The Once and Future Email

The original function of email was for a few scientists to send text notes to each other. Now we use it to send multi-megabyte documents and evil robots spew out billions of email advertisements. I’ve seen first-hand, at a number of client sites, how badly overwhelmed the basic structure of email is. It’s so easy…

Automating Inefficiency

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” — Bill Gates

Sign Off

I regularly get emails from people whose signature block is more than 20 lines. This is, to say the least, somewhat over the top. (I just cut my longest signature block down to four lines, because I decided that five was too many.) Do you really need that many lines to sign off? (And that’s…