ELECTRONIC ETIQUETTES

Cyber Postman
Look where you are sending your mail A wrong letter in the address may bounce back the message Worse it goes to a wrong address Wrong receiver may just delete it w/o your knowing You continue to send messages to that address which may be irritating and at times embarrassing for both the parties.

Cyber Postman
Hence put the address into personal address book if you plan to use the address time and again. Double check the spelling Better still copy the address of the sender in your address book Still be extremely careful in clicking the address.

Do Not Mix Pleasure And Work

Use separate web address for personal mails Reason is your office might be having access to your official mail id You might want to share pass word with your colleague if you are on holiday If you change job you need not inform all your acquaintances about the change of your e mail address

Do Not Mix Pleasure And Work

Once you leave a job the co closes your official e mail account You may have a separate account for letters from the net which even if you do not read daily does not hurt you You may clear the inbox in one go just after reading the headlines.

 Email has the permanence of a letter and casualness of a conversation, and that's a dangerous combination," said Dennis Brown, a legal expert in employment practices at Littler Mendelson in San Jose, California. Blunders in goldman sach, tiger woods life are examples of using official mail id for personal if not very private matters.

 Tourres of Goldman had mail ready to hold you in my arms which had him in thick soup Poor little sub prime borrowers will not last long, another mail of Tourres They get such powers they think no rules apply to them a girl friend of Tiger Woods mailed that to a friend of hers about Tiger Woods Roughly 210 billion emails are sent each day, and emails are sent in error 42 times a minute, according to a 2006 study by Lycos, which operates a network of websites. Therefore click send button deliberately

Internet Is A Glasshouse
Do not put any critical info like credit card numbers and passwords on the e mail The hackers are all around and with strong search engine and strong determination any one can get the info what one wants from your email account

How To Manage Your Mail Box

Reply within twenty four hours Un clutter the mailbox

Reply Within Twenty Four Hours

Speed is the real essence of e mail so do not loose it Check your e mail at least twice daily and more often if need be Scan the mail you get Delete the junk immediately If some can be replied promptly, do so

 If reply to a mail is possible after contacting others in that draft a brief note mentioning that you have read the mail and reply by specific date. This will save you from the reminders Once you have set the deadline for yourself, meet it. For your own mails you may activate the option of asking for receipt In that case a reader cannot read the mail w/o acknowledging it But use this option sparingly.

Reply Within Twenty Four Hours

Reply Within Twenty Four Hours

Rely promptly but delay it when you are angry Draft the reply but reread it after say 24hrs and then if you deem it fit forward it. Give e.g. to students You may want to reword it

Put In Order
Do not make your mailbox a junk yard. Otherwise retrieving the required mail would be very difficult Delete the not needed messages Or create subfolders within inbox and outbox and save mails that might be needed in future in them Subfolders can be named after the projects or the particular clients by which it is easy to recall.

PRESENTING THE MAIL

Why Presenting Is So Important

Professionals are busy. They get far more mail than they can cope with. There is lot of junk mail floating. Why should they invest time in a mail which is not relevant to them.

Invest In Subject Line

A busy professional will not delete your mail even before scanning it if : Your name is important to him The subject line is of importance to him Write a caption for a mail if there is an urgent need for a service engineer in your nitrogen plant

Smart Heading
It is caption of news and that is how reader is interested in it E.g. are India TV news captions Ghar ghar mein ghusi Dayan Generate interest but avoid shocks. No clownish headings. Headings be brief, clear, specific and well formed.

 Headlines should not be broad and vague Headline should be related to the matter. Interesting headline does not mean trappings If there are two or three unrelated matters then send separate mails for all these (reader may not read entire mail presuming that he has got the matter) you may indicate the priority also like low, normal, high

Small Is Beautiful
Keep your mail short Reading from the monitor is difficult than from the paper (give five reasons for it) Desktop resolutions are no match for paper Laptops are also not as flexible and portable as paper On monitors there is landscape presentation but we are used to portrait reading of paper for ages Complete text is not available in one go if the text is long You need to scroll up and down which is not comfortable.

Mind Your Tone

Be brief but not abrupt Hi! Geet- it means a happy tone subconsciously

 Make the subject line specific. Think of the many messages you're received with the generic subject line, "Hi" or "Just for you." When replying to or forwarding an e-mail, clean up the document. Rebecca Morgan, a communications consultant in California says, "I just received an e-mail from someone who had received it from 12 other people. I don't need to see that." Use the "BC" or blind copy command more often than the "CC" or carbon copy command. In the message you forward, delete the extraneous information such as all the "Memo to," subject, addresses, and date lines.

 When replying to a question, copy only the question into your e-mail, then provide your response. You needn't hit reply automatically, but don't send a bare message that only reads, "Yes." It's too blunt and confuses the reader. Address and sign your e-mails. Yes, the To: and From: say who's corresponding, but beginning the message with the person's name "Mo," or "Dear Mo," helps customize it. Sign your name, "Sincerely, Curly" or provide a signature line for people to know who you are and where they can reach you

 DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. TOO INTENSE, and you appear too lazy to type properly. This is still a written medium. Follow standard writing guidelines as a professional courtesy. Revisit periodically how you conduct business over e-mail.

Netiquette
Always respond to a real message. Use the subject line as a newspaper headline, to convey the content of your message. For professional communicators, the use of emoticons and acronyms like BTW (by the way) are too informal. Make your electronic messages easy to read and easy to view. Avoid overly long messages

Netiquette Tips
Use good manners when writing email messages as the email you send is a reflection of you and your company. Use correct spelling. Keep your message short. Dont use too many abbreviations.

Netiquette Tips
Keep the tone appropriate to the situation. If writing a personal note, feel free to use :-) happy faces or :-( sad faces. Never send prank email. (Remember that your return address is automatically included in all mails.)

Netiquette Summary Tips

Never send personal email at work. Always use a subject line. Begin message with a greeting. Dont use emoticons. Use proper spelling, grammar, etc. NEVER TYPE IN ALL CAPS! Announce attachments.

Close with your name (signature block).