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Subject:Re: The e-mail charter From:yehoshua paul <yehoshua -dot- p -at- technicalwriting -dot- com> To:"Porrello, Leonard" <lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com> Date:Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:18:34 +0300
And before a flame war is started, and we enter a discussion of whether or
not I was justified in posting the link, I will publicly apologize to
anyone who felt offended by the post.
That said, regarding the specific points that Leonard raised. I do not
think I violated rule #5 because I think this charter is relevant to the
entire group, #3 is debatable, and regarding #9, if all you are saying is
thank you, you don't need to post it to the entire group, it can be sent
privately.
I do think there are points in the charter worth considering, which is why
I raised the discussion. I do not assume moral superiority over anyone in
this group.
Have a great weekend,
Yehoshua Paul
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Porrello, Leonard
<lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com>wrote:
> I think William violated #1 (for verbosity), and apart from #4, Paul
> clearly violated #3 (uninformative Subject line) and #5 (sending this to
> the entire group instead of first getting buy-in from just the moderators).
> As for #9, if you don't have time to receive or send a "thank you", you
> might want to reconsider your work/life balance as well as the point of
> your existence on this planet.
>
> I like a few of the points, but I find the authors' assumption of moral
> authority sophomoric.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:
> techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
> William Sherman
> Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 7:18 AM
> To: 'tech2wr-l'
> Subject: RE: The e-mail charter
>
> Email was thought to improve our world in personal lives and business. And
> with full respects to Kevin's comments about newer technology and the power
> to do amazing things, it has. However, it has also had a side effect no one
> anticipated - a huge burden. Before email, most people received few memos
> per day. They usually received any instructions, questions, and information
> verbally or in a stack of papers dropped on their desk. Sorting importance
> was easy - important stuff had someone standing at your desk demanding
> action or calling on the phone every few minutes.
>
> Today, instead of a few messages, you get hundreds and maybe even
> thousands.
> All this consumes time that most never realize they are using. Several
> years ago, I was noticing I was receiving over 400 emails a day on the
> average.
> Many were automatically generated from servers spitting out reports or
> from groups I was barely a member in, but none the less, I had to take a
> look at each one to see if I could ignore it or needed to take action. At
> an average of 1 minute per email to open, scan, decide to keep or throw,
> and maybe respond, those emails took 400 minutes of my day. That is 6 hours
> and 40 minutes. That left 1 hour and 20 minutes of a work day to actually
> work.
> Naturally I was not opening all every day, and so I did a very careful
> purge of what email came in and what groups I could unsubscribe from
> without it being a work impact, since many groups put you in multiple email
> broadcasts.
> I got it down to around 200 emails a day, which was still 3-1/2 hours.
>
> This job I have now produces around 15 emails a day average.
>
> I get a lot more work done.
>
> It was like computers which would improve the work of writers by
> increasing our speed and output. Mostly, it has improved our ability to
> generate tons of unnecessary paper that ends up being shredded.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> And this was shared on my +Google feed today.
>http://www.emailcharter.org/
>
> I'm going to violate rule #4, and say thoughts?
>
> I definitely think subscribing to this charter is worth considering. It
> would save me the need to delete a lot of pointless e-mails that I
> frequently see posted in this group.
>
> Yehoshua Paul
> www.technicalwriting.com
>
>
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