From Evernote:

New Tools, Old Rules Part II

In my most recent post, I talked about new social tools and etiquette (read rules/norms).   In the last 24 hours I remembered a very old rule that my father taught me long ago -- first the background.
 My father spent nearly his entire professional life writing and never used anything higher tech that an electric typewriter.   He is pictured below, with even older technology, a manual typewriter cira 1950.   He had one "process rule" that he followed when it came to his writing -- "Write it, sleep on it, re-read it in the morning and make sure you still feel the same way". 

Last night, I read a work e-mail thread before going to bed.  I stayed up feeling the need to respond before going to bed.    I mentally drafted several responses, none of them felt right.   I went to bed and tried to clear my mind.   When I awoke in the morning, there were more messages in the thread (work is global and around the clock today).   I pulled out the iPhone and typed a short, upbeat response before leaving for the office.   It was much different than I had felt the previous night.    When I arrived in the office, the reply was "Great Thank you".    I know the response would have been much different had I sent what was swirling in my mind the night before.

I fear today's "24x7, always on" work mode does not allow us, makes us think we can't take the time, to be thoughtful and introspective. I doubt my father ever envisioned the speed at which e-mail, blogging, micro-blogging, social networks, and mobile devices would have us writing and sharing our thoughts.    I also don't think it would have mattered to him -- "Write, Sleep, Re-read, Send".

New Tools, New Rules -- Old Tools Still Can Be Used Poorly

In a previous post, I talked about the "Serendipitous Power of Social".   I noted that several of my colleagues referred to a new social tool by comparing it to e-mail -- "Oh, I would do this instead of sending you an e-mail".    Since that dialog, there was an interesting event e-mail event where I work.   

It all started innocently enough --- a single individual sending a note to a distribution list, "I am so and so, please add me to your list".    The list in question involved some 3000 employees.    The first several responses were "please remove me from the list".    After roughly half a dozen or so of those responses, came the "Please stop doing Reply-All"    I counted 46 of  those in a matter of 15 minutes.    The number grew so quickly because the folks asking (instructing) to not use "Reply All" did not realize that the distribution list was again being appended to the e-mail.    I  took the time to look up the list owner, and I *almost* forwarded the e-mail to him until I realized what was going on.   So instead I created to have a Help Desk ticket to have the IT department delete/disable the list.The whole event lasted only a few hours, but it was both universally irradiating and humorous. 

It had several folks remembering that a previous CEO had the "Reply All" functionality removed from our mail clients.    He was of course ridiculed for doing this, but most were missing his point -- e-mail has an etiquette.   Hitting "Reply All" and likely adding a few more folks the the ccList that will likely also hit "Reply All" is not good e-mail etiquette.   Is it any wonder we now have movements like #inboxzero and inboxzero.com?

Other tools have etiquette as well newsgroups, and forums politely expect that you will search for the answer to your question before posting and the moderators get irradiated when users don't follow this simple practice.   As more social like tools enter the workplace, Yammer, etc. there will be new rules of etiquette that will be expected as social norms.   Let's all hope that people can learn faster than we have e-mail -- it's only be around for about 2 decades :-)