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Frustration with new-age communication being ignored *whinge*
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When someone says to me “If you don’t hear from me, assume I got it”, I can’t believe my ears. The other side of the coin would be “If I don’t get it, you’ll hear from me.” Sure I will, you bet.
here is one major issue that happens:
You send a message that says “Approval Needed”, they answer back and you answer them except that no one ever changes the subject line. When I go through a back and forth, I change the subject line. Most often, I use my name and the date and sometimes the time or revision number or something. I would look at a subject line and figured that I already read it.
You might add, “If I don’t hear from you by XX:XX, I’ll be calling you” and then do it. With me, I can read a mail, start to answer and then get distracted. I found three ‘drafts’ in my mail today that I would have sworn that I sent. Hey, I might get distracted by one of my dogs in a minute and completely forget to hit the send button on this message. It’s happened before.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD . -
[David See] “I am completely aware that others have commitments. What I hate is people REGULARLY refusing to respond to direct questions.”
What I hate is people that are too lazy and cheap to pick up a phone.
As I said in my responses, you would hate to correspond with me as I would never respond instantly and your “ten second rule” would die of neglect in my care.
Pick up a phone. You think people like me are lazy and rude? I think that people that think that people are somehow morally obligated to answer an email are drinking their own Kool-Aid.
You don’t know what’s happening in my day, just as I don’t know what’s happening in yours.
I answer my own phone for good reason and even though I could have a secretary, I don’t use one.
Need an answer? Call.
Send me an email instead? I hope you won’t hold your breath waiting for an answer.
Some people love texting and emails. I am not one of them.
As the song said long ago: different strokes, for different folks.
Ron Lindeboom
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To me, it is simple. Perhaps to others it is not so.
“Ok, thanks for that”
“That will be fine, see you there”
Actually, each of those took me less than ten seconds to write. The whole dealing with the message might have taken me a whole minute compared to maybe 5 or 10 minutes using the phone. Ten of those each day makes a big difference to my productivity.
Then again, if you are not getting responses, it is not productive at all. But the lack of response is the problem.
Anything requiring more complex or time-sensitive responses, I make the call.
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What I find COMPLETELY aggravating about email as a means of communication is the back-and-forth refining of the thought to get to the same place that I can do in a few minutes on the phone.
I find that many people approach things without much mental “pre-thought” and conceptualization of what they want. The refining process takes too much time.
I work with our web engineer a lot. He and I get on the phone and do in an hour or less what would take us a day or two using email, were we to have to go back and forth kicking the idea until both of us understood exactly what was being said and what was the answer.
Your blind belief in the idea that all communication takes but a single ten second phrase or two makes me scratch my head and wonder what you really achieve or what your standard must be. If that is acceptable to you, so be it. But as for me, ten second quickies were never my style. I’m built for comfort, not for speed.
Oh, and I NEVER write a single sentence if I can help it.
Ron Lindeboom
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Interesting reading.
Here are a few examples from the past week of e-mail use:
The Right Tech for the Job
1. An e-mail sent to a doctor in Hong Kong asking for his approval on a project. I’d have to call him at some odd hour and probably would not reach him anyway. I know it will be a few days before getting a response.
2. A status update sent to a group working on a large multi-year project. The players are in CT, MA, Canada, Los Angeles and New Zealand (no, I’m not working on The Hobbit, rather the surgical equivalent of Return of the King). Could not do this by phone without a day’s notice.
3. Confirmed appointments for next week having made them during phone calls.
4. outlook calendar meetings sent or received by Blackberry – straight into the calendar app – that’s good use of tech
Maybe, Maybe Not the right Comm Tool
1. A series of jokes, silly animal photos and lewd anecdotes, sent by my dad, and copied to everyone he knows. I love my dad, but would much rather talk on the phone. Lately we’ve been doing Skype video chat on Friday afternoons when he and my mom are both home. Since I see them in person only a few times a year, that is pretty cool. Skype for business is also a possibility, especially for clients in other countries. We actually had someone do a PPT presentation from India at a conference a while back.
2. Back and forth chain of emails about a number of tasks on a long duration project. These are ok, but the subject line is pretty much the same, so one needs to do a search to find information later. I use Google Desktop which indexes everything on my computer, and is much easier and faster for searching than anything Windows offers. Alas, I make sure to pick up the phone at least once a week and talk about the various tasks on the agenda for long duration projects.
3. Follow-up with a new client about a pending shoot date. While the person did answer my e-mail, having not heard from him for a week, I quickly placed a call just to make sure things were ok on his end. Turns out he was on vacation for a few days, but hadn’t told me. Heck, he is not obligated to tell me when he is taking vacation.
In summary, as others on this thread have repeated, there is a right time and a wrong time to use e-mail. You can, of course use e-mail for any purpose you want, but the recipients may not agree with your motivation or with your sense of urgency.
I’ve been using one form or another of e-mail since about 1987. It has never been a total replacement for the phone, and as much as computers have evolved, the phone has stayed largely the same as far as its function in society.
Mike Cohen
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That’s right, Mike.
As I said in my last message…
I use email when dealing with simple things and the phone for more complex/time-sensitive.
The ignoring of emails – those requiring simple yes/no answers, or answers including minor details – turns them from a simple, effective way of communicating into an ineffective one.
Phonecalls are not always the be-all-and-end-all answer, either. They can be time-consuming and disruptive.
And what if the phone is not answered and the voice mail message left is ignored? Well, that’s another story.
In all, I make sure – no matter how busy I am – to respond to every email and SMS that I get when I can. Out of courtesy. So the sender knows I have the information. That saves them ringing me asking if I got the information they sent through. After a while, my clients learn that if I don’t respond to their message, even with a simple acknowledgment of its receipt, that something is wrong…perhaps I didn’t get it.
Courtesy, etiquette, manners, a sign of respect. Call it what you will.
If I ask a question, I ask it because I need an answer. Not necessarily quickly, but I do need an answer.
Business involves communication. Ignoring business-related communication is bad business.
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[Mike Cohen] “I’ve been using one form or another of e-mail since about 1987”
Did they really have computers back then?
Bought my first one in 1985. I remember when a friend of mine, around ’87, told me about the coming of e-mail. I wondered what I would ever use it for. Sometimes I still wonder.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD . -
This has been a great thread. Email vs phone… for the record, I love email. As pointed out, when it’s appropriate can be much more effective than a “live” phone call.
Back to the original post. It seems that much of the frustration and angst caused by the “no answer” comes from the notion that “time is money” and by NOT responding the client is spending YOUR time and cutting into YOUR profits. Simple solution. Include a time frame for response into the contract. 24 hrs. 48 hours. Whatever. Anything more than that becomes an “overage” that they will be billed for. Now, the ball’s in their court, and you’re free to relax on THEIR dime. Trust me. Nothing compels a response like the notion that NO response will cost you money.
Politeness and etiquette aside, if it’s a business communication, then place the “cost” of not responding on them, and you’ll be amazed at how quick you’ll get an answer.
mark
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Mark,
I never said that email could not be more effective than a phone call. There are times it is — there are also times it isn’t, such as in what I described about working with Abraham. If I used email in that case, I’d be spending 8 to 10 times the amount of time and effort to get to the same place. Not productive.
BUT THE REAL ISSUE TO ME is that David See seems to think that everyone works like him and he makes a blanket statement that email takes ten seconds or so to reply to. (If you work as he does, I am sure the answer would be yes. I don’t. I don’t plan to. You guys have no freakin’ idea how much mail some of us get in a day.)
If you think that also, then I have to say that I thought that you had been in business long enough to know better, Mark. I think you may have recontacted your inner-child.
;o)
Oh and if you tried to throw some crap on me in an email Mark that cost me some money because I didn’t reply to you in some arbitrary amount of time that is to me unrealistic, it would be the last time you did business with me, mon ami.
Have fun,
Ron Lindeboom
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[David See] “The ignoring of emails – those requiring simple yes/no answers, or answers including minor details – turns them from a simple, effective way of communicating into an ineffective one.”
This was not what you said in the beginning, David.What you said was that it takes ten seconds to answer.
To that I said: Bullshit. (Or a whole bunch of other words that basically said the same thing. Though that word works well to encapsulate all of the retorts that I have used in my vain attempt to try to show a stubborn unlistening unyeilding guy — whose REAL POINT was that everyone should work as he does, and it’s clear at least that you measure it that way — that not all of us work like you do.)
I use email all the time. I use it well.
I JUST DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR SCHEDULE.
That was your initial and repeated point.
I do not care if you, Mark Raudonis, and ten or twenty other people all stand up, wrap arms, sing Kum Bai Yah together, and all agree that email takes ten seconds.
Bullshit.
You better figure out that the world is full of all kinds of people and they do not all work the same.
THAT WAS MY POINT for those too unlistening to discern it.
As I said and you seem unable of comprehending, I get so much email in a day that were I to let it control my day by responding as you do, I would do little else. I wouldn’t get anything on my schedule done and I would be perpetually on everyone else’s schedule of things they want from me and want answers to, etc., etc.
No thanks.
I will respond to my email in the morning and in the evening and will check it a few times during the day. IF YOU OR YOUR CAUSE ARE IMPORTANT enough to warrant an exception, I may even write you during the day. But don’t hold your breath.
Oh, and if you disagree with me. That is quite okay. If you think me rude, that too is quite okay with me. I find your assertion that email takes ten seconds to be so all-inclusive and ignoring of so many other situations that your belief takes me back to Shakespeare who said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Sometimes I answer emails in ten seconds or less. But I don’t make it my religion as you seem to wish to do.
Ron Lindeboom
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