Do we really need to know what device you used to reply to my email?  Furthermore, do I need to see it in every reply in an email thread?  The same behavior is not done when I use the fat-client on my desktop, and it is certainly not done when I happen to use my Blackberry.  Imagine how annoying it would be if every reply to an email contained my standard email signature.  Better yet, imagine email replies containing “Sent using Outlook 2007.”  This issue has been exacerbated by the preponderance of iPads being used at the most senior levels within my corporate master, and an email I received this weekend was the last straw.

By all means, show off your overpriced iPod Touch groundbreaking computing device, but do us all a favor: turn off the signature that says “Sent using my device of the moment.”  Your signature is doing nothing but displaying an overbearing sense of pretentiousness and self-worth by advertising your device as a status symbol to the rest of the “unwashed masses.”  So, please, turn it off!

• Professionally, things are well yet busy.  I would not have it any other day.
• After the end of snow and the coming onslaught of rain, I spent today cleaning my house from top to bottom.  It needed it, and I actually feel like I accomplished something as a result.
• After some research, I decided to purchase a Blu-Ray DVD player.  Specifically, I ordered a Samsung BD-P3600 from TigerDirect.  TigerDirect was having a pretty good deal on the player, so I figured why not.
• Lately, there have been two songs that I have been unable to get out of my head.

• • The Filet-o-Fish Song

• • • Even with a DVR, I cannot get this stupid ad jingle out of my head.

• • Shots, LMFAO featuring Lil Jon

• • • Yet again, the music selection at my gym strikes again.  In this case, as I was wrapping up my workout on Thursday morning, this little ditty became permanently ingrained into my brain.  I have no idea who this other rap group is, but I am all too familiar with Lil Jon, thanks to Dave Chappelle. Damn you, Lil Jon!

• Opening Day 2010 for the Baltimore Orioles will soon be upon us.  I have yet to acquire a ticket, but I will begin that search soon enough.
• In the book-reading department, I finished reading The Quants.  Expect a review of that book sometime this week.  Also, I am almost finished reading SuperFreakonomics.

There you have it—a concise update.

• Last Wednesday, thanks to my better half, I saw and enjoyed The Rivalry at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.  If you consider yourself a student of American history, I highly recommend it.  The play is a dramatization of the Lincoln-Douglas debates as both of them vied for the one of the seats for Illinois in the US Senate.  The language used by both Lincoln and Douglas during the debate portions of the play is accurate, while the rest of the play is a dramatization as seen through the eyes of Douglas’ widow, Adele.
• Work has been, as usual of late, extremely busy.
• My taxes are done, and with it, my refunds are now in hand.  I finally splurged on myself, purchasing a long-needed (and desired) HD LCD TV–a Samsung LN46B750–and a new univeral remote–a Logitech Harmony 700.  My splurging is now complete, and I have been able to enjoy programming in HD.  Why did I wait so long?
• The winter weather around here has been to my liking.  I do take exception, though, to the snowfall occurring on weekends as opposed to a weekday.  Enough with the Saturday snowstorms.
• This weekend, I am off to Boston for the Beanpot.  Again, it would appear I will be seeing BU in the Beanpot final after their defeat of Northeastern by a score of 2-1 in the first round last night.

Posting that was cathartic.  I already feel better.

The Allocation of My Time:

The Proper Staffing of Projects:

Ruminations on Software as a service:

Truly eerie.

Dilbert’s response was the same as mine.

A rather large project is underway, and one of the components of this project is a conversion from one tool to another.  Unfortunately, the timing of this conversion is unfortunate, as it has to be done by January 1.  Needless to say, lots of different threads are occurring around the same effort, all working on different parts.

One of the problems I have rapidly grown to discover about this project is our lack of communication to groups outside of our area–IT.  It has been non-existent.  This is problematic, as evidenced by the electronic exchange I engaged in with someone well above my pay-grade.  Unfortunately, like most email exchanges, this devolved when someone decided to include someone else further up in the organization in an email thread, who then decided to include someone else further up in the organization in the email thread.  Naturally, that last “someone else” decided to throw their weight around.

Thus, a mad scramble ensued today to make sure that a sufficiently important person in the organization is communicating this change to the business to ensure they are aware of this change coming up incredibly soon and are aligning to support this change.

Admittedly, I should have identified this a long time ago, but I had falsely presumed that with all the effort required on the IT side of things that someone else was engaged on the side of the business.  Clearly, that is not the case.

With this and other ongoing efforts in a holiday-shortened week, the mountain I need to climb just became much steeper.

• Using Germane Subjects

• In the hurried (and harried) workplaces we are all in, the ability to read the subject line of an email and obtain a sense of what is being asked is very important.  The use of mobile devices like BlackBerries and iPhones have made this even more vital.  One should be able to glance at an email’s subject line and get a good idea of the email’s content.  Unfortunately, I receive a large number of emails whose subject has little or nothing to do with its contents.  The use of these devices, though, has increased the likelihood of the email subject being irrelevant to content.  Additionally, with the volume of email ever increasing, email needs to have a relevant and eye-catching subject.  One way to ensure your email will annoy me, send me an email asking a question completely unrelated to the subject.  This transgression is almost as bad as composing your entire email in the subject.

• One of the responsibilities of my group is communication of upcoming change—planned or emergency.  Unfortunately, one of the common pitfalls of this is the potential for replies to be sent to recipients who have no need to receive them.  One of the ways we have worked-around this is to send emails as a distribution list, and the emails are sent to a secured distribution list—only allowed users can send mail to that list.  While this works quite well as a “barrier to entry,” there are still some times where users will reply to everyone on a thread.  A recent example of this revolved around a planned maintenance reminder sent last Friday morning.  Later that afternoon, a recipient of this reminder sent an email replying to all asking if there was a system issue.  There was no issue, and the user was informed of that off-list while at the same time informing them that they inadvertently spammed a distribution list with a question about a system not related to the earlier notification.  Of course, we were down the rabbit hole, as other replies came in.  I will not argue the point that there is value to using the “Reply to All” button, but sometimes, think before using the “Reply to All” button.  I, and others, may just thank you. 

While these transgressions may irk me to no end, I am fairly confident I am not the only person who does not suffer them lightly.  So, please, think before you use email. 

I have found my new desktop wallpaper for the office, courtesy of Merlin Mann.

Elegant in its simplicity.

We’re so ecstatic to get that single useful email out of hundreds that we can’t keep ourselves from compulsively pressing the new email lever over and over and over, hoping it will happen again soon, like the caged rats in Skinners’ experiments.
…
We’ve overloaded email with so many meanings that it has imploded as a communication medium. Need an urgent answer to your question within a few minutes? Fire off a quick email and demand a response! Want to have a long back and forth discussion with several people? Email everyone! Do you have a new theory that you desperately want to explain to someone? Send it to them via email! Got a funny joke or picture you’re dying to share? Email it to the office alias!

I have to admit that I am guilty of some of these transgressions, and I am known to complain vociferously to myself about some of my colleagues doing the same thing.  Lately, I have found myself emailing folks about question x and including my group’s email alias.  I think this problem is further complicated by the proliferation of BlackBerry devices.  Couple that with the occasional difficulty one has in speaking with some over-booked individuals face-to-face, and the problem becomes much worse.  It is very easy for one to go down the “rabbit hole” of email.

When we treat email as the kitchen sink of communication, appropriate for everything, it simply ceases to work at all.

Stop. Sending. Email.

Instead of abusing email as a “one size fits all” conduit for communication, be smart. Know when to escalate your communication to the right medium for the particular message you’re trying to deliver:

I have to admit, that even I have become guilty of some of the transgressions Many of the recommendations Jeff makes are the same ones I follow daily, along with some additional ones I try to follow.

• Disable mail notifications.

• That shiny envelope icon in your system tray, turn it off!
• That nice message preview you get when you receive email, turn it off!

• • If possible, open your trusty Outlook client at scheduled times of the day.
  • If you must have your email client open all the time, use a multiple desktop utility to make it easy to work as distraction-free as you can.

• • Highlight those important emails from those associates and colleagues you value.

• • Your BlackBerry does not need to ring, ping, or vibrate with every email.  Create a rule such that emails from certain people or of a specific priority are accompanied with an appropriate sound to alert you to its importance.  (This is a problem, though, with Exchange 2007 and how it treats Meeting Cancellation notices as high-priority messages).
  • If someone needs your urgent assistance, Alexander Graham Bell invented this wonderful device called the telephone.

• • Let others know that you are not a slave to the envelope icon.  If its urgent, they can pick up the phone or come see you in the office.  (Personally, this is a problem in cube-land with the dreaded “pop-in.”)

So, let’s all try and do our part.  If you need something from someone, resist the urge to fire off that email.  If you are waiting on something, resist the urge to press the Send/Receive button.  Email does not have to be the time-sink it has become in the workplace.