When should you email, and when should you call, fax, or just show up?
What is the crucial -- and most often overlooked -- line in an email?
What is the best strategy when you send (in anger or error) a potentially career-ending electronic bombshell?
From this essential guidebook's opening sentence -- "Bad things can happen on email" -- Shipley and Schwalbe make all too clear what can go wrong. They provide guidance on vital matters like the politics of using Cc (nobody likes to be left out); when to just reply and when to "Reply All"; the danger of the URGENT subject (too many and you cry wolf); fine-tuning your greetings to fit the relationship (if you use the wrong one, you can lose them at hello); how best to apologize online (put the word 'sorry' in the subject or else the email may never be read).
But Send is far more than Miss Manners for the Web; it's brimming with fascinating insights. For example, now that email has become the way we talk, showing up in person has added impact as the ultimate compliment, signifying that the person, meeting or project has importance for you.
Years ago a slim volume by Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, laid out the ground rules for good writing; the book became a bible for authors, widely known just as "Strunk and White." Send should make Shipley and Schwalbe the "Strunk and White" for the Web.
Given email's brief history, there's no established etiquette for usage, which is why this primer is so valuable. It promises the reader hope of becoming more efficient and less annoying, reducing danger of a career-ending blunder.
-- Publishers Weekly
The Internet has finally found its Emily Post. If after you've read this you fail to change your emailing habits, you're doomed. Read it or weep.
-- Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball
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