Conference 7.286::digital

    An E-MAIL  convention was set up in Europe by upper management a while 
    back to prefix any E-MAIL subject with a letter:
    
    *I* for Information
    
    *A* for Action required
    
    *Q* for Query
    
    *U* for Urgent
    
    This is really a great help when you get 50 mails or more, for every day 
    you are out of the office, and you need to get up to speed quickly.
    
    You can use a mixture of the above eg: *U/A* or U/Q*
    
    I have a colleague who uses *UUU* a little to often but that is the
    only exception I have come across on the abuse of this convention.
    
    When things get things get really bad in the real time world of
    Business Television, in extreme cases, I'll use * URGENTISSIMO *
    that is as loud a wake up call that I can send out & that seems to 
    work well for all the DVN Reception sites spread acoss twenty
    countries.
    
    I'm sure that you will work out your own fun Urgentissimo to suit your
    own work group environement, however I do recommend the *I*,*A*,*Q* &
    *U* Convention, as it is most helpful in sorting out the wheat from 
    the chaff, when you have just a few minutes available to log-in when
    away at a remote site for instance. 
    
    Pass this E-mail convention to your friends/colleagues on the other side 
    of the pond & you will see that it makes a world of difference.
    
     
    					Kind regards,
    							Nick
    						    (DVN Operations)

  We like to joke about it, and say things like "Oh, I just delete them
  all. If it was important, they'll send it again." But many folks,
  including myself, do pretty much what .0 does:

  1. check people first for urgent meetings
  2. prioritize reading of mail by subject (advice in .1 helps much)
  3. blow off notes (you really can do this without fear of missing
     anything of real importance)

  All of which has led some of us to wonder on more than one occasion:
  are we really better off with electronic mail? Now this is a
  rhetorical question. Of course we're better off in some ways, but not
  everyone is univerally better off than they were before. Here are some
  points to consider:

  - a lot of mail is really junk mail: seven copies of Palmer's latest
    DVN broadcast (which was preceded by 30 copies of the announcement)
  - three or four copies of aerobics announcements and stress reduction
    workshops
  - a lot of directly work-related stuff which is irrelevant to me but
    relevant to someone else
  - a generally poor signal-to-noise ratio in just about all mail (e.g.,
    messages which don't get to the point until the second page, and
    which never end up clearly saying what it is they want you to do).

  Consider that when you had to write a memo, you took some care
  thinking of what to say, and in grammar and spelling, so that your
  message reached the right people and had the right impact. Well, at
  least some people did, and all of us were more likely to. We're much
  looser with email. Not that the informality isn't good, and the ease
  of communicating isn't a great improvement, and the timeliness isn't a
  genuine benefit. But I look back over 17 years in the Company, and am
  far from convinced that we're all that much better with email than we
  were before. It's a tool, and a difficult one to use, at that. In the
  hands of a competent user, it truly delivers many of its potential
  benefits. But it carries with it a new burden, one symptom of which is
  clearly demonstrated in the base note.

  A question: do people who've become proficient at using Office Filter
  feel that it's an important mail management tool? Would such people
  tend to manage their mail well without such a tool, anyway?

    First, I use WATCH_MAIL and VOICE_MAIL telling folks that I am out of
    the office, when I will be back, and who is/are covering for me for
    various subjects.
    
    Then, I set the messages to begin one day before I go so I can have a
    relatively un-interrupted last day in the office to clean up loose ends
    and run until the day AFTER I get back so I have  a relatively
    un-interrupted day to clean up.
    
    FWIW
    
    Dave

    .3
    
    I do the same:  WATCH_MAIL and VOICEmail.  There is also an automatic
    reply (AR) function for ALL-IN-1.  I just returned from vacation and
    using the above tools really made re-entry a lot easier.  
                     
    Al
    

    ...vacation...???

    RE: all, esp. .5-
    
    	Perhaps facing this certain backlog is part of the problem of
    so much accrued vacation on the books? 
    
    	We need a labor reporting code for "catching up" after training or
    vacation.
    
    Phil

   I tend to take my vacations at home, and my habit is to continue to
 get up early before anyone else is up and read mail and read 
 different note files each day.   I work in the field & try to stay 
 out of the office as much as possible, I do not seem to get work done
 with people bothering me all the time.  Working at home to keep up 
 with work at work is the only way I have found to deal with the
 Datapanik - the phenonenon described by .0
   		
   I'm on vacation this week.

   		pretty pathetic, eh?

    re: .7
    
    I'd say your a INFOholic DATAholic WORKaholic......
    
    good for the company, but probably bad for you/your family etc.
    
    ;-) Christoph_who_is_usually_at_6AM_or_earlyer_in_the_office