Long emails
Lately I've had a couple of people tell me that they didn't read an email because it was "too long". These emails, mind you, were not treatises on the order of War and Peace or The Gulag Archipeligo. They were two or three paragraphs of clear prose tailored to get the point across succinctly. Perhaps these people are confusing text messages (160 character limit), tweets (140 character limit) and emails (no specified limit). It could be that the "push" technology, which sends emails directly to cell phones and pda's is responsible for this and, if the whole message won't fit on the little bitty screen, then it isn't going to get read. This is a spurious excuse. Most of us read more text on-screen now then we do on paper.
I routinely carry text files and correspondence on my PDA and read them whenever I have a few spare minutes. This works fine for me but I had a friend explain to me the other day that he doesn't like to read text on screen. This is problemmatic. In the modern world, documents are distributed via the web or via PDF. Email has largely supplanted letter correspondence. Except for contract-driven correspondence that must be in ink on cellulose and must bear a signature to be legally binding, everything comes and goes on email. People are going to have to learn to read on screen, and agree to read the text containing the information they need, if this system is going to work. So, in short, I'll agree to try to tighten up my email messages if you'll agree to read them when they appear on your screen. Deal?
I routinely carry text files and correspondence on my PDA and read them whenever I have a few spare minutes. This works fine for me but I had a friend explain to me the other day that he doesn't like to read text on screen. This is problemmatic. In the modern world, documents are distributed via the web or via PDF. Email has largely supplanted letter correspondence. Except for contract-driven correspondence that must be in ink on cellulose and must bear a signature to be legally binding, everything comes and goes on email. People are going to have to learn to read on screen, and agree to read the text containing the information they need, if this system is going to work. So, in short, I'll agree to try to tighten up my email messages if you'll agree to read them when they appear on your screen. Deal?