Concept #1: Asynchronicity

Asynchronous electronic communication is not the opposite of real-time, synchronous communication: rather it describes forms of communication that appear differently ‘located in time’ depending on the perspective of the sender and receiver. (Allen, n.d)

Awareness of time of both sending and receiving is imperative for successful asynchronous communication. Our messages and interpretations must bear in mind that the tense of the content has probably changed between composing and reading. Additionally, I would suggest that an understanding of the time pressures and management skills between communicators is of higher importance.

“Having each operation started only after the preceding operation is completed.” (Dictionary.com Unabridged, n.d.) When we understand all of the steps involved in email processing, we begin to see how much time difference can develop between a sender and receiver.

The expectation that a conversation can be conducted through email in similar fashion to an oral conversation. This seems rather arrogant for it ignores several important understandings. First, the fact that email, like letters and faxes, go all around the world, means our recipients can be in different time zones. Making bold assumptions of our reader, we could suppose our message will be read within the next business day. Second and more importantly, a reader can spend time analysing the message, comparing it with other messages, and carefully compose a response. My oral conversations frequently have the grammar of a dog’s breakfast. Third, we might foolishly be in a rush, but forget that our dialogue is with another person who has a different schedule, priorities, etcetera. Because email transmits instantaneously, is no reason to expect asynchronous communications will be like oral conversations.

Friedman employed the metaphor of a stream to describe the continuous flow of messages into one’s inbox. (Friedman, 2007) He goes on to give different perspectives on managing the stream. Gazing upon from a distance could be just glossing over the sender names and subjects. Going for a swim could be actively reading and responding to several emails in a dedicated session. Finally he describes the overwhelmed people who feel they must respond to every message as they haven’t learned that you don’t need to cognitively process everything said or written. Essentially they haven’t learned the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication.

The education sector on the other hand, is learning this difference and taking on a swing towards learner centred asynchronous instruction and communication. It has been recognised that teaching in the traditional classroom is not synchronised with learning. (Facemyer, 1997) Fortunately Facemyer had a logical approach to distributed learning, levering the advantages of asynchronous internet communications. His aim was to decrease the dependence of instruction on time consuming lecture based scenarios. Some examples of asynchronous techniques included :

• video taped presentations to replace lectures, and Internet based multimedia presentations, thus allowing the number of students viewing presentations to multiply, to learn at their pace, and at their personally optimum times
• replace cumbersome administrative elements of class time (passing out papers, handling attendance, addressing questions personally, . . .) with Internet based document distribution and asynchronous bulletin board question-and-answer forums
• replace limited laboratory experiences with Internet based interactive multimedia environments capturing the elements of these learning scenarios with the added convenience of Internet portability, and easy results collation

In hindsight it appears Facemyer has recognised the precursor to institutions who will embrace the shift toward asynchronous learning networks, such as Open Universities Australia.

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Site 1: Asynchronicity | http://keywords.oxus.net/archives/2007/04/01/asynchronicity/
Taiwan based Professor Kerim Friedman is the author of this brief but punchy blog post. He is an assistant professor of indigenous studies at National Dong Hwa University in Hualian, Taiwan. His dissertation titled “Learning ‘Local’ Languages: Passive revolution, language markets, and Aborigine education in Taiwan” explored issues including educational reform. He has also written conference papers on technology, language, culture and education topics and has written several publications on anthropology including “Welcome to the Blogosphere”. Although this post concentrates on his recent installation of the Twitter application, there are several intelligent insights into commonly held perspectives on asynchronous communication.
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Site 2: Asynchronicity : Distributed Learning Communities | http://www.wsu.edu/vwsu/direction/DirectPapers/Asynchronicity.html
This older yet highly relevant paper describes the need for universities to foster a shift from traditional teaching-centric education to more asynchronous learner centred formats. It was written in 1997 by Kevin C. Facemyer, Ph.D., the director of Virtual Washington State University. He has referenced several works of teaching and learning strategies and the changes that can be brought about through digital technologies. The background information is an important primer before his important examples of asynchronous instruction techniques, all under the heading of desynchronisation. The short list of examples shows a very logical approach to distributed learning leveraging the advantages of asynchronous internet communications.
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Concept #7: Netiquette

Good communication practice on the Internet is not something one ‘learns’, but something one ‘practices’ so as to teach others, less familiar than yourself, how it is done. (Allen, n.d)

With the rapid rate of development in communications technology, we are all likely to be a “newbie” on numerous occasions throughout our lives in cyberspace. Avoiding social blunder is just one reason why we need ethical guidelines of etiquette in a foreign culture. In educating each other, one important aspect of network etiquette, or netiquette, is to avoid over-complication. With patience and keeping up best practices, we all increase our netiquette one step at a time.

Some may ask why bother to make an effort in netiquette. Dealing with other cultures is something we are all likely to do at some time. (Flower, 2003) Need for netiquette is based on an anarchical structure of the internet. Whilst no-one is really the boss of communications on the internet, it is the cooperative principles of netiquette that maintains order. As a result, all users of online communication systems, from fundamental email to discussion boards and chat, are responsible for good conduct toward one another.

Failure to observe and actively practise netiquette can have disastrous effects for online communicators. Much like offending locals whilst travelling abroad on a holiday, we don’t mean to do so. Naïve travellers blame culture shock. A small effort to show common courtesy and follow a few informal conventions will help us to create friendships rather than enemies. It is somewhat wise and most helpful to minimise our mistakes and help others do the same, while we communicate with more foreign cultures in an online space.

Good online communication ethics initially stem from their traditional off-line counterparts and predecessors, such as letters and faxes. Using all capital letters has always been perceived as shouting or screaming tone. (Hughes, 2007) However several inherent technological differences give rise to new questions of etiquette. Most people aren’t using hand-writing to compose messages, typing is a required skill. Awareness of computer spell checkers has raised the bar of acceptable errors.

Email sorting and management filters may be setup with criteria on the sender’s address, subject line, even message body keywords. Suddenly we realise that it becomes important to at least write a meaningful subject. Email takes only a few seconds to reach anyone around the world. So how quickly should one respond? Should I quote the original message in my reply? Should I start my reply above or below the quote? All valid questions for our cyberspace behaviour.

Attachments are a clever feature of email messages. Despite this, they often cause more headaches than their weight. In Australia we pay for our internet connection by both speed and download volume, just like the posting of parcels – but in reverse. This backward costing seems bizarre to say the least, but quickly teaches us to be mindful of minimizing size of attachments.

Virus carrying attachments have been discussed in the media and cost organisations and individuals too much downtime to be ignored. We all have anti-virus software installed and scanning incoming and outgoing mail. I always ask others to think of anti-virus as doing the job that customs officials have at the airport.

A final defining factor, we users are human and as such it is in our nature to make mistakes. Cyberspace may appear as characters onscreen, but it’s easy to forget that behind the charade are real live people. (Shea, 1994) When you have questions, check the discussion forums. After finding answers that others may benefit from, share your knowledge as “it makes the world a better place.” (Shea, 1994)

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Site 1: The Core Rules of Netiquette | http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
The Core Rules of Netiquette are excerpted from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea.

Dubbed the “network manners guru” by the San Jose Mercury News, Virginia Shea has been a student of human nature all her life. She attended Princeton University and has worked in Silicon Valley since the mid-1980s. (Albion Books, 1996)

As there is no strict agreement of rules for netiquette, the information presented is aptly general and makes no attempt to answer all questions. Comprehensive resources would defeat the ideals of ease of learning, teaching and practising good cyberspace behaviour. This extract resource goes a long way toward achieving it’s premise that most people want to make friends, by utilising everyday language and relating to audiences with easy to understand metaphors and explanations. I found this to be an excellent and concise resource with a broad audience in mind.
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Site 2: Email Etiquette – The OWL at Purdue | http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/636/01/
This article was written by Stephanie Williams Hughes and published on The OWL at Purdue website. The resource was last edited by Dana Lynn Driscoll on the 18th of July, 2007. I have only been able to locate one other resource by the same author, but in an unrelated field.

Although instant and text/SMS messaging is beginning to supplant email for some groups’ primary means of Internet communication, effective and appropriate email etiquette is still important. This resource will help you to become an effective writer and reader/manager of email.

Although many of the ethical dos and don’ts are pointed out for email and discussion groups, the resource does little more than list them. In the way of practice exercises, teaching others, perhaps even learning these principles yourself, I found this to be a rather poor quality and sketchy article. The principles all make sense and I suppose it would be good if you just wanted a quick check list.
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Concept #10: Automation

Advanced effective internet communicators do not ignore automation, nor use it unthinkingly: they essentially negotiate arrangements with their communications software and review them as necessary. (Allen, n.d)

Reasons to automate email management may be obvious, nevertheless it isn’t necessarily easy. Where and how should I make filters? Both care to set up and attention to regularly review our automation processes, are vital. For failure to reassess our automation processes, we may stumble into the possibility of automating too much! Why are many businesses failing to achieve successful email response management? All these are important issues for effective dealing with the ubiquitous modern communication medium.

Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need. (Mozilla Foundation, 2008)

The widespread proliferation of email accounts is just the beginning of challenges facing current email management. I have a Gmail, a Hotmail, a work, and a personal email account. Fortunately email client applications can handle as many email accounts as any given personal computer users might have.

Most email software has some form of junk mail filtering which jointly requires training and some base rules for determining what is and isn’t spam. While trusting a provider’s spam filters, such as SpamAssassin, will get you started, most users will need to spend some time adding particular messages to the blacklist.

Next we hit the array of personal semantic arrangements for messages to be dealt with either immediately, or at some later time. This is where saved searches and filtering enter the field. When one needs to locate messages with the same subject or message content repeatedly, a saved search will quickly handle your request. (Mozilla Foundation, 2008) A standard configuration for filtering rules is to move messages to purposed folders.

The ultimate goal of effective email management is to minimise the time we require for it. Mann describes the configuring of good filters as beneficial in two outcomes: reducing our manual processing and cutting down on unnecessary interruptions. (Mann, 2006)

Advanced email users will have already set up sender and subject filters. However, too many filters can result in timely updates and useful messages ending up scattered all over the place. Mann reminds us, “The idea of a filter is not to hide information that you really need, but to ensure that you aren’t being interrupted constantly for what amounts to low-level noise.” (Mann, 2006)

Depending on what you consider noise, this could probably include: (Mann, 2006)

• blog and LiveJournal comments
• “friend” requests and similar announcements from community sites like My Space or Flickr
• mailing lists and subscribed forum threads
• regular updates like newsletters and office memos
• non-spam store updates, coupons, and sale announcements

Smart filtering is not a fire and forget job. In contrast, it is an ongoing process that we must attend to with regularity in order for our email to remain valuable. So why is it that businesses are prepared to invest in automation softwares that match customer queries to answers from a pre-filled database? (Shorewalker, 2004)

Alas, the problem facing technology managers, who are failing to cost effectively manage email, is three-fold. First, the analysis of email automation solutions is simply hard to do. Second, “culture is now saturated with the artificial intelligence dream – the dream that computers can think like people.” (Shorewalker, 2004) Third, email automation software shifts the work, from customer service to database maintenance.

Not only in organising and reading of email, but also in writing email, we should automate our compositions by setting up message templates. This tends to blur our perception of the asynchronous nature of email. Nevertheless it does contribute to your time saving competence.

Effective internet communicators habitually pay attention to their automation processes in order to correspond in a halcyon environment.

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Site 1: Automation woes widen the email expectations gap | http://www.shorewalker.com/section7/email_expectations.html
This blog post, written by David Shorewalker, was first filed on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 and last modified on Friday, March 05, 2004. Most posts on the Shorewalker.com website started as articles for his fortnightly technology column in Australian newspapers The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. His article uses research to criticise the handling of business email automation systems. According to Shorewalker, most of the software packages aren’t effective and technology managers (in business) are blinded by their youth of artificial intelligence dreams. The author mentions the increasing “email expectations gap” whereby organisations are failing to deliver on promises of speedy and effective email responses. The significance of business email automation is important not only for success of businesses themselves, but also because their technology practices often spread to personal usage solutions.
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Site 2: Inbox Zero: Where filters will and won’t help | http://www.43folders.com/2006/03/13/filters
On the 13th of March, 2006, Merlin Mann filed this post, part of the Inbox Zero series on the 43 Folders website. New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Time, and The Wall Street Journal are some of the publications which have featured stories on the 43 Folders website. Merlin Mann is an independent writer for periodicals such as WIRED and Popular Science; a public speaker giving productivity talks at Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Adobe, Xerox PARC, and other organisations; and a broadcaster of music and technology vodcasts and podcasts. The post is aimed at personal email users who are tripping themselves in their own filter defining and review methods. Mann also reminds us of our goal of efficiency in managing our email.
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Concept #17: The impact of text-based real-time chat

Communicating in real-time with text enables a form of ‘authoring of the self’ that is similar to the processes of face-to-face speech but which is much more amenable to authorial control, experimentation and reflection. Further, text-based communication carries with it the possibility for multiple, differing conversations occurring simultaneously, relying on the ability of the human brain to deal with text much better than speech. (Allen, n.d)

Unlike face-to-face speech communication, real-time text-based chat communications lack strong contextual clues such as intonation, volume, the surrounding environments – in both geographic and time space – and possibly sense of identities. Real time text chat communications can elude us from details of a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, linguistic accents, location and relative time zone, even our very appearance.

In the Chinese QQ chat program users are primarily identified by numbers. Many chat programs, such as Skype, provide a picture representation facility. This can be misleading or confusing as when I contacted a fellow classmate who has a profile photo of a loving male and female couple. After a few text chats, I’d assumed it was the female. At one meeting we decided to use voice. I was stunned to hear a man!

Without an established identity, we are in fact free of much prejudice. This anonymous freedom can give us a confidence to express ourselves in ways that face-to-face speech simply can’t. Therefore it is no great wonder that real-time text chat is popular with users who may be concerned about losing face.

The lack of weather data in Iraq complicated forecasting efforts… Chat has proven a vital tool for coordinating weather forecasts… The collaboration enabled by chat enabled them [US military weather services] to develop one general forecast for the entire theater. (Eovito, 2006)

They found chat use provided a more constant and reliable flow of information than other available methods (i.e. phone, email). With chat they were able to provide the best-tailored weather products to units because chat provided access to most units, enabling efficient, multi-person discussions that affected large groups of people. The time sensitivity of some weather products was met with chat, which proved the fastest and most reliable method for their dissemination. (Eovito, 2006)

There are a number of reasons why the human brain is far more able to deal with text than speech. In my own English class, students wrote a few lines from Romeo and Juliet to practice in role play. When it was time for action, each trio spoke the same lines. In English at least, the way we say everything is rarely identical upon repeat iterations. Whether a slight shift in intonation, stress, volume, interference noises, or any other factors; the sounds of spontaneous speech are quite the opposite of replaying a studio recording. Yet the written word itself is a recording and when rendered legibly, should be identical when copied. Hence text is easier than speech.

When we are presented with the option of reading a piece of text or hearing it, the written text can be read at the audience’s pace, independent of the author. Listening relies on a synchronised listening (and processing) together with the rate of speech, which is often out of our control. We find that “listening requires a great deal more working memory—what used to be called short-term memory—in order to do the semantic processing necessary for understanding.” (Powers, 2008) This lack of control and significant extra effort required for audio messages are just some of the factors leading to our reading preference over listening.

Another crucial factor is our ability to listen to only one voice at a time. Utilising the lag time between multiple recipients’ responses on real-time text chat can be re-reading what was written earlier — a challenging task to replay real-time voice chat. Other lag time fillers include composing to another user, editing, or even using other programs.

US Central Air Forces Command “found chat use provided a more constant and reliable flow of information than other available methods (i.e. phone, email). With chat they were able to provide the best-tailored weather products to units because chat provided access to most units, enabling efficient, multi-person discussions that affected large groups of people. The time sensitivity of some weather products was met with chat, which proved the fastest and most reliable method for their dissemination.” (Eovito, 2006)

Among the top reasons why the military chose to use chat were: (Eovito, 2006)

• speed – of information transfer in real time
• ease – all users in the room can read the chat thread
• efficiency – users can monitor chat while working with other tools

These reasons could be equally applied to civilian users. When speaking on the phone we often are sitting comfortable, perhaps with pen and paper to record notes, but otherwise attentive. We need to focus on the task of listening. I would imagine that most chat users are simultaneously performing some other visual or text tasks whilst text chatting.

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Site 1: Reading, listening and memory | http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/reading-listening-and-memory/
The author of this blog is a professor from the USA who has written his own book and co-authored journals in culture, literature and memory topics. This well-researched, in-depth post both avoids verbose technical jargon, and rather well covers the subject of enormous brain workload in audial processing compared with literary. The post goes on to suggest that our short term memory is not getting due exercise through listening. Instead we are (over) exercising our long term memory with an emphasis on reading and becoming absent-minded as a result. I find it incredibly interesting how effortless it is to be literate compared to aurally competent. This definitely would give cause to a natural preference for text based chat over aural.
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Site 2: The Impact of Synchronous Text-Based Chat on Military Command and Control | http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA463372
This well organised report was written in June 2006 by Captain Bryan A. Eovito of the US Marine Corps, who studied at the Naval Postgraduate School. His research includes a few appendixes clearly indicating sources, an extensive list of works cited, and one entry of a work referenced but not cited. Eovito succinctly details several use cases for chat, however some applications cannot be easily realised outside their militaristic purposes. Then again, the gaming world is teaming with online multiplayer military and strategy games utilising text-based chat in the same scenarios. Whilst some use cases were quite interesting reading, particularly the collaborative achievements of weather forecasting in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest useful part was on pages 13 – 17, the assessment of chat usage over other voice communication methods.
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References

Allen, M (2008). WebCT NET11 Concept Document.

Retrieved August 7, 2008, from Curtin University website: http://webct.curtin.edu.au/

asynchronous. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1).

Retrieved August 14, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/asynchronous

Eovito, B. A. (2006, June). The Impact of Synchronous Text-Based Chat on Military Command and Control.

Retrieved August 11, 2008, from Defense Technical Information Center website: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA463372

Facemyer, K. C. (1997). Asynchronicity : Distributed Learning Communities.

Retrieved August 13, 2008, from Virtual Washington State University website: http://www.wsu.edu/vwsu/direction/DirectPapers/Asynchronicity.html

Flower, K (2003). China – Culture Smart! : a traveller’s guide to customs and culture.

South Yarra, Vic: Explore.

Friedman, K (2007, April 1st). Asynchronicity.

Retrieved August 12, 2008, from Keywords – Better than yelling at the T.V. website: http://keywords.oxus.net/archives/2007/04/01/asynchronicity/

Hughes, S (2007, July). Email Etiquette.

Retrieved August 10, 2008, from The OWL at Purdue website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/636/01/

Mozilla Foundation, (2008, May 7). Thunderbird 2 Features.

Retrieved August 14, 2008, from Mozilla Europe website: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/features/#organize

Powers, P. K. (2008, February 19). Reading, listening and memory.

Retrieved August 8, 2008, from Read, Write, Now website: http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/reading-listening-and-memory/

Shea, V (1994). The Core Rules of Netiquette excerpted from the book Netiquette.

Retrieved August 9, 2008, from Albion.com website: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

Wesch, M (2008, July 10). A Portal to Media Literacy.

Retrieved August 14, 2008, from YouTube website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s&feature=user

• What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?
• Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

I joined the Yahoo group Bookworms Reading Group, partly out of interest to help my wife get into our Maundy Thursday Book Club, mostly to complete this task for NET11.

So I’ve subscribed to the digest format which comes daily – a bit too frequent for my interest, but the only other subscription offered is individual posts! Around 7 o’clock this evening it successfully arrived in my email inbox. 12 messages and all threaded-up and linked in a nice table of contents; I’m glad I chose the HTML fomat.

A recent activity notice tells me there are 23 new members – they must all be fresh today! Most new members are introducing themselves with a quick post. Some having technical problems that another member has solved for them already. This really is quite an active bunch of people.

Apart from new member messages, there’s a couple of threads about a book known as FNKC. I have no idea what this title could be. Upon reading the messages from those who’ve finished reading FNKC, I was pleasantly impressed to see that members actually care about what and how they write. Those that were including spoiler content mentioned it in the subject of their posts. The body of posts appears grammatically gorgeous, well punctuated and easy to read.

I like how each post in the digest includes links to reply to the sender only or to the entire group. These facilitates easy switching to private responding when desired.

Like another member though, I’ll be opting for the back seat. That is, to take the no email preference and visit the website when I am ready to choose a new title. There is a good search function and we can always see the current reading list (3 months worth and 3 titles) from the home page of the group.

Last time I was on an IMDB discussion board I read only a few posts until the errors frustrated me. The brevity of posts and lack of identity and author responsibility could deter some from discussion boards.

Some immediate pros and cons that come to mind:

Who is suited to what then?

Active members of (especially smaller community) groups will benefit more from an email list. Many to many communications between clear identities and on contemporary topics are suited to the fundamental email list.

Researchers may need to look into history or simply search through past threads and this is much more intuitive via a web interface. If you’re only occasionally interested in a group, or prefer to be anonymous, the discussion board offers a less committing channel. Beyond text, multimedia groups such as flickr groups can only work via discussion boards.

1. What information about a user’s email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?
2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the ‘CC’, ‘BCC’ and ‘Reply All’ functions of email?
3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?
4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?
5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

As for #1,
email addresses always include the username (or account) as well as the domain name of the computer(s) that provide mail services. Whilst domain names such as the free gmail.com may seem obscure at first, you can narrow it down with some knowledge of server nationalities. For instance, users with a hotmail.co.jp would probably be of Japanese origin. Many domains refer to the exact organisation or institution that the user works or studies at. For example hawthornenglish.edu.au tells us that users are associated with the Hawthorn English school within the education sector. Finally, many usernames are closely related to their human names. An email address such as steve@eucalyptproductions.com you can assume belongs to a man named Steve.

Most of this info has been lifted from http://liblearn.osu.edu/tutor/les9/index.html but I couldn’t find any info about the path it took. John Paul Grant’s old post reminded me To do this in Outlook … simply right click on the file and go to ‘message options’. A rather non-user-friendly list of internet headers including the servers along the way from sender to recipient.

#2
We use the TO: field for listing each primary recipient of the message. The CC: field can be useful if you want to send a copy of your message to someone, but the purpose is for their information and we’re not expecting a reply from them. The BCC: field is rather sneaky. Should you need to send a “blind” copy of your message to someone, without other recipients knowing about it, include their address here. Perhaps you need some kind of legal assistance or a third party to laugh at the ridiculous message content, but that’s only for nasty people. Reply All is a very handy function to broadcast your response to all the original recipients – perhaps when setting up a list is overkill or how to do that is unknown.

#3
Following are a few ways that you can ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

• recipient must have a compatible system – file format and software handlers
• redundancy allowance – if you don’t know of the recipient’s system, try sending an RTF file or better still a plain text (ASCII) file
• file names – include in the body text of your e-mail message the names of any files you have attached
• be considerate – compress large files, use something like WinZip

Answer #4 :
Disappointingly in Outlook 2003 the default junk email filter setting is low. Don’t Microsoft programmers drink coffee? I switched it to high and no problem so far. I’m not a fan of rules in general but for email I have set up a book club rule. For me, these messages aren’t urgent, and I want them all together in one place. Setting up the rule is straight-forward, provided you avoid your usual habit of clicking the Next button. On setting up a new rule the first screen has a Finish button, which will do the job without complication.

#5
Although I use Outlook, it’s running out of reasons to remain my preferred email program. Don’t waste your time with the tutorial Why create folders. From my screen clip here you can see how I have organised the folder structure of my email, for now. Each folder has been named appropriately. Some are permanent, such as accounts where I put emails pertaining to information I need to recall for passwords and whatnot. Other folders, like clients, family, and friends, are relevant to specific sender groups. The wedding folder is a temporal one that should be archived now that it is complete. It just goes to show, even a good folder system can’t be neglected for too long.

In a reply, don’t just quote everything. Do you want to read that again?

In a reply, don’t just quote everything.

Don’t assume I’ve been able to notice that little paper clip. Tell me what is attached and what action is required.

Take the time to set up folders and rules. Assess and re-assess them on a regular basis to make your management of email easy as can be.

Email best practice depends on understanding how your audience will use the information you are sending, or how you wish them to use it.

This concept is quite different from thinking about what you are telling your audience: it requires you to think and write about what the recipients of email should do with that email.

• Will they file it away for future reference?
• Will they respond immediately?
• Will they act upon the information if required?
• Will they be passing the message or parts of it onto others?

To be productive, you need to signal to your audience what you would like them to do; you need to help them to understand your intentions and expectations. We haven’t learnt to read minds, so communicate it!

Communicating in the infosphere includes Lists, Newsgroups, Chat & Messaging – but only lists will be studied tonight. We’ve already looked at email. Throughout this module we’ll cover other asynchronous forms, synchronous forms, 1-to-many and even many-to-many – sounds like one too many, I know, but let’s get on with it.

Lonely Planet | Comet Newsletter – an example of a 1-to-many email list.

I had almost no idea that chat and SMS could be combined – sounds expensive.

Concepts to chew the fat over (massage comes later):

• Cyberspace is informationally created ‘space‘
• Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors’ responsibilities
• Privacy and Security

An email list is a semi-automatic way of distributing mail to a group of people who have made a choice to receive the messages and have the right to send material to others on the list. So far this sounds like a club who enjoy receiving supermarket catalogues in their letterbox and members calling everyone about this week’s specials. Most lists should not be fully automatic but be moderated.

Sometimes, on what are known as moderated lists, the message is stored by the listserver software which then informs the list moderator by email of the arrival and contents of the message and will not resend it to all list members until the moderator replies with an email message that the listserv software accepts as authorising distribution.

Two different kinds of communities may be served by lists. The first kind might be one with plenty of information interchange, such as the movie buffs – they meet regularly, discuss films, tell movie gossip, share anecdotes about what they’ve seen, debate and argue, critique, form friendships and enmities. The second kind of community would be more like a one way street. For example the regular staff meeting with a productivity report, someone might ask if we’re getting a pay rise, but little interchange.

Subscribing to a list may be simplified and presented in a web form. Great, because no-one wants to learn those commands nor fear that a typo will unsubscribe them from the Hollywood A-list.

Newsflash! If it’s a hot list, you may get the option of the reader’s digest form rather than individual messages from every single fan around the world.

Newsflash! Spy on yourself / become a double agent – conceal your membership from the list.

Using a List: Technical points – be wary of exactly who you’re replying to.

Using a List: Social points

Remember the following:

* a list will have conversations already going…don’t join in without reading because your contribution may have already been made
* lists are public conversations: be careful with defamatory remarks and copyright infringements
* lists have rules, each subtly or greatly different to one another.
* membership of lists is a responsibility
* some lists are moderated, meaning that you need approval to subscribe. to post messages etc
* always remember that lists are asynchronous: your message whether new or reply may be read either soon after you post it, or some days later, by many different people with different schedules
* put into the list what you expect to get out of it – if you want information, be prepared to provide some as well

If you must use Microsoft Outlook, then take the time to set it up properly. It’ll make your email sparkle. Good, text-based email is still the most effective use of the medium. Laying out and structuring your email takes about the same level of care as hand writing a letter.

My loyal subjects!
Without doubt, the subject field in your email messages is the most important. Most people, most of the time, scan their email by checking the subjects of new messages and dealing first with those that are apparently important, interesting etc.

You what? You didn’t write a subject? Well… why’d you expect me to read that?

Time spent crafting a subject will be saved: less written text is needed; and, furthermore, your recipients will appreciate your effort, further improving the communicative relationship between you.

No reply?
Should I reply to all mail? While this decision can be made in terms of your own needs and priorities (ie, if you are busy you may choose not to reply), it is more ethical and efficient to make the decision based on your reading of the needs and expectations of the person who originally sent you the message.

Moreover, you may wish to turn this experience around and consider how you can write your own email messages so that, without being heavy handed, you make it clear to your addressees whether they need to reply or not. Such thought may lead you to signing one-way messages with a brief ‘no need to reply unless necessary’; or may lead to more subtle forms of ‘cueing’.

For example, imagine you receive an email requesting a meeting at a particular time and place; you reply, confirming the time and place, saying “see you then!”, thus implying that you require no further correspondence. You could even write this in the subject, leaving nothing in the message body.

… Use quoting sensibly. Remember that you can always edit the quoted text. You can delete it (or parts of it) if you don’t want it to be sent back. You decide if you want to quote: if in doubt, use less than was originally sent to you. Ask yourself if the person needs to read in full what they sent you, or just needs a few select quotes – delete the rest and, if you want to indicate you’ve done this thoughtfully write [snip] or [del] or even the old … to show you have consciously edited the original message.

Rural Mail,
by MilkaWay.

Because email messages remain, largely, plain text (without formatting), good email communications demand:

• white space. The spaces between words and paragraphs are precious tools in enabling the eye to discern the structure and content of a document: email messages are no different. Use:
• lots of short paragraphs
• extra white space to create ‘blocks’ of related text
• appropriate (limited) use of capitals (ALL CAPS ARE HARD TO READ)

Attachments are well handled when the sender and receiver both have compatible programs. As the sender, make it obvious that there is/are attachments and what their purpose is. As the receiver, reply with acknowledgement of dealing with the attachments.

Managing mass mail is something many people fail dismally at, me included. One strategy I’ve adapted came to me from the ideas of:

• how Canon digital camera software organises images/footage into folders by shooting date.
• how I seem to be updating my resume so often and like to read the date from the file-name

A lot of the email I deal with is relevant for a limited time, and I have a folder created for this period. When the period is over, it’s time to delete and/or archive the folder.

How about a folder for each recipient? That’s pretty useless if your email program has a fast way of searching for people’s names/email address. Often we remember who wrote the message anyway, but details of the message content is what we need to review.

Some good categorisation strategies for folders:

• projects or ongoing tasks in which you are engaged that have specific boundaries (people, time, results)
• information persistence: will you need the information in the mail messages again and again, or just occasionally, or never again
• function of the email messages for you: are they informative; do they ask you to act?
• types of information involved

The key decision you are making is What is the primary quality or character of this email? Then group together emails that have like qualities. The primary quality will change from time to time, requiring you to move the email to a different place.