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Top tips from Mesmo Consultancy (and Associates) on how to save time and improve business and personal performance by ‘Taking Control of your Inbox’ and using proper business email etiquette.
Ways to reduce the volume of email awaiting your return after a break for half-term include:
More suggestions can be found in ‘Brilliant Email‘ which of course you could always buy in any good book store and read on your break!!
Tags: email overload
Did you set a secure Out of Office message if you’re taking time out this week for half-term? Secure means saying simply ‘I will not have regular access to my emails from A to B. If it’s urgent please call me or ABC’. Avoid saying you are on leave as that’s alerting cyber criminals to a potentially empty house.
Also avoid giving too many points of contact as that too open the door to preying eyes and can be an easy source of leaking confidential information eg other organisation with whom you deal, other points of contact etc.
Tags: email security
Have you ever looked at the email addresses used by SMEs and sole traders? Your email address is a part of your email etiquette and on-line image. The other day at a networking event I studied people’s email addresses. There were the big corporates who have their own domain name. Then there were the SMEs and sole traders. The latter ranged from Yahoo and Gmail addresses to very long personal domain names of 25+ characters. Plenty of scope there for mistyping!
In business your email address is part of your email etiquette or email dress code as it called in ‘Brilliant Email’. It’s the accessories. If you are a serious business player think carefully about your email address. To buy a domain name is cheap and a good investment. For men it’s like a good pair of cuff links. For women it’s the equivalent to investing in some diamonds or pearls.
Gmail, Yahoo, BTinternet, Hotmail etc are fine for domestic use, a second business address for all the non essential emails like newsletters etc and for casual business use eg non-executive directors. However, for serious business players, I am not so sure. What do you think?
No reply is it email overload, arrogance or plain bad manners? Recently a well established trade magazine asked for volunteers to write expert columns. They never either acknowledged or replied to my email. Is this because they feel no need to demonstrate the basic simple courtesy just blogged by Ted Coine or is the requesting editor’s email inbox so overstuffed they don’t read half their emails?
Tags: email etiquette, email overload
Email etiquette and email security. It’s that time of year again, Valentine’s Day is here. It’s not just the high street that’s bursting with Valentine fever. The internet is full of online shopping sites covered with hearts, pushing last-minute gift ideas and online dating services, trying to get you to sign-up to make this year THE year that you find that special someone.
Electronic cards are ideal for the busy or last-minute romantics out there. Sending an eCard for a special occasion seems to be a growing trend – it’s cheap to do, environmentally friendly and a convenient alternative to traditional cards.
I think the concept is great and there are a lot of trusted sites which offer you the option to create animated videos or cards to send by email to your Valentine, but there are just as many spammers hiding behind bogus messages, so beware!
Security companies monitor the activity of spammers at this time of year and see spikes in spam related to Valentine’s Day such as emails with subject headers like, ‘An original gift for Valentine’s Day’, ‘Very Hush-Hush Valentines Day Offer’, ‘Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Gifts’ and lots more*.
Hackers often use Valentine’s Day to try and sneak malicious software on to your computer, or to lure you to what looks like a legitimate website to make purchases, allowing them to steal your bank account details and passwords, without you realising.
Be cautious and do not open emails from unknown senders even if they flatter your ego!
Tags: email etiquette, email security