occurs.
It's not just flaming--I've sent my fair share of emails that were, in retrospect, embarrassing, too familiar or formal, or otherwise wrong in tone. Email invites these lapses in social intelligence in part because the social brain flies blind. In the absence of the other person's real-time emotional signals we need to take a moment to shift from focusing on our own feelings and thoughts, and intentionally focus on the other person, even in absentia, and consider, How might this message come across?
The peril of being off-key is amplified by the temptation to hit SEND prematurely: before we've thought it over and had a chance to ease up on that too-stiff tone, drop that bit of sarcasm, and remember to ask about the kids.
In the old days of letter writing--a dying art--we had plenty of time to rewrite before sealing the envelope, and so flaming letters were far more rare than red-hot emails. And so the brave new world of email could benefit from a civilizing force, a voice that articulates the ground rules online.
Enter Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, a new book by David Shipley (an old friend of mine) and Will Schwalbe. Send not only articulates the way to win--or keep--friends online, but offers practical tips on both email etiquette and on the writing style most suitable.
In this witty and wise book Shipley and Schwalbe give essential guidance on vital matters like the politics of using Cc (nobody likes to be left out); when to just reply and when to "Reply All"; the danger of the URGENT subject (too many and you cry wolf); fine-tuning your greetings to fit the relationship (if you use the wrong one, you can lose them at hello); how best to apologize online (put the word 'sorry' in the subject or else the email may never be read).
But Send is far more than Miss Manners for the Web; it's brimming with fascinating insights. For example, now that email has become the way we talk, showing up in person has added impact as the ultimate compliment, signifying that the person, meeting or project has special importance for you.
Years ago a slim volume by Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, laid out the ground rules for good writing; the book became a bible for authors, widely known just as "Strunk and White." Send should make Shipley and Schwalbe the "Strunk and White" for the Web. --Daniel Goleman (www.danielgoleman.info)
"Native speaker's" grammar book of e-mail September 30, 2008 If you are naturally good at writing good e-mails, how do you teach someone else to compose better e-mails? It's like being a native speaker and trying to teach someone your language without knowing anything about grammar. You would need a textbook and here it comes!
I actually got this book because I receive bad e-mails way too often. Time after time I'm shocked by how many people do this -- customers, colleagues, you name it! So in order to understand these offenders better I bought this book -- just as the subtitle of the book suggests.
How would they not know these obvious things, I ask myself? This book helps you to get back to basics. It lays out things that sound trivial in a way which is never boring or dull. And as much as you think you know all this stuff already, you will certainly find a couple of useful advices from it.
Don't give it away, you'll never get it back! March 2, 2008 In these days of constant email, anything that helps educate about good email use and etiquette is a good idea in my book.
We immediately implemented some of the suggestions made in this book. But as with anything, rules are meant to be broken, so take it for what it's worth.
This was so hot in my office that it made all the rounds - and I never got it back! It's a good, quick read and very actionable.
Short and sweet February 24, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
... perhaps itself a bit like an email! I personally prefer email for most of my communications, and I think my kind don't get a totally fair shake in this book. Email can have its advantages in charged situations. Like a letter, you have time to think about exactly what you want to say, and if necessary, you have time to calm down. If you're struggling with strong emotions, your face and/or voice will probably show them; if necessary, you can keep these to yourself in an email.
Email also has the advantage of keeping a record of a long-past agreement. There's a reason most contracts aren't verbal. If you're like me and need to establish complex agreements with large groups of people, email is invaluable. When that pesky IT guy comes back and swears that we promised him 100 hours of free service, we can say sweetly, no, if you look at the meeting notes we sent last month, there's no mention of it. And, unfortunately, here's another email indicating that you signed off.
However, I give this book four stars, because it offered up some surprise insights, even for a hardened emailer like me. Most people have had at least one experience of unintentionally offending (or taking offense to) their fellow emailers. My approach has always been to take extra care when writing about a potentially difficult subject. However, this book explains the fundmental cause of such difficulties. It's not that email is a bad medium; it's a medium with no underlying context, which means even a neutral email serves as a screen onto which the reader projects his or her own anxieties. I believe that's why most of us try hard to make our messages friendly, and I, unlike the book, have no trouble with judicious use of smilies. A message can't be mean if it's got a smiley! (-:
I do have a specific contradiction to one piece of advice in this book: if you send a message you didn't intend to, do NOT use Outlook's message recall service. (1) All your recipients will receive the message anyway; (2) If they make the mistake of clicking on your recall message, it will tie up the host email program; (3) it will leave the original message in its place, just waiting to do damage, and (4) you have now called special attention to it with your futile attempts undo your mistake. Treat it like it's US mail. Once the message is out of your inbox, you ain't never taking it back.
My office keeps a copy in the bathrooms, because we're uncultured that way. I must admit, this is a perfect book to dip into during a visit to the office loo.
A Must-Own for both the Savvy and the Clueless February 13, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This breezy tome will do an excellent job of making a savvy writer from even the most oblivious Luddite. It is to internet communication what The Elements of Style is to the written word: clear, concise instruction that elaborates not only on what should be done, but explains why.
Email was thrust upon an unsuspecting populace years ago; unlike English grammar and composition, the proper use of email in not learned in most classrooms, and this witty book feels a much needed gap. If--like FEMA director Michael Brown--you have learned the hard way that sarcasm and humor often don't translate into email, this book is for you. If you've inadvertently cringed exactly one second after you clicked send, then you are the target audience for this book. IF YOU SEND EMAILS IN ALL CAPS AND DON'T REALIZE YOU ARE SCREAMING, BUY THE BOOK NOW.
From subject lines to salutations, flames to bcc's, Send should be required reading at any company that provides email to its employees: It should be given to all employees at orientation, along with their timecard and name badge. The easy guidelines in this book--kindly illustrated with laugh-out-loud examples--might well save businesses hours of time and trouble that are often caused when emails are misdirected or misinterpreted.
Should be Required Reading! December 12, 2007 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Do you know someone who drives you crazy with their email? Then rush out and buy this book immediately. Give them a copy of Send, which should be required reading for anyone who uses email."
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