ClearContext Corporate Blog

One of the first features we put into IMS was the ability to automatically file sent messages to its associated Topic folder.  The advantages are obvious – both sides of the email conversation are stored in one place, giving you one central location to look to for all of your correspondence on a given Topic.  If you haven’t already done so, turn this feature on via ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Topic Options > Save messages to Topic Folder.

In Outlook 2003 and above, you can create a custom search folder to show all messages sent from you.  This essentially duplicates the Sent Items folder functionality so that you have the best of both worlds – the ability to view all messages in Topic folders and the ability to see all your sent messages in one place and sort by sender.  To create a custom search folder:

1. Right click Search Folders and select New Search Folder…
   
2. In the New Search Folder window, select Mail from specific people.
3. Under Customize Search Folder, select Choose and put your email in the From field.
4. Click OK.
5. A new Search Folder will be created using your name.
6. If you would like to change the name of the Search folder (i.e. "Sent Mail"), right click the folder and select Customize This Search Folder.

The end result: All messages that you have sent, regardless of the folder they are filed in, will be displayed in the Sent Mail search folder.

For more information on Topics and Filing – including some video tutorials – see our User Guide.

IMS analyzes incoming messages on several key characteristics to prioritize email; including directness of the email, conversation participation and contact priority.  To improve scoring accuracy, tweak the weighting that IMS gives to each of these messages characteristics via ClearContext > Options > Scoring Options.

For example, if you work in sales and receive a great deal of important email from new contacts who are not in your address book, you might want to adjust the Known Addresses weighting down and the Thread Participation weighting up to ensure that email conversations started by you and/or that you have participated in receive a higher score (and therefore higher prominence in your inbox).

For more detail on adjusting scoring and what message characteristics impact each factor, see our User Guide.

Last week Eli Lilly lawyers mistakenly sent confidential information on a $1 Billion negotiation to a New York Times reporter with the same surname as one of their lawyers.  (Story here).  With tools like AutoComplete, it’s fairly easy to make a similar mistake with serious repercussions.

How many times have you sent an email, only to realize just as it disappeared that you sent it to the wrong person, misspelled something in the body, forgot to include an attachment or something else of that ilk?  I find that when I catch these errors, it’s always within moments of sending.

If you suffer from this problem, configure Outlook to delay sending of all messages by five minutes or more.  From the Microsoft Office site:

1. On the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts, and then click New Rule.
2. Select Start from a blank rule.
3. In the Step 1: Select when messages should be checked box, click Check messages after sending, and then click Next.
4. In the Step 1: Select condition(s) list, select any options you want, and then click Next.

   If you do not select any check boxes, a confirmation dialog box appears. Clicking Yes applies this rule to all messages you send.

5. In the Step 1: Select action(s) list, select defer delivery by a number of minutes. Delivery can be delayed up to two hours.
6. In the Step 2: Edit the rule description (click on an underlined value) box, click the underlined phrase a number of and enter the number of minutes you want messages held before sending.
7. Click OK, and then click Next.
8. Select any exceptions, and then click Next.
9. In the Step 1: Specify a name for this rule box, type a name for the rule.
10. Click Finish.

Messages will be held in the Outlook Outbox for the time you specify.

Truth be told, if one of my team members in a prior life had used this rule it would have saved us a multi-million dollar contract and a whole lot of client grief.  But that’s another story…

Thanks to Ina Fried at CNET for a pointer to this story.

To protect from potential lawsuits, businesses are finding it increasingly important to outline a comprehensive email corporate policy governing fair use of the company’s email system. In the past few years there have been several high profile legal cases demonstrating the impact of misuse of corporate email. When crafting an email policy for any company, be sure to address the areas below. 

1. Content
Outline acceptable email content in the workplace. Specifically, creation or distribution of offensive material (i.e. due to gender bias, racial bias, sexual content, etc.) should be prohibited. 

2. Confidentiality & Privacy
Specifically define corporate information that is acceptable for distribution via email within and outside the company. The policy should also outline privacy expectations for email passed through and stored on company mail servers. In particular, if corporate email is subjected to monitoring, this should be made clear. 

3. Retention
Email is a permanent record of business conversations. Define retention requirements and storage methods for corporate messages. In a highly publicized case, one company was required to search for email on 20,000 backup tapes at a cost of $1,000/tape. Finance, Healthcare, and other regulated industries have very well defined information retention requirements. Everyone else should have specific email deletion requirements. 

4. Personal Use
Several studies have shown that employees spend a significant amount of time using corporate email for personal reasons. Clearly define acceptable personal use of the company’s email system. 

5. Abuse
Outline the impact of ignoring the corporate email policy. Not only describe the effect email misuse could have on the corporation; also define the action that will be taken against employees who violate the policy. 

An additional note: Corporate policy is worthless if it is not communicated and enforced. Put procedures in place that document an employee’s understanding of the policy. Provide regular training to remind employees of proper use. Finally, ensure that disciplinary action is taken swiftly if an employee is abusing company email privilege. 

Consult with a lawyer versed in electronic communication before finalizing any policy.

Use the email traffic reduction tips below to combat spam and carbon copy bloat and secure the sanctity of the inbox. 

1. Maintain multiple email addresses.
Set up personal and public email account(s) in addition to work email. Use the personal account for friends and family and the public account for online shopping, newsletters, etc.. Never give out the work address for non-work related reasons. 

2. Don’t post an email address in public places.
Marketing companies harvest email from public places on the net. Refrain from posting an address on websites, in newsletters, or in email groups to avoid identification by these companies. When posting is inevitable, use the public email address. 

3. Avoid signing up for marketing material, newsletters, and email lists.
Opt out of online retail marketing newsletters. Don’t sign up for email lists or newsletters that will sit in the inbox unread. Time wasted deleting these notes is time lost on more important work. All that said, be wary of clicking “unsubscribe” on unsolicited email; spammers use this to identify a live address. 

4. Don’t be part of the problem.
The more email sent out, the more received. Don’t forward email jokes, chain letters, and news on the latest virus hoax. Don’t address an email to multiple recipients unless they need to read the content. Don’t hit Reply To All if the only person who requires the information is the sender. Finally, don’t be afraid to (politely) ask people to refrain from this behavior if they are violating these rules. 

5. Utilize technology to reduce the impact of spam.
ISP’s and/or IT administrators can provide information on server based spam elimination. Install client side software to provide further protection. Use automated processes to prioritize the inbox to minimize the impact of unsolicited messages.  See Top Five Ways to Get a Handle on Your Inbox for more detail.

When we first started this blog (over three years ago! time flies…) we posted several Top 5 lists for good email management.  Since then, the problem of email overload has only become worse.  Per a recent Radicati Group study, by 2009 average corporate email users are expected to spend 41% of their time just managing email.  Utilize the inbox management tips below to help manage this flood of information. 

1. Prioritize messages to insure that important email is addressed first.
Use automated tools to order by priority. Identify important people or keywords and use rules to organize messages. 

2. Limit your CC’s and replies to all.
Only copy people on emails who really need to get the email.  This prevents wasting other people’s time, increases message quality level and reduces the number of responses back to you.

3. Only touch an email once.
Try to touch an email message one time only. Where possible, respond on first read and file away in an appropriate folder. If the message requires further attention, convert to a task or appointment and get it out of your Inbox. 

4. Read the entire thread before responding.
There are often several responses to an email thread during the course of a day. Read all items in the thread before crafting a response. Sort the inbox by title when addressing a message with a lot of responses. 

5. Don’t become a slave to email.
Set aside times to manage email (say, 9 AM, Noon, and 4 PM) and stay away the rest of the day. Using the email management principles above, you will get through your inbox quicker, address all issues within a given thread and your colleagues will still be impressed with your response time.

As email replaces the phone as the primary method of business communication, it becomes increasingly important to craft messages that accurately communicate the idea while promoting a professional image. Below are some basic email etiquette rules that will make messages more effective. 

1.    Ensure that the message is well thought out, short, and to the point.
Business email should address a single issue and get directly to the subject. Don’t waste time with flowery words and long stories unless crucial to the message. Answer the sender’s issues at the top of the note and provide supporting documentation (including the original letter) at the end of the message. Anticipate questions that may arise and provide the answers in advance. Craft subject lines that accurately portray what the email is about.

2.    Always use proper grammar and spelling.
Given today’s automated tools, there is no excuse for misspellings and bad grammar. You should re-read every message before hitting “send” and always use spell check functionality. This will help to avoid future clarifying letters. 

3.    Cut out liberal use of the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields.
Next to spam, wanton use of the address field is the biggest cause of inbox overflow. Only copy those who need to respond to or review the message. Be wary of the Bcc: field; many blind copied recipients will unknowingly hit Reply To All. Never send email to a distribution list by putting the recipients’ email addresses in the To: field; use Bcc: or mail merge instead. 

4.    Monitor tone and be wary of email that seems to convey emotion.
It is difficult to communicate subtle emotion in email, and it is often misinterpreted. Remove emotionally charged statements and stick to the facts. If an inflammatory email is received, take time to reflect and clarify the content with the author before responding in kind. If unsure of tone while composing an email, ask a co-worker to proofread before sending. 

5.    Don’t send confidential information.
It is very easy to forward email and consequently very easy to break confidentiality expectations. Don’t send anything that couldn’t be published in a newspaper or posted by the water cooler. 

Additional Tips: Always state any action required of the reader as well as the date they must act by. Summarize long email at the beginning of the message. Pick a response time (say 8 hours) for email and try to stick to it. Provide context to your request where needed (i.e. "your boss thought you could help me with this question.")

The Wall Street Journal calls it Colleague Spam. I call it Carbon Copy Bloat.  Whatever you call it, it is one of the biggest contributors to email overload.  Too many people feel the need to hit Reply to All when responding to an email; cluttering the recipient’s Inbox with messages that they don’t want or don’t need and taking time and focus away from legitimate work.

Intel has a solution for it.  From Nathan Zeldes’ IT@Intel blog post on a client side email coach:

‘…[the Intel client side email coach] will also coerce, as in “If you really mean to reply to all these people, please check the boxes next to each name you truly need”.’

IMS provides a couple of tools to help you combat this problem:

1. Use Unsubscribe to keep useless email threads out of the Inbox.  Joke threads, happy hour discussions, conversations outside your area of interest/influence are all ideal candidates for Unsubscribe.
2. Adjust ClearContext’s scoring parameters to give greater weight to messages sent directly to you and only you.  Under ClearContext > Options > Scoring Options adjust the "Message Directness" slider to the left to place less importance on messages where you are CC:’d or BCC:’d.   These messages will appear lower in your prioritized inbox.  To counter this effect, adjust the "Thread Participation" slider to the right to ensure that conversations you are actively involved in (i.e. you responded to a message you were previously CC:d on) will be scored higher than those you are simply copied on.

But most of all, make sure that you aren’t the problem.  Always ask yourself if everyone in your recipient list really needs to see the email you are sending before you send that message to more than one person.

Topic assignment is key to getting the most out of IMS.  By assigning Topics to email threads, you ensure that:

• Future messages in the conversation are pre-categorized. 
• Items generated from messages are associated with the correct project. 
• Messages can be automatically filed out of the Inbox as you reply to them or as you create Tasks and Appointments.

In addition, by segmenting messages, tasks and appointments by Topic, you can utilize the full potential of the Dashboard and focus on your work by project.

IMS provides several ways to help you assign Topics:

Sent Message Categorization

Go to ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Topic Options.  Enable "Ask about selecting a Topic if one is not assigned."  When you compose a message, IMS will check to see if the current conversation has a Topic assigned to it.  If not, you will be queried to assign one.  This will ensure that future replies to this message will come in pre-assigned with your Topic.  Also, if you check "Save messages to Topic Folder" IMS will move the Sent message to the correct Topic folder; keeping both sides of the conversation in the same location.

Task and Appointment Topic Query on Save

Much like Sent Message Categorization, there is a similar Topic Query function available for tasks and appointments.  Go to ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Tasks/Appts and check "Ask about selecting a Topic if one is not assigned" for both Tasks and Appointments.  IMS will query you for a Topic assignment as you save these items; enabling you to view them by Topic when using the Dashboard.

AutoAssign

As discussed earlier, AutoAssign allows you to quickly create simple rules to automatically assign Topics to incoming messages.  This is a huge time-saver; a good set of AutoAssign rules in conjunction with IMS’s automatic assignment of Topics to conversation messages ensures that many of your messages will arrive in the Inbox pre-categorized.  For more detail on AutoAssign, see our User Guide.

On setup, IMS analyzes your email history to extract contacts that aren’t in your address book and rank all of your contacts by email volume.  (For more detail on our patent pending prioritization process, see ClearContext Design: Contact Analysis and Maintenance).

Over time, email usage patterns change and automatic contact priorities can become stale.  I suggest you re-run Contact Analysis every six months or so to ensure prioritization accuracy.  This process will refresh all contact priorities automatically set by IMS without adjusting any contact priorities that you have manually set via the contact record.  To re-run the process, go to ClearContext > Options > Analyze Contacts.

For more information on contact prioritization, see our User Guide.