Guy Kawasaki’s tips for effective email

  • Attach files infrequently. How often do you get an email that says, “Please read the attached letter.”? Then you open the attachment, and it’s a dumb-shitcake Word document with a three paragraph message that could have easily been copied and pasted into the email.
  • Never forward something that you think is funny. The odds are that by the time you’ve received it, your recipient already has too, so what is intended as funny is now tedious.

May I add one of my own? When you send an all-company email, please put the recipients in the BCC field so we don’t have to scroll through 300 names. And please, try to resist the impulse to reply-to-all with something witty like, “I couldn’t agree more.” The reply-to-all button should automatically include something along the lines of “This is a Reply-to-All from a Clueless Ass-Clown” …right at the top of the message.