Tag: email

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black and white photo of people at table with phone

Last week, I gave a lightning round talk at the 2024 SCELCapalooza annual conference on the utility of email as an outreach tool for academic libraries. “Wait,” you are probably telling yourself, “what year is it? Are we really talking about email marketing again?”

Admittedly, this opportunity to present was a self-challenge: could I build an argument that in today’s social media rich landscape email was the most effective tool in our digital outreach toolkit? Turns out, I could and it might be. Since the arrival of Gen Z in institutions of higher ed, and especially following the pandemic, email seems to be experiencing a renaissance.

The conference limited the lightning round talks to seven minutes, so I had to leave out much of the context and nuance. It’s not quite as simple as I make it out to be, but like any good TED talk, the point is to get you to rethink your assumptions. And what we know about how students use email is changing.

Here is the transcript from my talk. I believe the slides will be available soon at the Sched link above. Enjoy!

You don’t need X: How email marketing triumphs over social in campus communications

Howdy, ya’ll. My name is John Jackson. I am the Head of Outreach and Engagement for the William H. Hannon Library here at Loyola Marymount University. I have almost a decade of experience managing external communications for academic libraries. And I am not here to dump on social media.​

In fact, I want to begin by encouraging you to follow @lmulibrary on Instagram. You can scan that code right there. I think our content is amazing! However, I am here to tell you that…. I probably don’t need it. For when it comes to reaching college students, email is the most powerful tool you have in your digital toolkit. ​

​So today I’ll talk briefly about the rise of email over the past 3 years, especially among Gen Z users. I’ll talk about what we’ve done at LMU and end with a few tips for successful email marketing campaigns. ​

The rise of email

If email is like sending someone a letter, then social media these days is like dropping leaflets from an airplane in the middle of the night. There’s no guarantee you’re going to reach your target and even if you do, most of your target population is asleep. Social media presents two barriers to successful communication: the first is he who shall not be named.​ [at this point, I showed a slide that simply had the words “The Algorithm.”]

​Social media platforms long ago ditched the chronological feed and most have taken the lead of TikTok in featuring For You Pages that prioritize content outside the folks you follow. So even if your library has 10,000 followers on Instagram, there’s no guarantee they will ever see your content. 

The second barrier that social media puts up against successfully reaching our students is their own changing usage. All generations, but younger generations in particular, are moving to smaller, more private online communities. 6 out of every 10 users on Twitter stopped using the platform in 2023 and a quarter of those users have no plans in coming back. Instagram’s growth seems to be slowing down among 18-24 year olds. Services like WhatsApp and SnapChat that prioritize private group interactions are on the rise. And as much as people love the library, we’re not going to be added to the group chat. The time and energy we put into creating content for a platform that is not and will not push that content directly to our users is time and energy that could be used elsewhere. ​

With email, reach is guaranteed. They may not do anything with your email, but they will get it. The same can’t be said of social media content.​

Email and college students

In 2021, 93 percent of 15-24yr olds in the U.S. reported using email. No social media platform, with the exception of YouTube, even comes close to that. According to Statista, 46% of people in the US prefer email for communication. Between 2022 and 2026, email usage is expected to grow globally to almost 400 billion emails per year. ​

This especially holds true among consumers with brand loyalty, like library users. 37% of consumers state it is likely or very likely that their brand’s regular newsletter would influence them to purchase something. In that same study, 57% of responding Gen Zers stated they liked being emailed by brands. ​

And what about email usage in the university context? According to a 2021 study in the journal E-Learning and Digital Media, email is the most common communication channel between students and faculty. And since the pandemic, according to the journal New Media and Society, college students’ use of email has increased in both volume and frequency. A 2021 study of California community colleges found similar results.​

And in one study examining a cross section of almost 2000 college students from public and private institutions across the nation found that email is the preferred mode. We see this pattern repeated over and over again.​

Email at MPOW

Here at LMU Library, we have published a monthly newsletter for the past 14 years that goes out to more than 5000 subscribers. There’s the QR code. I hope you’ll subscribe to it.​

In the education industry, open rates for emails average 24%. But at LMU Library, our open rates average 46% and often reach into the 80% range when we segment for specific audiences. Our main Marketing team at LMU sends out weekly emails to all students, and they are seeing open rates averaging close to 50% of the student body. 50%! The lesson here is that students are reading their emails! ​Which leads me to my final section…

Tips for success

Tip #1: Ask your subscribers what they want and customize accordingly. According to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, e-mails customized using volunteered consumer data are 38% more effective than emails that only use observed data or no custom data at all. In one 2023 survey, 69% respondents said they wanted to receive emails that make them feel like a VIP and 70% are willing to share their hobbies with brands they subscribe to. Those numbers are even higher among Gen Z respondents. So ask your subscribers permission to customize based on data they voluntarily give you.​

​Tip #2: Segment your audience. Take that data and divvy up your subscriber list in meaningful ways. In the least, be sure to segment between faculty, staff and students: don’t send the same email to all groups. If you can get the info, divvy up your distribution lists by college major or by on-campus vs. off campus status. I’ve even seen one library divvy up their email list by the patrons’ book genre preferences. Segment based on action: for example, people who subscribed after attending an event. Most email marketing platforms, like MailChimp and Constant Contact, have this function, but you could even do it in Outlook. ​

Tip #3: Always Be A/B Testing. What is A/B testing? This is when you send out two, three or more different versions of the same email with slight differences to a portion of your subscribers. Whichever group responds most favorably based on open rates and clicks, that’s the version you then send to the rest of the group. Start with your subject line: try 2-3 different word variations, try including an emoji. Try two versions of the same email with different images. Keep tweaking until you find what works best.​

Tip #4: Just like designing for the web, optimize your emails for search. Most folks never delete their emails. So there is a huge benefit to creating emails that are designed to be accessed later. By using keywords in subject lines, headers, and the body content, you can increase the likelihood that students will “re” discover your emails at a point of need. ​

​Finally, Tip #5: It’s the little things that matter. Emails that start with an engaging image are more likely to get opened, especially among Gen Z recipients who like to preview their emails. Those call to action buttons? Including an emoji increases the likelihood that someone will click on it. Even selecting the right sender makes a difference. People want to open emails from someone they trust. Maybe it’s an email from “The William H. Hannon Library” if your library’s name has clout. Or maybe it’s an email from the Dean, if you’re just sending it to faculty. Think about who your audience expects to hear from and customize the sender field accordingly.​

Conclusion

In the best of all possible worlds, we’d all have the resources we needed to create a robust, multi-platform digital outreach strategy that balances mobile, email, and social channels to reach all our users wherever they’re at. But we have to choose where to spend our time. Email marketing offers unparalleled advantages above social media through precision targeting and tailored engagement strategies. And it’s where our campus users are at. So before you join the latest social network, love the one you’re with. And make the most of it! Thank you. Please like and subscribe. Here’s how you can contact me on LinkedIn as well as my personal website. Thank you!​

References

Dunne, N. (2021). Communication Technology Within Community Colleges [Ed.D., Brandman University]. In ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (2572604800). ProQuest One Academic. http://electra.lmu.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/communication-technology-within-community/docview/2572604800/se-2?accountid=7418​

Emma. (2019, March 26). 8 Email marketing best practices for higher education. Email Marketing Software That Works For You | Emma Email Marketing & Automation. https://myemma.com/blog/8-email-marketing-best-practices-for-higher-education/​

Emma. (2020, October 19). 6 tactics for successful higher ed email marketing. Email Marketing Software That Works For You | Emma Email Marketing & Automation. https://myemma.com/blog/6-tactics-for-successful-higher-ed-email-marketing/​

Faverio, M. (n.d.). Majority of U.S. Twitter users say they’ve taken a break from the platform in the past year. Pew Research Center. Retrieved February 7, 2024, from https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/17/majority-of-us-twitter-users-say-theyve-taken-a-break-from-the-platform-in-the-past-year/​

Hartemo, M., & Link to external site, this link will open in a new tab. (2022). Conversions on the rise – modernizing e-mail marketing practices by utilizing volunteered data. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 16(4), 585–600. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-03-2021-0090​

Huebner, C. (2019, January 14). Underestimating the Potential of Email. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/call-action-marketing-and-communications-higher-education/underestimating-potential-email​

Kaufmann, R., & Vallade, J. I. (2021). Online student perceptions of their communication preparedness. E-Learning and Digital Media, 18(1), 86–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753020950873​

Marigold. (2023). Higher Education Forecast: 2023 Consumer Trends Index.​

Nguyen, M. H., Gruber, J., Marler, W., Hunsaker, A., Fuchs, J., & Hargittai, E. (2022). Staying connected while physically apart: Digital communication when face-to-face interactions are limited. New Media & Society, 24(9), 2046–2067. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820985442​

Singh, K. (2023, May 15). Email Marketing for Higher Education: Tips and Best Practices. Modern Campus. https://moderncampus.com/blog/higher-education-email-marketing.html​

Swanson, J. A., Renes, S. L., & Strange, A. T. (2020). The Communication Preferences of Collegiate Students. In P. Isaias, D. G. Sampson, & D. Ifenthaler (Eds.), Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp. 65–78). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48190-2_4​

Tratnik, A., Gak, D., Baggia, A., Jerebic, J., Rajkovič, U., Grbić, T., Duraković, N., Medić, S., & Žnidaršič, A. (2023). Factors influencing student-professor email communication in higher education. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11944-w​

U.S. e-mail usage by age 2021. (2022). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271501/us-email-usage-reach-by-age/​

image credit: remco horbach on flickr (cc-by)​

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man smoking pipe at a typewriter

(photo credit: NC State Archives on flickr)

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in this world.

Margaret Mead, quoted in New York Times, 9 Aug. 1964

If you had told me five years ago that my main source of news would be email newsletters, I would have thought you mad. If you had told me I would also be paying to subscribe to these newsletters, I would have walked away laughing. Obviously, e-newsletters have been around for decades, but the meteoric rise in platforms like Substack was not on my bingo card pre-2019. So I thought I would share what’s currently coming into my inbox on the regular in the hopes that you might find them as enjoyable as I do! 

What I pay for

Culture Study: This was the first paid subscription I bought. I heard AHP speak at the 2022 CALM conference and immediately realized that she is someone who deeply understands her audience. An author, podcaster, and gardener, she has an incredible critical eye and the ability to make any subject interesting. I love everything she writes. 

Content Prompt [referral link]: Written by Meghan Kowalski, an outreach librarian working in DC, this is a daily list of ideas for social media content creation. I heard Meghan speak at last year’s Library Marketing and Communications conference and was so impressed that I signed up for her newsletter while she was still speaking. It’s a simple, but useful format that also includes prompting questions that I’ve occasionally used in my personal journalling as well.

Link in Bio: This was a recommendation by Meghan. Rachel Karten is a social media consultant who writes about current trends. As someone who only uses social media for work, I don’t often encounter trending content outside my industry, so this is a helpful way for me to know what’s up. Subscribers also get access to a Discord that seems to be mostly populated by social media professionals, so I get to feel like an industry insider. 

Everything else

Here’s a list of all the other newsletters I read regularly. I’m just at the limit of what I have time to read each week, but I do try to read all of these in full when they arrive.

What I’m reading

Obviously from the above, you can tell I already spend a not insignificant amount of time reading, but this last week in particular I was feeling nostalgic about the early days of the web. Kyle Chayka, writing for the New Yorker, basically described my exact experience of the web from the 1990s through 2010s. If that makes you long for a simpler time (and smaller web), check out the Diagram Website. I’ve lost myself in here for hours. Need a soundtrack while you surf? Open a tab for Infraordinary FM, an AI-generated broadcast of mundane happenings around the globe.

Garden updates

close up of a young plant

I’m at the end of the winter growing season here in zone 10, so I’m not putting in any seeds yet. Instead, I’ve transplanted in various leafy greens. Once the heat comes back, these won’t last long but it should provide for the occasional salad for the next few weeks.

Links to the past

  • 1 year ago: I was knee-deep into a research project on burnout in academia that, rather than resulting in a publication, made me realize I was clinically in burnout mode. So I dropped it.
  • 4 years ago: I was turning off all notifications on my phone and finally starting to prioritize sleep.
  • 10 years ago: I was making valentines for our students in the library.

Overheard online

“Strong’s Concordance” would be a pretty cool name for a band.

@hotdogsladies on Mastodon

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panorama photo of sunrise over the crater at Haleakala

“Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie.”

Pierre de Ronsard (Sonnets pour Hélène bk. 1 no .43, 1578)

I just returned from a weeklong vacation. Not a staycation. Not a planned adventure. A real do-nothing, plan-nothing, expect-nothing vacation where, with the exception of one personal excursion and two family dinner reservations, I had no plans each day other than to “figure it out when I wake up.” It’s the first such vacation I’ve taken in… well, ever. Every extended trip in the past decade has been planned to the bone: London, Northern California, Prague, France. Each of these had a detailed itinerary; and gods damn it everyone was going to follow it!

Not this time.

This time I went to Maui. And I did nothing. I did nothing for days. With the exception of the aforementioned excursion (to see the sun rise over Haleakalā) and the two family dinners (made at others’ requests), each day was its own discovery. 

Coming back from a vacation of this magnitude (in detachment, not length) would take some getting used to. I deleted Teams from my phone before I left. I’ve never had email on my phone so that connection was already severed. I didn’t bring a laptop or tablet device. I told my team they could contact me, but only if it was worth a phone call (which was essentially the same as saying don’t). So I knew when I returned I would be coming back as if I had completely jumped off the prime timeline.

I’ve long exorcised the Sunday scaries from my life (with the help of a therapist), but I had the Sunday scaries this time. It took an inordinent amount of willpower not to start “cleaning up my email” the day before. I had to remind myself that work never ends, and that “getting a head start” isn’t possible when there is no finish line. I let it go. So here is some additional advice on how I managed to successfully re-enter the office after an extended vacation.

  1. Create a buffer. Before you leave, block off the day you return to the office on your calendar. Don’t schedule or plan any meetings. Make sure your shared calendar shows you as “busy” so folks don’t put a meeting there while you’re away.
  2. Manage expectations. While you’re at it, set an away message that essentially says “Don’t email me now.” My message this time was as follows: “I am out of the office on holiday until Tuesday, July 18. If you need a response from me, please email me after that date. (I will not have access to email while I’m away and I will not be able to “catch up” on email when I return.) For general library inquiries, you can contact…” (One day, I hope it becomes company policy/culture to block emails when someone is on vacation).
  3. Ask a friend. Before jumping into email, ask your team “What did I miss that I should pay attention to first?” Your colleagues, especially if you have a good rapport, will know what matters most to you.
  4. Speed clean. Once you do start processing things, process all the easy messages first: the ones that don’t require a response, the junk mail, the requests you will pretend you never saw. Get those out of the way if for anything to reduce the unread count on your inbox folder.
  5. Be kind to yourself. Take frequent breaks throughout the day. Take a walk around the office. Try to find at least one thing that’s changed since you left.
  6. Monotask. For the stickier action items, tackle them one at a time. Some of your responses may be “I’ll get back to you on this” and that still counts.
  7. Don’t apologize. Don’t say sorry for being away or not replying sooner. You don’t owe someone who ignored your away message (see #2) an apology.

Your mileage may vary, but by the end of the week I was fully back on track. No more Sunday scaries.

What I’m reading

Who Killed Google Reader by David Pierce

“Reader was probably never going to become the world-conquering beast Facebook eventually became, but the team felt it had figured out some things about how people actually want to connect.” 

You Are Not the Answer by Benjamin at Thinkings Space

“Simply put, the modern workplace is not structured to value or respect individuals. Individuals are useful to a company only to a point.”

Life Before Cellphones by Dan Lois

“The very idea that, once work hours were over, no one could get hold of you—via email, text, Slack, whatever—is completely alien to contemporary young people, who never let their cellphones leave their hands. Yes, it’s because they’re addicted, but it’s also because we’re all expected by bosses, co-workers, and friends to be online and available pretty much every time of day.” 

News from the garden

rat carrying an apple up a wooden pole

My daughter sent me this photo during work. After a three year hiatus, the fruit rats are back. This one managed to eventually carry the apple over the fence into the neighboring yard. Enjoy, my friend. But you better stay away from my corn.

Links to the past

Overheard online

“Librarians are on the front lines, fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone.”

President Barack Obama on Twitter.

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Tell me if you’ve heard this one before:

Person A emails Person B: Hi, Person B. I have a question about this thing. 

Person B: I don’t have the answer to this, but Person C (cc’ed) does.

If you work in an office, you almost certainly have received an email like this one. Someone copies you on a message with the expectation that you will pick up the conversation and answer the question that Person A originally sent. 

I posed question on Twitter and was surprised by the results.

Twitter post March 27, 2022

Many of the responses didn’t think much of it: “happens all the time,” “this is normal,” “yeah, so?” etc. But far more were of the “it depends” variety: it depends on whether Person C actually knows the answer; it depends on whether Person B just wants to pass the buck on saying no; it depends on the power relationship between B and C. 

Only one person mentioned what I find annoying about this [admittedly common] practice: that I don’t expect needing to respond to anything where I am in the cc line. Perhaps that is an indication of how long I’ve been on the internets: being in the cc means I need to be aware of this, but there is no expectation of needing a reply.

Email is messy.

Instead, what if Person B had reached out privately to Person C and said “Hey, Person A has a question. Can you (1) let me know how to respond or (2) if you would rather me to pass it on to you?” If Person C responds with #1, then Person B can send Person A an answer to their question directly. If they respond with #2, then Person B can connect to Person A to Person C.

This action offers the additional benefit of confirming that Person C is indeed the right person to handle the inquiry. If not, Person B can search elsewhere in the organization for the right person to contact and avoid sending Person A on a wild goose chase.

While this results in a small amount of extra work, it has a few benefits: (1) Person A will get the response they need in fewer steps. (2) Person B takes an active role in the inquiry. (3) Person C has the option to delegate the inquiry to Person B, rather than being obliged to take it on themselves. 

Admittedly, this whole situation falls squarely into the category of “pet peeves.” I don’t make a fuss about this if someone on my team does this (and it happens all that time). However, in situations where I am Person B, I’ve been trying to seek out answers for Person A rather than quickly pass the buck to a colleague, even when that would be more convenient for me. In most cases, Person A reached out to me because I was a trusted contact, and so I appreciate the opportunity to reinforce that trusting relationship by not wasting their time and shuttling them around via email.

That said, I do wish we would stop cc’ing people if they are actually expected to respond. 😉 

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A world without email book

I have always been a productivity nerd. When I was in junior high, my father would buy books on cassette by authors such as Stephen Covey to listen to on his daily commute and, at some point, I started listening to them as well. I had a Franklin Day Planner in high school. And as I’ve pointed out before, I have long been a practitioner of David Allen’s GTD.

So when Cal Newport’s new book project was announced, I immediately pre-ordered the book. Newport’s approach to productivity is one evolutionary step beyond Covey and Allen. It’s less about how much you get done or how you prioritize your tasks, and more about how you create the space and attention for doing your work.

As the title of his book implies, email is the villain of the work (or our work). It’s important to point out here the somewhat click-baity title. It’s not just email, it’s also Slack, Teams, IMs, text messages, meeting requests, and all the various unstructured, unsolicited communications that come our way at breakneck speeds every day.

The hyperactive hive mind and distraction

To understand why email et al. is so detrimental, Newport asks that we accept two premises: (1) that context/attention switching hurts productivity and creativity; and (2) that the “hyperactive hive mind” is the default mode of internal communication for most workplaces today (though, as he shows later, it is neither inevitable nor the best way to work).

The hyperactive hive mind, another key character in the narrative, is defined as “a workflow centered around ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services” (xvii). You need an answer to something? Send that person an email. You need an update on the status of a project? Send a Slack message. Need to schedule a meeting? Send several back and forth emails. Unstructured, unsolicited, unplanned.

The problems with this mode of operating are numerous, as Newport spends much of the first half of the book detailing. For one, it produces anxiety: frequent context switching between tasks, emails, and IMs never allows the brain to fully feel as if a project is completed. There is a mental residue that lingers every time you switch from a project, to an email request, back to a project, to a meeting invite, and so on.

Conversely, long stretches of focused, uninterrupted work allow you to mentally “move on” from one project and make it easier for you to give your full attention to the next. The ability for anyone to email you at any time, regardless of how full your plate may already be or the amount of attention you have available to give makes it impossible to properly focus on doing the work you’ve been hired to do.

This frenetic approach to professional collaboration generates messages faster than you can keep up […] and while you’re at home at night, or over the weekend, or on vacation, you cannot escape the awareness that the missives in your inbox are piling ever thicker in your absence. (p. 43)

With longer stretches of attention, projects will be completed faster and more creatively.

Email/IM is too easy and too frictionless, leading to increased work that would not be necessary with more intentional, careful project management. Asynchronous communication is not more efficient, and it does not scale up against either human biology or the fact that time actually exists (and is not infinite!). We shouldn’t be trying to do things faster, we should be trying to do them better.

Our lack of pre-defined processes for how we do our work, what Newport calls “just rocking and rolling with email,” is not nimbleness: it’s just laziness on the part of managers, directors, and organizational leaders. (Note: As others have pointed out, in most cases, burnout is more likely to be a symptom of failed organizational leadership and not an individual’s inability to manage their work.)

A key takeaway from Newport’s book is understanding the difference between workflow and work execution. Talking about work (which is what usually happens over email and IMs) is not work. We need to create processes that reduce context-switching and the need for constant asynchronous back and forth communications. A project management approach to daily processes would allow us to spend less time talking about creating something, and actually creating something.

“If you design workflows that allow knowledge workers to spend most of their time focusing without distraction on the activities for which they’re trained, you’ll produce more total value that if you instead require these same workers to diffuse their attention among many different activities.” (p. 226)

I’ve only touched on a fraction of Newport’s recommendations and the ones that were most salient for me. I highly recommend checking it out or purchasing a copy for yourself.

Illustration of two women sweeping letters
So that’s where I put those emails…

New practices to try out

I can’t change how others work outside of my own team, but I can change how I process their expectations of how I should work. And perhaps, in doing so, I can encourage others to adopt similar practices. So here are a few practices detailed in Newport’s book that I would like to try and implement.

Office Hours: This is the most radical of the ideas presented that I feel I could adopt. One of the arguments against reducing a team’s reliance on email is “But how will I get your attention when I need you!?” One solution is to set up open office hours: a standing, weekly time when you make yourself available in-person or virtually for drop-in conversation. This is already a common practice in academia so the idea wouldn’t be seen as too far beyond the pale.

I think I could probably set this up 3-4 hours per week. “But, what if I need your input on something and you don’t have office hours until tomorrow!?” Well, then you wait until tomorrow. As Newport points out, greater efficiency comes with a little overhead and inconvenience in the short term, but pays dividends in the long run.

Canned Messages: “Hi X, I would love to hear more about this idea. I have “open office” hours every day from 2-3p. During that time, feel free to drop-in via Teams (DM, phone or video) and we can talk in more detail. Or, if you would rather schedule a meeting (so I can give you my undivided attention!), here is my availability [link to bookings site]. Use the form and book the time that works for you.”

In addition to this simple message, I want to review my inbox for frequent requests that could be converted to forms that collect all the information I need and allow me to more productively use my time, as well as my colleagues. For example: “Thanks for contacting me! My team meets weekly to discuss potential new ideas and programs. Fill out this form and I will add your idea to an upcoming meeting agenda. You’ll be contacted within 2-3 business days about when we plan to discuss your idea. You’ll then be notified before the end of that week about next steps.”

As Newport points out, even though this is a slower response than what might happen if the conversation about the proposed idea happened over email, it sets up a timeline with clear expectations and outcomes. No one has to continuously check their inbox waiting for a response. It’s a scaleable solution regardless of whether I receive one new proposal a week or twenty.

Planning Boards: I didn’t need to be sold on this one. I’ve been using Trello for over 5 years. My team uses Microsoft Planner since our place of work lives in the Office ecosystem. It’s not as versatile or flexible, but even as a “poor man’s Trello,” it has dramatically reduced the amount of email and messaging my team needs to do.

Need an update on where we are in a project timeline? Look at the Planner board. Need to add a link to a project file so we don’t forget it? Add it to a Planner card. Need to assign a task? Add it to the board. Once a week, my team meets to review the board and see where things are at. Almost no email or IM necessary.

Blocking Off Lunch: I’m bad about this, so I’m going to block this time off. Time zones and health restrictions permitting, no one should have to sacrifice lunch for a meeting. As I’ve said before: a working lunch is neither working nor lunch.

Service Quotas: Like many in academia, I spread myself too thin, especially with regard to service work. One way to counter this is to set up (in consultation with your director or department chair) a quota. Ask your director: how much of my time should I be setting aside for service work? Once you both find a number you agree on, you have your quota. This gives you leverage to say no to new projects without the guilt.

For example, I currently chair three committees and serve on six others. If I am consistent in keeping my service load to 10% of my workload, that allows up to 4 hours per week, about 200 hours per year. With this in mind, it’s relatively easy to determine my bandwidth based on meeting frequency and expected workload. My current committees’ meeting schedules amount to 106 hours this year, meaning for every meeting I attend, I can contribute no more than 1 hour of additional work. Any additional service projects will deplete that admittedly small inventory. The same quota system could be applied to other areas as well: research projects, mentorship, speaking gigs, time spent managing vs. creating, etc.

Email and instant messaging aren’t bad and I’m not under any illusion that they will disappear completely from our lives (although, if there is a library or university out there willing do that, please call me). Yet, we need to regulate all this unstructured communications to smaller portions of our attention. As knowledge workers, our greatest skill is what we can make when we give something our full attention. How much latent creativity is being suppressed by the constant ping of our notifications? If Newport’s conjecture is right, our current hyperactive hive mind workflow is simply a phase. I for one am looking forward to the next step.

(Image citation: Okumura Masanobu, Sleeve-Letter Takasago (Sodefumi Takasago), no. 2 from a series of 12 prints depicting parodies of plays, 1711–1740, Clarence Buckingham Collection.)

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Introduction

As the head of outreach for an academic library, I spend a lot of time thinking about how best to communicate with other people. Most of my job involves bringing people together, managing projects that involve multiple units, and keeping the right people in the loop at the right times.

Determining the best method of communication is worth a little extra time and hand-wringing: do these people respond well to meeting invites? does this person prefer a phone call? when is the best time to reach them? do they typically reply to email quickly or slowly?

Like most modern offices, email is the predominant form of communication in my place of work. I’ve come to dislike email more and more over the years but I’ve also spent considerable time developing a very particular style of emailing that, for me, tends to produce the best results.

I created the following best practices document for my team. I hope you find it useful as well. A list of sources for many of these ideas is at the end.

Email tip #1: Lead with your ask 

Determine what action you want the recipient to perform or what piece of information you want them to provide. That request should appear within in the first three sentences (and end with a line break). For example:

Thank you for meeting with me today to review the draft of our event poster. Can you confirm by Friday if we are OK to print?  

Email tip #2: Keep it short 

The shorter your email the more likely it is that someone will respond. If you need to include a lot of information, consider creating an “appendix”. For example: 

Thank you for meeting with me today. Here is the draft of the document we discussed (below). Can you confirm by Friday if this is Ok to print? 

Email tip #3: Use formatting to highlight the most important info  

Recognize that many people will be powering through their email as quickly as possible. The easier you can make it for them to scan your email, the better. Use bold, bulleted text (lots of bullets), hyperlinks (for additional info), frequent paragraph breaks, and headers to make it easier for your reader to identify the most important information.  

Email tip #4: Use clear subject lines  

Cryptic or unclear subject lines cause more anxiety and confusion than interest. A good subject line summarizes your email so the recipient knows the gist of the content before it’s even opened. Is your email an invitation? An ask? Just an FYI or “for your records” type of email? I prefer to always lead with context and end with an action or ask. For example:  

  • Common Book: Selecting our shortlist nominations – deadline March 1 
  • For Tom Jarvis: An invitation to be a 2020-21 Faculty Pub Night Speaker 
  • LNAP 2020: Where are we on the donations from housing? 
  • FYI. Lali has approved the following events. No action needed. 

Using unique phrases, dates, and proper names also makes it easier to find later. 

Email tip #5: Don’t make your recipient do the work 

Give your recipient clear outcomes or expectations about how you want them to respond to your email. You might even consider giving them a list of options. For example:  

Hi Matt, 

I’m so glad you’re on board with being a participant in our workshop next week. I need to finalize the catering so can you please let me know which of the following options you prefer?  

A) Light fare and tea 
B) Coffee and dessert 
C) Champagne and cake 

You should also offer a “default” option in case they don’t respond, e.g. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll go with Option A.

Email tip #6: Be thankful of their time and attention 

This probably goes without saying, but always recognize that email sucks our attention away from more impactful work and thank people for taking the time to consider your request. 

Email tip #7: Move people to BCC when they need to be dropped from the chain 

If someone is on the CC line and they no longer need to be on the message, move them to the BCC line and note that you’re doing it in the email. For example: 

Since Javier and I have this covered moving forward, I’m going to drop James into the BCC line (thanks James!) … 

Email tip #8: Edit ruthlessly 

If you can cut anything, cut it. If you can make it shorter, make it shorter. Realize that many people will hastily read your email or possibly read it on a mobile device (30% and growing at mpow).

Email tip #9: Tell people what you plan to do next 

Always let people know what your next action will be once they respond to your message. For example: 

Tom, can you confirm that this class is coming to our event tomorrow? Once you confirm, I’ll let our event planner know so we can reserve their seats. 

It’s also good to let people know when you will follow up. It puts pressure on them to respond sooner. For example: 

Tom, can you let me know what the next steps will be re: the website migration? I understand you’re busy with other projects, so I’ll follow up with a phone call in a week if I don’t hear from you. 

Other things to note 

Email is not chat (Pick up the phone or use chat) 

If you have more than one ask, if you expect your email to generate a lot of replies back and forth, if your ask is time-sensitive, or if you have an ask that is sensitive or complicated, consider using the phone instead. If it’s simple enough, use chat. If you have anxieties about calling someone, ask yourself: What anxieties do I have about this ask? The answer might be revealing. (Note: that same question can be asked whenever you hesitate about sending an email… the answer can help you clarify your ask) 

Email supports our work, but email is not work.  

If you’re spending most of your time emailing people, you’re probably not focusing on the right things. (This may not be true for all work in higher ed, but most of it). You might also be unnecessarily making more work for other people rather than doing the work yourself. Most of all, emailing doesn’t count/matter until you’ve closed the loop on the issue. 

Avoid emailing after hours. 

This one is tricky because not everyone works the same hours. For sure, don’t email after hours and expect a response. If I do find myself writing email outside normal business hours, I usually save them as drafts and send them during the next business day. There is some evidence to show that emails sent late morning are the ones most likely to get a response (because by then people have had a change to clean out their inboxes). More importantly though, emailing after hours sets up unhealthy expectations within your team and with your colleagues.

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