Effective email skills v1_external

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2/16/2012 1 Effective Email Communication Presented At My Company On 10 Feb 2012 Rajesh Sengamedu +91 9880597942 © Rajesh Sengamedu, February 2012 Training Feedback Summary (1/3) 0% 0% 9% 29% 62% Feedback Summary Poor Fair Good Very Good Excellent

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Transcript of Effective email skills v1_external

Page 1: Effective email skills v1_external

2/16/2012

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Effective Email Communication

Presented At My Company On 10 Feb 2012

Rajesh Sengamedu

+91 9880597942

© Rajesh Sengamedu, February 2012

Training Feedback Summary (1/3)

0%0%9%

29%62%

Feedback Summary

Poor

Fair

Good

Very Good

Excellent

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Training Feedback Summary (1/3)

SNO Feedback Item

Po

or

Fair

Go

od

Ve

ry G

oo

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Exc

ell

en

t

Tota

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Ave

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Ra

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Content / Methodology

1 Relevance of Course 0 0 1 2 11 14 4.7

2 Clarity of Course Objectives 0 0 1 3 11 15 4.7

3 Presentation of material / handouts 0 0 3 2 9 14 4.4

4 Hands on Exposure 0 0 4 5 5 14 4.1

5 Relevance of information 0 0 2 4 9 15 4.5

About The Trainer

6 Communication skills 0 0 0 3 12 15 4.8

7 Presentation skills 0 0 0 1 14 15 4.9

8 Interaction with participants 0 0 0 3 11 14 4.8

9 Adherence to schedule 0 0 0 6 6 12 4.5

10 Domain Knowledge 0 0 0 5 9 14 4.6

Overall Rating

14 Was the Duration of the program 0 0 2 6 5 13 4.2

15 Overall impression about the Training 0 0 2 5 7 14 4.4

16 Has the training enhanced your skill and ability 0 0 3 5 6 14 4.2

5 Point Scale, 17 participants

Training Feedback Summary (3/3)

This is good training

that I have seen/attend

so far in Qvantel

Rajesh conveys the

messages effectively

It feels that I will

correct my mistakes

It was really nice and I

already started

implementing the

techniques in the

training

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Tip - Improve Your Productivity @ Work

There are 5 Energies in the body

All of them can be controlled through your

fingers

Improves your stamina, energy levels

Try Chin Mudra – The Easiest One!!

30 Second Profit

Let’s watch Abhishek Bachchan delivering

the famous “tees second munafa” dialog in

the movie, GURU – Click Below

http://hindimoviedialogues.blogspot.in/2009/

04/guru-dialogues-paanch-minute-scene.html

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The Power of Words!

A Childhood Story…..

Telegram received by the prison warden:

“Hang him. Not set him free”

Telegram Sent by the Judge to the prison

warden:

“Hang him not. Set him free”

� WRONG USAGE OF FULL STOP

PUT A FULL STOP TO AN INNOCENT

LIFE!

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Summarizing Your Expectations

• Email Communication Tips

• Reporting /Summarizing Information

What You Should Expect

for Your 2 Hours of Time?

• Quick re-cap of what all of us know about

communication processes

• Few tips for effective email communication

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Communication

ORAL WRITTEN

NON-VERBAL

Think…..Before You Mail!

Use the following priority as communication methods!!

Video Conference

Instant Messaging

Phone Call

Email

Face To Face

1

2

3

4

5

1. Email takes more

time to write

/read

2. There is no

interactivity

3. There is no

emotion

4. No non-verbal

cues

3Min Phone Call = 30Min on Email

Be More Productive!!

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3 Verbal Communication Methods

1

3

2

Can convey ‘emotions’ in some degree or the other

2 Written Communication Methods

2

1

Hard to convey ‘emotions’

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2 Essential Needs For Written Commn.

“Selling Something”“Status Update”,

“Sending Report”

Summary

Email

IM

Voice Call

F2F

Video Conf

‘Reactive’ ‘Proactive’

Communication VerbalWritten

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Email Communication

Know your purpose

Decide your style

Know your ‘mood’

Know Your Purpose

Are you selling something?

� Keep it crisp

� Personalize

� Explain the problem

� Provide your solution

� Ask for call to action

Are you reporting status ?� Keep it crisp

� Personalize

Is it general ‘hello’ email?

� Keep it crisp

� Personalize

� Make it informal

� Ask for call to action

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Know Your Mood to Write a Mail

Are you happy?

Are you angry?

Are you upset?

Do you feel ‘participative’?

Do you feel threatened?

Decide Your Style

Informal ?

� Writing “similar” to

conversation near the water

fountain

� You should know the person

� Usually one on one

� Usage of emoticons & other

expression marks

Formal ?

� Very ‘business-like’

� Crisp

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Email Communication Tips

Be Crisp

At 300M Tweets/Day, 300M Users CANNOT be

wrong about communicating in 140 Chars or

less.

Train yourself to be crisp on emails too!

BUT don’t use acronyms still!!

Be a miser with words – Remember “GURU”

movie dialog!

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1. Have Effective Subject

GOOD

BAD

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2. Subject Line Based on Body

“Meeting Request”

Would have been

better

“Pl. fill this form for

Conference Exhibition”

Would have been better

1

2

3

3. One Topic per Email!2->1

2->1

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4. Use Humor Appropriately

Not easy to understand in email! “He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but

certainly no more.”

― P.G. Wodehouse

“He is a dumb guy”

“If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air

mine.”

― P.G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens

“I don’t like when others talk

while I am talking”

“There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the

guillotine.”

― P.G. Wodehouse

“You cannot escape grey

hair”

“Oh, Jeeves,' I said; 'about that check suit.'

Yes, sir?'

Is it really a frost?'

A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.'

But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.'

Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.'

He's supposed to be one of the best men in London.'

I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.”

― P.G. Wodehouse

One talks about how

good the tailor is and the

other talks of the tailor’s

character!

Think Simple English. Don’t be a Poet or an Author!!

5. Don’t Send Large Attachments

• Don’t use email for large file transfer

• Large attachments clog email

servers causing bottlenecks, server

failures and huge disruption to the

business

Use Dropbox, Google Docs or some other similar facility to share

large files

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6. Use ‘To’, ‘Cc’ Effectively; ‘BCc’

CarefullyPut receiver name in “To” field when:a) You are assigning an AI to the person

b) Info in the mail is important for the person

c) You want the person to take some action

Put receiver name “Cc” field when:a) You want him to know (FYI) but no action required

b) You are not assigning her any action

Avoid “Bcc” field if you can. Use “forward” instead!!

Beware of these politics! (Or rather emotions)1. “If you mail me something and copy my boss, I am going to be upset!”

2. “If you respond to an email from me in which my boss is already there in

copy, I am OK”

3. “If you Bcc my boss in an email that you are sending me, I will stop doing

business with you.”

7. Get Right Font Size

I recommend Black font

Font Size 11, No Italics, No Bold

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8. Use Capitals &

Bold Appropriately

CAPITALS & BOLD or BOLD convey un-intentional emotions (sometimes

incorrectly).

To: [email protected]

Subject: Proposal - Please review &

respond

Dear Abc,

As discussed, please find attached

our proposal.

Please review and respond by this

week with your comments

Thanks in advance,

Rajesh

To: [email protected]

Subject: Proposal - Please review &

respond

Dear Abc,

As discussed, please find attached

our proposal.

Please review and respond by this

week with your comments

Thanks in advance,

Rajesh

Vs

Limit Message to

One Screen

NOT MORE THAN 180 WORDS

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Use Salutation like ‘Hi!’

/”Hello!”/ “Dear…”

There is nothing wrong in saying ‘Good Morning’ everyday to the same person!

You score more points when you smile at your spouse every morning!!

Start ANY email with

“Dear …” OR

Hi! OR

Hello!

Avoid “time-specific salutations like “Good morning!, Good evening!

etc

Review Mails Before Sending (1/3)

“I am sending this information affront to our meeting, so that I can be of help with

clarifications to you queries if any.”

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Review Mails Before Sending (2/3)

“I am sending this information in advance of our meeting, so that I can be of help

with clarifications to you queries if any.”

Review Mails Before Sending (3/3)

I have verified bug 2598 with C# client with latest Spruce firmware (4.9.2.8) and i didn't see

any crash. I ran C# client for more than 10 iterations. So closed this bug as works for me. Can

you request Tom Kidd to verify with latest build.

I have talked to Bala regarding Java client, he said there is a similar bug

raised(http://bugzilla.thingmagic.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2595) and it is working with

4.9.1.252 build.

Tomorrow i will start looking in to LED issue and after that println bug if Pari doesn't start by

that time.

Grammar issues, sentence

construction issues.

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Fill in To/Cc Last!

Have a Virus Disclaimer

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Avoid Acronyms

Use Active Voice & Straight Talk!

The mouse was

eaten by the cat

PASSIVE VOICE

The mouse ate the

cat!!

ACTIVE VOICE

The cat ate the

mouse.

ACTIVE VOICE

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Set up Appropriate Signature File

New Message

Replies /Forwards

Don’t Mail When You Are Emotionally

Charged!

1. Your language

may be rude

2. Your grammar

may not be

correct

3. You are in a

hurry, so will

not take care

4. You will not be

clear about the

purpose

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Be Prudent When You Ask

Return Receipts & Read Receipts

Spell Names Correctly

Don’t mis-spell people names or company names!!e.g.,

Brian - Brain

Yrjo - Yiryo

Liisa - Lissa or Lisa

Ryan - Rayan or Ryon

Electric - Elektric

Abhijit - Abhijeet

Jean-Claude - Jean Claude

Diego - Die go

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Avoid Too Much ??? /!!!!

Replace Email With Other Commn. Means!

Sharing My Experience

From 01 Jan 2012, every Tuesday, I refrain from sending internal

emails

I gained roughly about 2 hours on Tuesday……and so far nobody

noticed any major impact of this

2 Hours/ day = 5% improvement in productivity /month

Helps me to walk across to my colleagues’ desk/ pick phone /use IM

/Video Conf to communicate with colleagues….improves personal

rapport

Even if you don’t mail for a day.

Business will go on, as usual, if not better!

TRY THIS TECHNIQUE

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Break Down Long Sentences Into Smaller Ones

Don’t End Sentences With Prepositions (at, for, on, with, of, in)

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Read Aloud Your Emails.Feel The Message!

Complete Responses Show Professionalism

1. When you respond to

part of email, you

dis-respect the

sender

2. Shows you are not

finding out answers

3. Shows your apathy

4. You would forget

later on (and hope

the sender forgets

too!)

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Avoid Flaming!

• Flaming is “venting

or sending

inflammatory

messages” in email.

• This can spiral out

of control.

• Resolve situation

either face to face

or over phone

• END IT FAST!

Two Exercises –

1. What Is the Intent Here?

2. Rewrite This Email

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1. What is the Intent Here?

For whom the training was provided?

For whom the email is being sent?

Who benefitted from the training program?

Who else benefits from the training recording session?

What does this

phrase convey to

you when placed

here?

How does the

meaning change

when placed

here?

2. Original EmailSubject: Wifi network restart issue with windows DHCP server

During debugging of the network restart issue in WIFI with windows DHCP servers, i have

observed that DHCP server is actually sending OFFER packets but it appears that wifi driver

is either not receiving these packets or filtering or invalidating. So i am not seeing these

packets in DHCP layer. With this i have concluded that this is not an issue with M6 DHCP

code and as we were discussing about re starting the wireless driver during network restart,

i have tried to enable module unloading capability in Linux and restarted the wireless driver

during network re start by un-installing the driver during ./network stop and installing

during ./network start. With this i was able to get valid IP during network restart with

windows 2003 and windows 2008 DHCP servers.

But still there are couple of issues surrounding wifi and DHCP, one is when M6 is operated

for longer durations either with continuous read or in idle state, it is losing network

connection and unable to re connect. Other issues is the one which was originally observed

in Astra and appeared to be exist in M6 which is the ping issue. I will continue to debug and

fix these two issues. I will send patch for review and then commit the changes made for

module unloading feature. For your testing i have copied private build image in to

/MyDocuments/Downloads directory of mercuryfitnesse PC. I have also loaded and verified

this image on 210717 reader with 11th Floor AP.

Regards,

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Re-Written Email (Still Not Crisp Enough!!)

Subject: Wi-Fi network restart issue with windows DHCP server

While debugging the issue of "Not getting the valid IP address when network is restarted with Wi-Fi interface and Windows DHCP

servers", I observed the following:

DHCP server is receiving DHCP request packets from reader and sending DHCP offer packets (with IP address).

These DHCP offer packets are not received in DHCP layer and the reasons could be any of these:

• Wi-Fi driver is not receiving these packets

• Ffiltering these packets

• Invalidating these packets because of any other reason.

Therefore, I am concluding that the problem is not with the M6 DHCP code.

As we were discussing, the other option to debug and resolve this issue is by restarting the wireless driver during network restart. I

debugged further by enabling module unload feature in Linux (which is required to restart the driver and was not enabled by

default) and restarted the wireless driver during network restart. The reader then is receiving the DHCP offer packets with valid IP

address from DHCP server. I verified this with my local build on 210717 reader with 11th Floor AP.

I am sending the patch for review with above mentioned changes made to Linux and then will commit the changes after review.

Meanwhile for your testing, I have built firmware image with this patch and copied the image in to /MyDocuments/Downloads

directory of mercuryfitnesse PC.

We still notice couple of other issues mentioned below (surrounding Wi-Fi and DHCP.):

a) When M6 is operated for longer durations either with continuous read or in idle state, it loses network connection and unable to

re-connect.

b) The ping issue which we observed earlier

I will continue to debug and fix these two issues.

Regards

Feedback? Questions? Comments?

[email protected]© Rajesh Sengamedu, February 2012