Your BlackBerry is no excuse for bad emails

Craig Roth from Gartner wrote a great post on his blog about the “Sent from my iPhone / BlackBerry” lines that are automatically attached to emails you write on those devices by default. He argues that they are often abused as apologies for not writing coherent, complete and spellchecked email replies. Damn right he is!

A short while later today, Hugh McLeod published a drawing with the slogan “I don’t have a career. I have a blackberry.” – inspired by people like us, I guess, who stand around at airports and yack away at their BlackBerries. He wonders what work really gets done in those moments…

This is enough. Apparently, it needs to be said. Out loud.

YOUR BLACKBERRY IS NO EXCUSE FOR BAD EMAILS!

That means:

• Still, one-line emails are not considered polite
• Speling mistokes are still bad form
• The recipient should not notice a difference in the way you reply to his/her mails, regardless of what you typed them on
• Nobody cares that you are at the airport, in the taxi or on the loo
• There is no law that says that an email answered shoddily from the BlackBerry is always better than a delayed reply

So you should:

• Get rid of this stupid footer line – or do you think that people find it cool that you have a BlackBerry???
• Only reply to an email on the go when you have the required concentration and time to write it in correct grammar, in a polite and complete manner (if you would only write “Hi Jim! Yes, we got the deal. Regards, Peter” on your computer in the office, that is of course still fine!)
• Refrain from the “VP style” at all cost(not addressing the recipient, not saying thank you, not punctuating, not using UpperCase letters, etc.) – it really is just bad and unrespectful, I can’t say that often enough!
• Instead of writing a bad email, when under time pressure, CALL the recipient, or send a short message telling her that you will answer her request when you get to the office ->remember, there still are people out there who DO NOT get their mails on their mobile devices, and they somehow manage to survive!

That’s it. Easy, right?

Now go out there and be good!

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