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Here are our top five tips to help you relax and reduce the risk of cyber crime happening to either you or your business for example, identity theft, denial of service, loss of sensitive data and home burglary etc. The key is to disconnect but if you find that hard then be discrete about what you say and post.
For some more suggestions on how reduce email overload overload and to take time our from the digital world and especially from email click here to see my latest blog on Huffington.co.uk. The article also contains ways to re-balance your work-life balance and reduce stress.
If all else fails you might want to check your level of email addiction click here to start. At Mesmo Consultancy have helped may business people reduce their level of email addiction and improve their work-life balance. Call us for an informal discussion about how we can help you.
Tags: cyber crime, email addiction, email overload, Huffington.co.uk, Mesmo Consultancy
What does bad email etiquette cost you? This question was prompted by the wonderful story yesterday of a French Café who charge polite customers less for coffee. This generated a request from BBC Radio Solent’s Julian Clegg to talk about whether or not manners maketh man. (Interestingly, a quote from Willian Wykeham Bishop of Winchester around 1366)
Coincidentally, yesterday too I was asked if it was acceptable to reply to an internal email without including a salutation. All Mesmo Consultancy’s research shows that if you add a salutation and a few polite words you are more likely to receive a reply from the other person than an email with just a one line question. For example ‘ Please can you let me have the sales figures. Thanks’ will engage the other person more than the bald statement ‘Let me have the sales figures’.
This is perhaps not surprising in the digital age where physical interactions are on the decline and we come to rely increasingly on digital interaction. How we write emails and social media posts is our ‘e-dress code’. It portrays a picture of you for better or worse.
Email etiquette which Mesmo Consultancy finds conveys a bad image include:
In the lean world of business, we need to draw out the best in the people with whom we work. Displaying arrogance in our emails and social media posts in not an option. Moreover in such a noisy world we also need both to make ourselves stand out and find ways to work with those who prefer ‘Quiet’. Good email etiquette can help. Good email etiquette costs you nothing (well maybe a few seconds more to write the email) but helps you gain friends rather than enemies.
Use our free on-line ‘Email Etiquette’ benchmarking tool to see what image you create and how well you engage through email with others. Still need some help than ask us about how our corporate email etiquette training which has helped others can help you win more business.
Tags: BBC Radio Solent, corporate email etiquette, email et, email etiquette, email salutations, Julian Clegg, Mesmo Consultancy
The recent hacking of the Adobe website is a salient reminder of the need to remain vigilant about protecting ones personal information on-line. One of the most stark factors to emerge was the number of very weak passwords used by people. Email security and internet security depends in part of having strong passwords and being vigilant about what you post on social media sites. A recent report revealed that the most common passwords were ‘123456’ (190,000+ users) and ‘123456789’ (46,000+ users).
Creating a strong password is really quite easy. Think of a meaningful sentence and then take the first letter of each word and use it to construct a password. Turn a couple of letters into capitals/symbols and add in a couple of numbers and you have a strong password. For example:
In my youth my favourite singer was Leonard Cohen. A password might be 1mYMf3Wlc!
Email security
Three other top tips to follow to improve your email security are:
1. Password protect important attachments.
2. Do not put confidential information in the body of an email, rather either convey the information verbally or in a password protected attachment. Click here for an example of what can otherwise go wrong.
3. Remember that despite your best efforts email evidence is very rarely destroyed. Someone somewhere will always have a copy.
For those managing a business (no matter what size) a key part of your email and internet security must be your Acceptable (computer) Usage Policy (AUP). It must be up-to-date to take account of changing technologies, and you must have evidence that everyone has read and accepted its conditions.
Click here to access our free on-line tool to benchmark just how robust is your current AUP. Mesmo Consultancy have helped many clients improve their email security and reduce the risk of leaking sensitive and confidential information. Call us now for a free consultation and review about how vulnerable your business is currently (+44 (0)1202 434340) .
Tags: acceptable usage policy, email security, Hacking, Mesmo Consultancy, password protection
Did I miss not having any email yesterday? What was the effect on my work-life balance and business? Would there be chronic email overload the next day?
Normally I check my email first thing in the morning with a coffee in hand from one or other of the available devices (ipad or Mac). However Wednesday was No Email Day. Initially I felt at a loss. That day, I was hosting a guest at an important lunch event meeting and second there was some urgent work to finish. Not checking my inbox gave me back an hour to be properly prepared.
During the day I did cheat a couple of times and ask our Office Manager to check my inbox. She dealt with the really urgent messages which left me to focus on and complete the pressing client work. Normally I check my emails before switching off as many of my clients are on different time zones. However no one balked at a reply 24 hours later, No contracts were lost, no clients deserted me. The plus, time to read a book and get an early night.
For me even as an email management guru the key lessons were:
Mesmo Consultancy’s recent studies show that email is here to stay for at least another five years. The key to using email effectively is to take control and rule the inbox rather than let it distract and rule your day. That may mean some email management training in the new year.
Tags: email management training, email overload, Mesmo Consultancy, No Email Day
Email bullying?
In the USA, October is national prevent bullying month. We do not appear to have anything similar in the UK which is a shame especially as there have been a few cases of young people committing suicide through feeling bullied on Facebook etc.
Email too can easily be used to bully people. For example leaving insufficient time to reply, constantly sending email reminders and demands. Sending rude, arrogant and abrasive emails can be stressful too for the recipient. Attaching read receipt and reminder flags might also be deemed bully tactics. Such harassment is a drain on productivity as found previously. Perhaps the most serious form of email bullying is expecting people to reply too quickly and often outside acceptable working hours. Moreover, email bullying adds to the email overload and hence stress levels.
Any form of bullying is to be deplored and is unacceptable. Social technologies and email have just made it easier to do in a hidden and often covert manner. Deleting and/or ignoring such emails is not an option.
VW recently stopped sending email to workers Blackberrys thirty minutes after their shift ended. That is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
At Mesmo Consultancy we have found a more informed a sustainable solution is to implement a proper email management code of conduct and email best practice charter. It should contain both what is acceptable email behaviour and the procedure if you are on the receiving end of email bullying.
Have you ever been bullied by email? Does your organisation have such an email management code of conduct?
Tags: corporate email etiquette, email best practice, email bullying, email management, email response times, email stress, Mesmo Consultancy