Friday 15 April 2011

Today is "Email: Say It In The Subject!" Day

Today is "Email: Say It In The Subject!" Day!

This is where the emails you write to your friends and colleagues have all the vital information contained in the subject of the message rather than in the body.

The aim of today's experiment is to see if, when you receive such emails, it becomes easy for you to scan the subject list and quickly receive all the essential info you need, without opening the messages.

Examples:
Need that R&D Q4 review report by 11am for meeting with Chris. Ready by 10?
Happy to meet about XYZ proposal. Thursday at 2pm free for me. You?
IT Clinic - get your Tesco laptop super healthy - see us Thu 31st March in Atrium!


In summary, the theory of "saying it" in the subject of an email:

  • Conveys information quickly
  • Allows recipients to receive this information without opening your message
  • Recipients prioritising email messages to open still always get the info in your message
  • You get your message across just by appearing in their list of emails!
  • Reduces bandwidth and spam if adopted everywhere


Join the Tesco.com R&D team to see if we can prove we can make emails quick to read (and quick to write) by taking part in the experiment today!

Come back to this blog after the weekend to answer a couple of questions to see if it worked for you, and what benefits - and concerns - you experienced.

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As this blog grows in readership - and because it carries the Tesco brand - I have had to become more careful about the sort of comments that are acceptable. The good news is that I'm a champion of free speech so please be as praising or as critical as you wish! The only comments I DON'T allow through are:

1. Comments which criticise an individual other than myself, or are critical of an organisation other than Tesco. This is simply because they cannot defend themselves so is unfair and possibly libellous. Comments about some aspect of Tesco being better/worse than another equivalent organisation are allowed as long as you start by saying "in my personal opinion.." or "I think that...". ... followed by a "...because.." and some reasoned argument.

2. Comments which are totally unrelated to the context of the original article. If I have written about a mobile app and you start complaining about the price of potatoes then your comment isn't going stay for long!

3. Advertising / web links / spam.

4. Insulting / obscene messages.


Ok, rules done - now it's your go: