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A Word about e-mail
[from
a minister's point-of-view]
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Taking an informal and unscientific poll of my friends both inside
and outside the ministry, the consensus is that e-mail is quite possibly
the BEST and WORST form of communication to ever come along.
Some of the Good things:
1] It is quick and much more efficient than regular mail.
2] Communication is efficient. We can answer a Bible question
within minutes, an hour or a day.
3] Easy to schedule the work day. The minister can respond to
e-mail at any time and in any priority he wishes. Much better than
phone communication as far as scheduling goes.
4] Minister can take time to reflect, research and compose an accurate
response.
5] Minister can database answers to common questions. No
recomposing, retyping and saves time researching the same subject again.
6] Minister can send one e-mail to multiple recipients with the touch of
one button. Imagine the materials and postage savings.
7] E-mail is a record of what the minister communicated. E-mail
can easily be archived for future reference.
Some of the Bad things:
1] E-mail is not better than face-to-face communication.
2] The recipient cannot see the minister's facial expressions and non-verbal
communication. The minister cannot see the facial expressions and
non-verbal communication of the person he is dealing with.
3] E-mail can be rather cold, impersonal and detached.
Effort is needed to avoid this.
4] The minister does not always know who he is talking to. Is it a
member? Is it a member of another church? Is it the public?
Is it friend or foe? Is the e-mail a set-up or deception of some kind?
5] The minister does not always know how many he is talking to. The
person making contact could easily send the minister's response to
countless others. This can be both good and bad depending on the
content of the minister's e-mail.
6] E-mail addresses change much more rapidly than say street addresses
or phone numbers.
7] Despite the speed of e-mail it is not a good medium for back and
forth conversation. There is no lag time in a face-to-face
conversation.
I suppose that good and bad lists of equal weight could be applied to
most all forms of communication. We feel the benefits and
advantages of e-mail out score the list of bad elements. With
proper management, some of these bad elements can be overcome.
Chief among these is making sure we take extra steps in the e-mail to
overcome the lack of facial expression and non-verbal communication. For
example, I might make what I believe to be a humorous statement but just
to make sure the reader understands this I add, "...(smile)."
Another technique is to restate the thought in other words. For
example, I make a statement and then follow up with the next sentence
that begins, "In other words" or "That is to say...". Still
another is the use of brackets within a sentence with additional
information. For example, "I then referred to my files [where I
keep the doctrinal studies] and retrieved the information on Sabbath
keeping."
Here are some things I found on the Internet:
1] Clearly summarize the contents
of your message in the subject line.
Properly titled messages help people
organize and prioritize their
e-mail.
2]
Don't use the CC (Carbon Copy) function to copy your message to
everyone.
This is particularly true at work.
These days everyone receives too many e-mails. Unnecessary messages are
annoying. If only a few people really need to receive your message, only
direct it to them.
Similarly, when responding to e-mail,
do not respond to all recipients. By choosing Reply to All or a
similar button when responding to a message, you may end up broadcasting
your response to your entire company.
Note: We have a policy in the
Letter Answering department not to answer Bible questions that come in
from individuals who have carbon copied the question or inquiry to
multiple e-mail addresses. Experience has shown that when we
receive such an e-mail, the individual is not looking for answers but a
forum or debate. This is not what Bible questions and answers are
all about.
3]
Use BCCs (Blind Carbon Copies)
when addressing a message that will go to a large group of people who
don't necessarily know each other.
Just as it is not polite to give out
a person's telephone number without his or her knowledge, it is not
polite to give out someone's
e-mail address.
For instance, when you send an e-mail message to 30 people and use To
or CC to address the message, all 30 people see each other's
e-mail address. By using BCC, each recipient sees only
two--theirs and yours. It is more friendly and personable.
Studies have shown that people respond to an e-mail they believe has
only been sent to just them than to seeing scores and scores of others
and who's e-mail addresses take up the first half of the e-mail.
4]
Keep your messages short and focused.
Few people enjoy reading on their
computer screens;
fewer still on the tiny screens in
cell phones,
PDAs and other
mobile devices
that are becoming increasingly popular. Recipients tend to ignore these
long messages.
5]
Avoid using all capital letters.
USING ALL CAPS MAKES IT LOOK LIKE
YOU'RE SHOUTING! IT'S ALSO MORE DIFFICULT TO READ. Depending on
your message, capitals are useful for emphasis but not for every word in
the e-mail.
6]
Don't write anything you wouldn't say in public.
Anyone can easily forward your
message, even accidentally. This could leave you in an embarrassing
position if you divulge personal or confidential information. If you
don't want to potentially share something you write, consider using the
telephone.
Case-in-point: I once received
a Bible question and sent the individual the answer. Both question
and my answer ended up posted on an anti-church [and as it turned out,
anti-God] web site. The comments the web host added are not
printable. So you see, it can happen.
7]
Avoid sending e-mails to large numbers of people unless you have a
serious reason to do it.
E-mail broadcast to many recipients
may be considered
spam.
I am talking about personal e-mails here. Make sure those
receiving your e-mails are friends and privy to the reason you are
sending the e-mail. One minister wrote me the other day to say
that he somehow got involved in an e-mail debate [lots of e-mails going
back and forth] just because the original author of the e-mail carbon
copied this minister.
If the large number of people are your friends or, say, your local
congregation, that is fine, but be careful about indiscriminate shot
gunning of e-mails to the masses.
8]
As a courtesy to your recipient, include your name at the bottom of the
message.
The message contains your e-mail
address (in the header), but the recipient may not know that the return
address belongs to you, especially if it is different from your real
name. This one is especially important to the ministry.
They receive volumes of e-mails and it is important, even before they
begin reading the e-mail that they know who is writing.
9] When sending attachments, use a code
word in the Subject line.
In this day of e-mailed
viruses [hidden in e-mail attachments], it is important to have a
concrete means of avoiding them. What some of these virus programs
do is glean e-mail addresses from an infected computer's e-mail address
book and sending out e-mails with attachments as if they are coming from
the person who owns the infected computer. So, if you receive an
e-mail from a known and trusted friend which has an attachment, you
cannot be absolutely sure it is really coming from him or her. To
alleviate this dangerous threat, when you e-mail an attachment to a
friend, put in a code word in the Subject line. Example:
Subject Line: Report you requested--with attachment (code word:
red dress). In this example, the person has notified all his
friends that his code word is "red dress" and not to open any attachment
from him that does not have this code word in the Subject line. A
virus program attempting to send out virus-filled attachments would
never use such a code word.
10] A clean and efficient e-mail is an
e-mail that is read.
Most e-mail ethics and tips
sites will talk about having clean, pleasant looking e-mails before
sending them out. One concern is the common practice of simply
forwarding e-mails. A person receives an e-mail and forwards it
on. That person, in turn, forwards it on. Each becomes an
attachment. I have sometimes received e-mails where I had to wade
10 attachments deep to get to the intended message. Better is to
take the text you received, copy and lift it out of the e-mail you
received and put it into a fresh e-mail. Your e-mail recipients
will love you for it.
The other tip is to be as brief as you can. Because e-mail is so
easy, we receive many of them. Therefore, keep each message brief.
Say you have three subjects of conversation you wish to discuss with
your friend. In some cases, it might be better to send three short
e-mails rather than one long one.
Now you may have some tips, suggestions and/or pet peeves yourself
regarding e-mail. If so, send them along. I may just add
them below.
By the way..........I LOVE E-MAIL!!! I love getting e-mail
from my friends and family [even the public]. Send them anytime.
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