On email clarity. Recent participation, in useless email thread, reminded me of the email, which we sent all around Parallels, some years ago. Here is this email in full:

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In an effort to make every-day use of email more effective / efficient, I suggest that you read the following “rules” about how to use email:

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1) Subject Line
a. Ensure that the subject line is descriptive. The subject line should clearly state what the email is about and what action is required from recipient(s)
b. If the email is just informational, add “FYI” to the subject line.

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2) “TO” vs. “CC”
a. If it is important that the recipient read the email, never put him/her on “CC” – being “CC’ed” on an email should allow the recipient to ignore / read much later
b. If the email requires action, do not put multiple individuals / list on “TO” – otherwise no one will know who will have to take the action (chance is no one will do it)
c. If an email has multiple “TO” recipients, then any required action/follow-up should be explicitly spelled out in the body of the email (Example: “Peter: Please take care of this”)

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3) Who should you address emails to
a. To avoid flooding of inboxes, you should always limit distribution to only those that really need to receive the email
b. Avoid “Reply to ALL” on emails that were sent to lists, unless everyone on the list needs to see your response
c. When using “Reply to ALL”, please remove recipients that were originally “CC’ed” unless they need to see your response

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4) Forwarding Email
a. Be careful when you forward emails; make sure you have read the email trail and are aware of its contents. There may be sensitive information in the email trail that is not appropriate for some recipients.

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5) Attachments
a. If you want to send an email with attachment, always double check if the attachment is included and if it is the right attachment
b. Please send attachments in commonly readable formats
c. If you must send an email with many attachment, consider putting the important ones directly in the email and the others in a ZIP file (not RAR)
d. Be cognizant of file sizes; many time external recipients / recipients with low bandwidth can’t or hate receiving emails with large attachments
e. If you need to send files in excess of what is generally transferable via email, please consider alternatives (FTP, file sharing service, etc – there is a new internal file sharing service that will be announced shortly)

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6) Email length / highlights
a. If at all possible, please keep the length of your email to something that can easily be read on mobile devices
b. If the email must be longer, please consider creating a nicer formatted document (word, power-point, etc) and use the email as a summary with nicer document attached, or highlight the key sections (ex: yellow)
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Enjoy and let me know how it could be made even clearer!

Задачи