Clearly hoarding is something looked at as an anomaly since there are entire shows about it. But what about being a digital hoarder? Â This week I’ve spent a large number of hours taming one client’s email. Â It went back as far as 2004. Â His Inbox alone was 28,322 emails. Â That didn’t include subfolders, sent items, deleted items (that was 3,270 alone!) and drafts. Â His feeling was if he kept it, he would always have it if he needed it. I beg to differ. Outlook as a piece of software was never designed to handle that kind of volume. In fact, it was really only made to handle about 2GB worth of email. Â And for the average person, that’s all they can handle as well. We all get email every day that we will never need again – and probably didn’t need today. Â So rather than […] Continue reading
Losing the Visual and Tone
Recently I attended a meeting where the speaker raised a concern that people of my generation like to use email for communication. She felt this is a problem because you lose the look of the person as they are conveying the message as well as the way they would say it if they could be heard. And while I love seeing people in person, at the same time one of my favorite things is learning about people without the baggage. Here’s what I mean. I’m a gamer. I play with people all over the country and periodically in other countries. Our main way to communicate is through a small chat window. You have to convey your thoughts, feelings and meaning in this little bitty window while all this other stuff is going on. The amazing thing is in doing so, you absolutely get a sense […] Continue reading
Think About The Intent Before Hitting Send
I took the high road today.  It was tough but I did it.  I received an unsolicited resume from someone yesterday and I read his opening paragraph (of 7 with bullets, mind you).  I then opened his resume and forwarded it to someone who might have a position for the individual.  Did I go back and read the rest of his extremely long email?  No – I got an UNSOLICITED resume and I have work to do.  In fact, I had three customers with emergencies just after I received his email.  So he was not a priority. On a whim, I sent him a question.  Turns out, he answered the question in paragraph 5 which he was quick to point out in his response. Seriously?  You send me a hugely long email and a resume and then scold me when I don’t read every word? […] Continue reading