How not to write a business email

[nachtjaeger]

Below is an actual business email. The document has been {edited} to prevent identification of the company or the pointy-haired executive.

Bonus points to those who can identify the rules of business communication, email communication, and basic English that have been broken.

From: Competent Manager [Add to Address Book]
To: Competent Manager's staff

FYI: Please note the following and remember to edit before hitting send.


From: Pointy-haired Executive's staff
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 2:30 PM
To: Long List of company staff and managers
Subject: RE: Point-haired Executive's Program- Status as of April 6, 2011

Please also note the corrected email address. It is:

mailto:correct.email@domain.xyz


From: Pointy-haired Executive's staff
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 11:39 AM
To: Long List of company staff and managers
Subject: RE: (program) Cluster - Status as of April 6, 2011

All,

This is the attachment Pointy-haired Executive intended to send with his earlier email. We are still waiting to hear from {unit} to complete the {action item.}

From: Pointy-haired Executive
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 11:28 AM
To: Long List of company staff and managers
Subject: RE: {program} Cluster - Status as of April 6, 2011


Attached please find the {program} Cluster Worksheet and Contact Sheet. The Cluster Worksheet contains data from most Regions as of today, April 6, 2011. Most of the Regions have responded to the request for information and their information has been included herein. The Cluster Worksheet contains information in {number} of different worksheets (the Main Office and {number} Regional Offices – use function “Control and Page Up or Page Down” simultaneously to move between worksheets). The Contact Sheet is used here in {unit} as a means to quickly identify {program} personnel.

The purpose of this document is to identify those Regional individuals whose tasks or responsibilities intersect with the Company's {edit} agenda and who can be expected to be looped into trainings, teleconferences and other {program} up-dates in order to ensure that the Company's {edit} agenda is being appropriately promulgated throughout our Regions, to our sub-recipients and other external stakeholders for whom {program} is an important element of their work.

As with any data base, this Cluster spreadsheet will be evolving, with names and contact information changing frequently. For the time being, email any changes and up-dates to this document to the {incorrect email link.}

{unit} will ensure that your edits will be made to this document. Alternatively you can call {staff contact} to discuss your edits and he will ensure your edits are added to the document.

The up-dated Cluster document will be posted in the {program} Reference Room – with a location to be provided to you this week.

SPECIAL NOTE:

{edit} Certification Site Visits

From the data collected thus far, it appears that all regions do not perform Certification Site Visits. As we are all understaffed, the idea is going to be advanced that in order to help meet the "perceived dearth" of {edit} all Regions will need to lend a hand in the certification process. As the importance of the {edit} initiative has been elevated, we are all going to be required to think "outside the box" to help achieve desired outcomes. (See column J.)

{program} stands ready, always to assist and support the Company's {edit} operations. Let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions.

Monthly Teleconference Speaker Series

As discussed at last week’s {edit} teleconference, we will be advancing a speaker series at each monthly teleconference in order for all of you to hear from Senior Management about issues coming down the pike and their views on the importance of our {program} Work.

Speakers to be invited include:

{list of company and vendor senior management.}

Please let us know if there are individuals you would like to hear from and we will work to have them included to present. The speaker series will allow an invited guest to present their area of work. That presentation will be followed by a short round of Q&A.

{program} WEB SITE

{Program} is being proactive in up-dating our Web site to inform the public about the Company's (program) program. Should you have comments or suggestions about the {program} Web site, please send them to the {incorrect email link} for consideration. We are actively trying to drive traffic to our Web site for information.

Lastly, please do not read anything into omissions of people on this Cluster list. If your name(s) or the name(s) of someone or some title you know of is not listed, please see it as an error of omission and not commission. No one has been intentionally left off of this list. So if there is a name or title missing, please send it along and we will have it added.

Thank you for your continued good work.

"Spitzen Haare,"
Director, Office of {program}

[Kookus]

Better than mine. If I don't fire off at least two expletives in any communication with management, I don't feel that I've properly expressed my point of view.

[Nessie]

Eeeeek!

I'm glad that didn't arrive in my e-mail. But I can take comfort in the fact that if I'd gotten irritated and actually dashed off a response to tell Mr. Haare the truth of what I thought of this...

He never would have read it.

Nessie

[Mynock]

I would've replied back "TLDR".
Nice to know I'm not the only one who deals with idiots on a daily basis. I've got two people in my department how regulary send emails that look and sound like they were typed by a three fingered hillbilly.

[nachtjaeger]

I couldn't believe it. My boss will tell me to draft an email to so-and-so saying such-and-such, I draft it, print it out, he marks it up, and I fix it before we send it. Same with paper communications.

Rule #1: Thou shalt not send a business email longer than one screen. People won't read past the first page. If you have more to say, put it in a document and attach it.

Rule #2: Thou shalt not combine multiple topics in a single email; make each topic its own email and hence its own comment thread.

Rule #3: Thou shalt not edit thy own words.

I could go on, but I won't.

[Nessie]

And thou shalt proofread any links thou includeth in thy e-mail lest thy readers curse thee upon receipt of the dreaded message, "undeliverable", sent by the evil Mailer-Daemon.

Nessie

[water_bug_62208]

And, there's the issue of publishing personal information in E-mails and/or the attachments of E-mails.

Has permission been given to unleash the personal contact information of said staff members to the worlds, or has it been established that only an appropriate and authorized audience receives this information? Our Public Affairs office has nightmares dealing with commercial companies that seek out and take such information to populate "directories" that they sell to people for a price.

Information security and awareness is a big deal these days.

[nachtjaeger]

Distribution of the email was basically internal, limited to (editing to disguise the company) the company HQ, the regional offices, and the parent company. Let's call the unit "marketing" for now. The PHB (pointy haired boss) is head of marketing for the company. The whole point of the exercise was that the marketing department has created a contact list of the marketing people in the main office, the regional offices, and the parent company. So if you have a marketing question, you know who to contact.

In my unit, we do this all the time and don't make a production out of it. Every so often we send an email to our contacts (with a cc to their supervisors) with the Word version of the contact list attached. They update the list if needed, and when we hear back from everybody we send the updated list to everybody who uses it.

With the amount of info the PHB was trying to convey in this email, it should have gone out in newsletter format. And the contact list should NOT have been distributed until it was complete and correct. D'oh!

And, there's the issue of publishing personal information in E-mails and/or the attachments of E-mails.

Has permission been given to unleash the personal contact information of said staff members to the worlds, or has it been established that only an appropriate and authorized audience receives this information? Our Public Affairs office has nightmares dealing with commercial companies that seek out and take such information to populate "directories" that they sell to people for a price.

Information security and awareness is a big deal these days.