I was avoiding Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Home and Officeby David Shipley and Will Schwalbe because this book was “too visible” in the stores when it was first released. I was seeing too many displays of Send at Borders and Barnes and Noble, literally stacks or 30 copies on one display alone. Every time I turned around, there it was. If you know me, you know that I’m a stubborn consumer and don’t like this much marketing for any product. I avoided buying or even browsing this book.

As a result, I thought Send would turn out to be one of the typical self-help books that I can’t stand, but was I wrong. After I finally cracked the cover out of curiosity, I browsed the table of contents, which grabbed me right away after reading the eight deadly sins of email.

The Eight Sins of Email

If you’re curious too, the eight sins are:

1. The email that unbelievably vague.
2. The email that insults you so badly you have to get up from your desk.
3. The email that puts in you in jail.
4. The email that’s cowardly.
5. The email that won’t go away.
6. The email that’s so sarcastic you have to get up from your desk.
7. The email that’s too casual.
8. The email that’s inappropriate.

People Wrote Memos? On paper? When? No. Really?

Remember the days before the internet? No? Let me remind you, back in the good old days before emails, there were memorandums in the work environment. Writing a memo was an art form in itself. Today, the only time someone writes is to send a Thank You note. All work is done via email. Frankly, writing and interacting via email has been learned mostly through trial and error or practiced through common sense. However, for those of you who want to flatten the curve on emailing, then this is your book. Why make horrific mistakes when you can buy this book, learning what not to do and what we should be doing?

Email is a Productivity, Communicate, and Marketing Tool

Knowledge workers who use email well are highly productive and effective. They know how to use it for status updates, as a tool to get others to act, or to collaborate with others. Our email skills reflect our personal brand. When emails are done well, no one notices. When done poorly, the recipients get annoyed and you look bad. Bad emailing is probably what Shipley and Schwalbe are hoping to stamp out. You get the feeling they are so annoyed by bad emails that they had to write a book about it.

I’ve had my own Dumb Lemming moments with email, but I’ve always course corrected and adjusted. Frankly, proper emailing takes vigilance, because there’s always a new situation that we have to learn how to communicate via email. Check out Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home; it’s one of the must-have books so you can properly use email as a tool in your toolkit.

Send Resources

• Official website, Think Before You Send
• “Check your e-mail — before you hit send” by Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
• “Elements of E-style” by Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker

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