Where There's Smoke There's Email

Essays about email communications in problem-solving organizations

A book of essays about what can go wrong with email communications in problem-solving organizations — and what you can do about it.

Skip to the Details: How To Orderave you ever received a "Tweaking CC?" A tweaking CC is a message sent to a subordinate by a third party, CCing you, to embarrass or pressure your subordinate. Or it could be sent to a colleague, CCing you, for similar reasons. By bringing you into the conversation to expose supposedly ineffective or delinquent behavior, the sender hopes to modify that person's behavior.

Firemen at work The tweaking CC is usually counter-productive. It wastes the time and emotional energy of all senders and all recipients. It is but one of the myriads of ways that email has become the bane of the modern workplace. Would you like to know how to get them to stop? Read Where There's Smoke There's Email. You'll also learn how to deal with so-called "flame wars," internal spam, and that most corrosive practice, typing while angry.

I'm certain that the dozens of counter-productive email practices will expand as time goes on. Still, Where There's Smoke There's Email covers the ground as we know it today. It even includes an essay on the ethics of email, which discusses the new ways email enables the unscrupulous to transgress on the rest of us.

Here's the table of contents:

Email Happens
Email Antics
Avoid Typing Under the Influence
The Tweaking CC
Dangerous Phrases
When It Really Counts, Be Positive
Corrosive Buts
Email Ethics
It Might Be Legal, but It's Unethical
When Naming Hurts
High Falutin' Goofy Talk
Message Mismatches
Caught in the Crossfire
You and I
Feedback Fumbles
Emailstorming

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