Category: Email

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Yes, This is a Vacation From You

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Yes, This is a Vacation From You

“I’m on vacation, and I’ve deleted your message —really” – Dave Thomas

Now, imagine you’re going on a multi-week vacation. You visit the USPS and ask them to not just put a hold on your mail – just burn every piece of it.

Bold.

Proud.

Vacation.

It’s consistent with my view that the more important/busy/valuable/highly-paid you are – the less direct interaction with technology you’ll have.

Thursday, 1 September 2011

Vinh on Email

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Vinh on Email

“Email is not broken, if you ask me. It could be better, for sure, but I don’t think it requires the drastic changes that so many other people seem to believe are necessary. And I certainly don’t need messaging intermediaries entering the picture. These alternatives just fracture what is for me a pretty well consolidated experience — if you want to reach me, my email address is pretty easy to find” – Khoi Vinh

For some reason, this reminds me of a line from my favorite movie about work and business:

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. “

Thursday, 18 August 2011

email’s inviting

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on email’s inviting

Landing in my inbox this morning:

“Many people have mentioned that they didn’t receive the Evite invitation we sent, so I’m sending this follow up email…”

Monday, 15 August 2011

REmail

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on REmail

I’m so tired of doing this kind of thing in silos. Email is mine. Google+ is Google’s. In terms of location, I feel like I’m in a corporate setting in Google+, and I feel like I’m at home when I’m in email. The reason, aside from design differences, is that email is free-as-in-freedom. Its protocols are NEA: Nobody owns them, Everybody can use them, and Anybody can improve them. Not the case with these commercial Web dairy farms. – Doc Searls

Each day, there’s some number of Google+, Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter notifications in my email inbox. Ironic that these communications services, seemingly wanting to be as ubiquitous as email, need to use email as a primary notification service.

And the daily deal space (Groupon, Living Social, et. al.) are 95% email.

Every couple of days, I’m asked, ‘What comes after Twitter, Facebook, (etc)?’

I don’t know, I’m in email.

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Thursday, 12 May 2011

Monday, 19 October 2009

How I Reached Inbox Zero(ish)

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on How I Reached Inbox Zero(ish)

Something must be in the air. Like Dave, I’ve been making a concerted effort to clean out my email inbox over the past couple weeks.

All year, I’ve been fluctuating between 80 – 140 messages, not including the hundreds sitting in my ‘Respond to’ folder.

For the past week, I’ve been steadily at Inbox Zero.

With 17 2 in my ‘Respond to’ folder and the oldest message is from June ’09 not Feb ’09.

Here’s how I’ve tamed my inbox in 3 steps:

  1. Read each email message and determine a what the next action is.
    This is the hardest step.
  2. Write down the next action.
    I have a ThingsToDo.txt file I use w/ Quicksilver’s Append Text to File action.
  3. Ruthlessly file into a project folder or delete.

All of this is leading up to a couple ideas I want to implement for ongoing communications management – but it will only work once this backlog is cleaned out.

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Arik Jones on Failbox

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Arik Jones on Failbox

I’m please to see Arik Jones keeping the Failbox torch burning – in a post on the need for a smarter email client

” However, it could group todays messages in a “top 25 most important” list. That’s all I’d ever see for an inbox. Talk about getting your email priorities straight.” – Arik Jones

And yes, he mentions Cullect as an example of a successful recommendation system. Guaranteed to catch my attention.

Wednesday, 28 May 2008

FailBox: The Broken State of Email Clients – Part 3

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on FailBox: The Broken State of Email Clients – Part 3

“Last week a friend send me an email, while I was traveling. So he got my ‘out of office reply’.”- Wolfgang Luenenbuerger

Wolfgang goes on to describe how – in an age of instant messaging, mobile devices, and wifi – the ‘out of office’ reply is as anachronistic as the busy signal.

Both signals assume synchronicity and place are more valuable than the communication itself.

It’s rare that either are.