Neat idea, I could definitely be more terse in my comms. As an FYI, some bad English on the Hooli Onboarding Email example: If for any reason you haven't let, let me know and I'll make sure you get them.
Sounds like a simple typo, s/let/yet/
Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
41–50 of 58 posts
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you have to change and not them? Especially if you sat down with them and discussed it?
Because unfortunately the world doesn't revolve around me :) It wasn't only the PM, the AI lead apparently felt the same, although I think the AI lead was the one that kicked up a fuss in the first place. At first I was really pissed off - I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, and was completely baffled about the complaint. I went over my emails myself, and thought about calls we'd had, and I just didn't get it. TB…
>"Anyway, I guess ... to be receptive to."
In other words, developing your communication skills can have good impact.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#43I wonder how this would perform compared to using GPT-3
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#44Coincidentally I've been feeling like my emails are becoming way too verbose recently. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm just taking longer to reply in a way that conveys my message properly, or I'm finding myself editing a draft to death before I ever send it. I used to be able to just reply and move it to the next bucket.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, some people really don't like terse emails. I actually got myself into trouble a couple of years back because of this. I've been working with Norwegians almost my whole working life, and am used to being terse, direct and honest. Aside from that, I'm an extrovert, and don't talk unless I have something to say. Anyway, then I got placed as tech lead for a UK project, working remotely. Within a week, the PM had…
Why do you have to change and not them? Especially if you sat down with them and discussed it?
How would you decide who would have to "change"?
Presumably, both parties made an effort to better understand each other. There's no evidence to doubt that the PM was more forgiving/understanding of terse emails going forwards.
Plus, OP was new to the UK team. It seems natural that the onus would be more on him to adapt than trying to play with the culture of the existing team.
Am I misreading your comment or something? It comes across as very...standoffish...to me as it seems like the way this was resolved is the most sane, rational, mutually-respectuful course one could hope for.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#46I don't know if it's just me, but I very much prefer easy to skim emails to more dense ones. At one point I got weekly project updates from a team I was working with, and one guy wrote dense, short, emails where I would have to read every sentence carefully to get a hang on what was going on. Another guy would write longer, fluffier emails but with bullet points and paragraphs in the same order: > Hi everyone! > {flu…
This is how the so called sutras are written: a page of text gets compressed into one short sentence, so you have to stop after each of them and spend an hour unpacking its meaning, but the entire book is often just 200 sentences.
.zip format in history.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you have to change and not them? Especially if you sat down with them and discussed it?
How would you decide who would have to "change"? Presumably, both parties made an effort to better understand each other. There's no evidence to doubt that the PM was more forgiving/understanding of terse emails going forwards. Plus, OP was new to the UK team. It seems natural that the onus would be more on him to adapt than trying to play with the culture of the existing team. Am I misreading your comment or somethi…
If the user met with PM and explained the misunderstanding, why do they still need to modify their writing? Is the PM still misunderstanding? I didn't see any evidence that the PM changed here, that's all.
Typically the person receiving the message is better fit to accommodate others (see the HN guidelines about taking the most charitable interpretation of a post). Otherwise you're expecting everyone else to adjust themselves when talking to you.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#48Have you tested this in marketing emails? that seems to be the profitable marketplace. Even if you can prove 5% increase in roi that's worth a lot to a lot of people! There are some interesting studies showing short emails perform better but we haven't found that to be true it seems the message is the biggest factor. Some way to improve the message is even more valuable but also likely a much harder ML task
The original inspiration and example featured on the website was from a blog post on cold "welcome" email copy: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/increase-reply-rates/.
I'd love to test it on more marketing emails, or content marketing -- these seem to be the two applications with the most direct ROI.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#49I don't know if it's just me, but I very much prefer easy to skim emails to more dense ones. At one point I got weekly project updates from a team I was working with, and one guy wrote dense, short, emails where I would have to read every sentence carefully to get a hang on what was going on. Another guy would write longer, fluffier emails but with bullet points and paragraphs in the same order: > Hi everyone! > {flu…
This is how the so called sutras are written: a page of text gets compressed into one short sentence, so you have to stop after each of them and spend an hour unpacking its meaning, but the entire book is often just 200 sentences.
Sutras like Panini's Grammer written 5th century BC are great product of formal knowledge from India. However, writing emails is not the same thing:
- Sutras solved the problem to retaining large chunks of knowledge.
- Sutras had formal rules to keep the meaning unambiguous.
- Sutras were written by the sages who had lot of knowledge and control over language.
-Sutras were written in Sanskrit. A highly malleable (due to SANDHI and SAMAS) yet a precise language.
- English is not the right language to write tersely.
Re: Show HN: Say Less – AI summarization tool in the Gmail compose window
#50I'm excited to see where this goes -- both this product and the general idea of using ML to reduce noise in interpersonal communications. A human can read the shorter summary and add personal touches as they wish, but the first pass of what the model considers to be extraneous is interesting by itself. I just put in a 300 word personal email and it spit out a 60 word summary that actually did extract the one concrete…
So long as it's not doing that while operating on ciphertext.