Posted on April 12th, 2010
Some days I get over a hundred emails. Often, 90% of those are a waste of my time, and that is after excluding junk mail and related marketing mumbo-jumbo. Why so much email fluff, not-quite-spam-spam? It’s because people don’t consider the human cost of sending an email.
The Email Cost Algorithm
To understand the productivity cost of an email, we need to consider the factors that go in to an email, and how they correlate to time.
First, some facts and assumptions regarding email reading speed.
All emails are intended to be read by all recipients.
The average American can read and comprehend at a rate between 250 and 400 words per minute.
People read about 25% slower on a computer screen than on paper.
We will assume the typical email reading speed is 250 words per minute.
Second, some facts and assumptions about email writing speed.
Every . . .
→ Read More: Stop the email!
Posted on April 8th, 2010
How to manage a client’s expectations:
It’s not about bending over backwards for the client. It’s about making the client think your bending over backwards when you’re not bending at all.
Not sure if I heard that from someone else or made it up myself, but I’m sure I learned it from someone much smarter . . .
→ Read More: Quote: How to manage a client’s expectations
Posted on March 2nd, 2010
In the news this morning, I stumbled across an article, EU: 100 million Microsoft users to choose browser. Reading this, there were a few instances of questionable logic.
The first instance (emphasis added):
Microsoft is starting this month to send updates to Windows computers in Europe so that when computer users log on, they will see a pop-up screen asking them to pick one or more of 12 free Web browsers to download and install, including Microsoft.
Microsoft is allowing users to choose one of more than 12 free web browsers, because the EU didn’t like Microsoft bundling its own free web browser into Windows. Call me strange, but punishing a company to give something away for free because it blocks out other companies from giving their own products away for free strikes me as odd.
The second instance (emphasis added):
The EU’s executive commission said giving consumers the chance to try an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser that comes with the widely used . . .
→ Read More: Forcing users to choose a browser other than Internet Explorer doesn’t help them
Posted on January 28th, 2010
I commute to work five days a week, via train and ferry, and in each of those days I rub elbows with hundreds of fellow passengers. Fortunately, I often get a seat, which is helpful as I am on those trains and ferries for 60 minutes (each way!).
There are plenty of well-known rules when commuting, and I try to respect them all: be reasonably quiet, keep the headphone volume low, put your bags and packages at your feet or on your lap, don’t eat, and similar courtesies. One rule of commuting that is not well-known is related to how to choose what passenger you sit next to during your commute — and that is today’s topic.
Though I don’t do it as often now, I occasionally take (and used to always take) an express bus to work. These buses have four seats across, facing forward, split into pairs by an aisle. On an express bus, choosing a passenger to sit next to . . .
→ Read More: Choose your passengers wisely
Posted on January 2nd, 2010
As is usual, I find myself sitting in front of a computer in the late evening. This evening is, of course, different than most. It is January 1, 2010, the first day of a new year, and the first day of a new decade. (In reality it is January 2, 2010, because it’s after midnight, but in my world the day doesn’t change until I go to sleep, which is often well after midnight.)
With an empty beer bottle in front of me, I find myself thinking back on the year that ended, and the highlights and lowlights it brought me…
Not changing jobs in the course of a calendar year for the first time since 2004. It’s hard to believe to most people, but it is true: 2009 was the first time in the past five years that I didn’t change jobs during the calendar year. As of today, I have been employed by the same . . .
→ Read More: 2009: A personal retrospective
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