Category Archives: Business

“If he cheated with you…” applies to business

You may have heard the expression

If he cheated with you, he will cheat on you.

I’ve lived this first-hand, and it was an “aha!” moment early in life. A lot of things about personalities and relationships clicked after thinking about that simple fact.

Since then, I’ve noticed the same thinking can be applied to business: potential clients, potential employees, potential employers, etc.

If someone has “had terrible vendors” in the past or “worked for horrific bosses” or “has had terrible luck keeping good employees” it’s certainly something to commiserate with them about, but then an opportunity to dig deeper and find out why.

I’m adding “Email Deleting” to my Linkedin skills just to see if people are still paying attention over there.

I *am* getting pretty good at it, though…

Link

Speaking of dressing like a grown up, [Ramit](http://iwillteachyoutoberich.com) introduced me to a helpful service called Trunk Club. In short, you pick out outfits on their site that match your style, chat with your own consultant about the clothes you want, and then in a few days you receive a big box full of great (high end) clothing. If you like it all, keep it. If you don’t, put those pieces in the box and send it back. If you’ve looked at catalogs and said “well, I like that look” but then arrived at a store only to fail at picking out outfits, this is a no brainer. Ramit summed it up best: “It saves me HOURS of time and gets terrific results”.

Email: “unread” should mean “I have not yet read”

5 Replies

I’ve been trying out the new version of [Apple Mail](http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/mail.html) in OS X Lion and it’s really nice. I would say it’s 90% of what I want in a native (e.g.: not web-based, like Gmail) email client. One thing [Alex](http://alexking.org/) and I noticed was that the new two-column view (view the message alongside the list of messages) forces a new problematic workflow.

## Two-column view forces unread status

When you remove a message from the current mailbox, for example you delete or file the message away, you’re automatically pushed into viewing the next message in the mailbox. This marks the next message read every time you act upon an email.

If you didn’t want to reply to that next message and hoped to keep it “unread” so you know to follow-up, well, you’re now forced to mark a message as unread every single time you do something in your mailbox. That’s annoying and a lot of extra work.

## Maybe I’m the problem

But then I thought about it more, and it seems that I may have been doing it wrong this whole time. Instead of keeping any email I need to follow-up marked “unread” in my inbox (or any other mailbox), why not treat unread as “have not yet read this” — as the name of the status implies.

There’s no real good reason to keep marking things “unread” in an Inbox, if you treat it as a true Inbox: something comes in, you then need to take action and get rid of it.

By allowing things I’ve actually “seen” and “read” to change status, the unread counter in my dock or on my phone are true representations of what has not been seen by me yet.

Then, the remaining “read” messages in my inbox are items that need action taken: a response, to be filed away, a follow-up task to do something, etc. This forces the need for me to get a clean “inbox zero” inbox and I don’t have a crazy scary “unread” count that I need to think about every time I glance at my phone: “23 unread? Does that mean I already got seven, or was it eight, new emails since I last checked?”

## Switching to Sparrow

While Apple Mail is great, I’ve found [Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/) has helped me stick to the Gmail-style email that I’ve come to love with all the benefits of a native app: offline email storage, fast searching, a dedicated (full-screen) window. It’s worth checking out.

DigitalOne raid by FBI: Instapaper vs. Pinboard

List of potential new Apple products

1 Reply

If the rumors are true, Apple may be planning a new product launch to coincide with the 10th anniversary of their retail stores. The stores have been wildly successful and much of Apple’s growth may likely be attributed to them. So what can Apple release that would get bodies into the malls? What haven’t they done already? Here’s all I can come up with:

* Digital alarm clock
* Flip phone
* Electric toothbrush
* Blu-ray player
* Video Game console
* Plasma TV
* E Ink reader
* Electric shaver
* Microwave
* [Vacuum](http://www.dyson.com/)
* Fridge
* Hybrid vehicle
* [Digital wristwatch](http://www.rolex.com/)
* 3D glasses
* Vinyl record player

That’s the exhaustive list of items I’ve been able to compile. Who’s ready to start some bets?

Be upfront about project timelines

Unless I hear otherwise…

1 Reply

Most people are drowning in email at work. Often times you’re asked to provide one of a few responses: positive confirmation (I received this, read it, understand it all, and explicitly approve), negative confirmation (I will tell you my thoughts and describe what is wrong with this), or a passive confirmation (if I don’t respond, consider everything good to go!). The trick to managing people that receive a high-volume of email is to stop sending lengthy letters looking for a confirmation, waiting days and days and days. Sometimes, in order to keep things moving or get things done without asking permission (with folks you trust, and who trust you), simply ask for a passive confirmation: “Hey John, here is the final set of comps for the landing page. Everything we discussed yesterday is shown here including the new form style and the green button. Unless I hear otherwise, we’ll go ahead and implement this on Friday.” No more response email clutter, no debate, just delete. If you did this right, you won’t get a response. Otherwise, you’ve severely done a misdoing and you’ll hear from those folks “too busy to respond” nearly immediately. ;)

Link

The PlayStation Network is now shut down indefinitely following a security breach. I have no problem with that fact I can’t access supplementary online multiplayer gaming. But, I can’t wrap my head around why PSN has its tentacles in every downloadable application I’ve installed. Hulu, which has its own very nice authentication system, cannot be accessed now (ever again?) because I must pass my credentials through PSN. Why is this PSN layer mandatory and in front of an application that has nothing to do with PlayStation’s network? I haven’t tried but I assume the same is true for MLB.tv ~~and the Netflix app~~. I’m calling it: the Apple TV is much better positioned to foster the app economy and will capture the lion’s share of the “box connected to TV” market (video, games, movies) by popularizing a much better ecosystem in the 6-8 months PlayStation spends rebuilding PSN.

Lame ways to close an email

2 Replies

Over the past few years I’ve been surprised by the ways people chose to close an email. I’m not sure if everyone is aware how a few simple words can completely destroy whatever content proceeded it.

Some stress out about the *right* way to close an email, especially in business settings. Do I say “Best” or is that corny? What about “Cheers” if I’m not from England? How about I just state my name? That may be too informal and abrupt…

It seems though, the wrong people may be worrying about this.

Fair warning: those that *aren’t* thinking about this and choose to use any of the following may be ignored for a few days:

Please advise.

What? You likely just sent a long, ranty email with paragraphs explaining some troubles you just had. Likely no where in there was “this is how I tried to solve this on my own.” And so you’ve now made it my responsibly to sift through half of the equation (the problem) and advise you? Is it because you said please you’re so entitled? Okay, you may be a customer who pays me big bucks to do this, but this seems far too abrupt and impolite.

How about: “I tried X and my result was Y based on my understanding: Z. Is the right approach?”

Thoughts?

No? This is the kind of abrupt conclusion that typically follows a roundabout email that is far too long to digest and easily respond to. Instead of simple points that can be individually addressed (interleaved is the only way to respond to email) I now have a single prompt to give my thoughts to all of that? Which items do you want my thoughts on? Maybe I’ll write back with a long form email in the same fashion you gave and you can sort through my solicited “thoughts.” There’s certainly *no* way that will result in a lot of back and forth, misunderstandings, and missed points.

How about: “I’ve decided that X is the best product because of Y and Z, can you think of any reason not to go with it?”

I await your response.

Fan-frickin-tastic. I hope you’re sitting by your computer hitting refresh until you see my beloved response. This typically makes the conclusion of your email sound passive aggressive just like saying “I expect you to” makes you sound more entitled and demanding than I’m sure you intended. By an email addressed to me, I’m aware of the fact you are expecting a response; this is why we typically send emails, especially with question marks in them. But, now you’ve made me grumpy because I’m picturing you standing there tapping your foot with your arms crossed.

How about: “I look forward to hearing from you. Have a nice day.”

These are some of my favorites. If you’re really looking to communicate frustration or annoy someone on the receiving end, be sure to borrow these. Or just write passive aggressive blog posts to blow off that steam.

Thoughts? Are there others that should be listed here? Please advise. I await your responses…