You should re-run the experiment and make it double-blind.
Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
51–60 of 70 posts
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not?
Because in most of those mails it was mission critical that I receive the response. The process grinds to a halt if I don't receive response, irregardless of anyone and anything else. Both Alex and I were tied to the same process and action. The priority of it is unchanged.
"Irregardless" is a double negative (and not a proper English word).
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#53You should re-run the experiment and make it double-blind.
My sample is tainted now. Someone else should do it.
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because in most of those mails it was mission critical that I receive the response. The process grinds to a halt if I don't receive response, irregardless of anyone and anything else. Both Alex and I were tied to the same process and action. The priority of it is unchanged.
"Irregardless" is a double negative (and not a proper English word).
Yes and no to that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#55Perhaps, over the last two months you've been running the experiment, you've been thinking about actually wanting a response and have automatically been constructing better emails that people feel they can reply to. Unlike the "brain-dump" ones I sometimes get that just don't deserve a response. To be perfectly honest, if there's more than one person on the email, I'm more likely to hope it's not my problem...
isn't there a name for that? something like diffusion of responsibility. the same reason we don't help one person in trouble when there's more than one potential helper...
Yes, but there's a critical difference. In this case there's a clear recipient - someone asked to do something/reply. In the case of the Genovese effect, no-one is specifically asked to do anything, and no-one does.
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you send ~50 mail every (working) day? Could your sheer volume skew the result? (as in: spam people and they start to ignore you, put someone on CC and they have reason to believe it's worth reading?)
I send mails every (week) day, and favor it in front of any other form of business communication. I've sent 17 since I've started this thread.
I'm curious, what's the average email of those 17? Like, what's the subject and/or value to the recipient and you?
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#57You should try different names and titles for the assistant as well: - Instead of Alex, what about Sarah (?)? - Instead of a standard name, what about a noble rank / recognizable surname (+?)? - Instead of CEO assistant, what about personal assistant (-?), accountant (+?), future candidate of CEO (+?) What about varying the person(s) involved depending on the type of project? If it's a issue of numbers, involve some…
Alex is a good name for this, as it's gender-nonspecific. I tend to assume Alex's are female unless I know otherwise (like Lesley's or Hillary's).
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#58In those mails not replied to, mails WITH someone in Cc and mails WITHOUT anyone in Cc are in ratio of ~2/11.
Am I missing something, or does this have no statistical relationship to the number of replies received?
Mails replied to could have all had a CC, or none had a CC and the CC ration for unreplied mails still be the same, no?
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I send mails every (week) day, and favor it in front of any other form of business communication. I've sent 17 since I've started this thread.
I'm curious, what's the average email of those 17? Like, what's the subject and/or value to the recipient and you?
Sending stuff for approval and approving stuff done. This is a busy day, though.
Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone
#60In those mails not replied to, mails WITH someone in Cc and mails WITHOUT anyone in Cc are in ratio of ~2/11. Am I missing something, or does this have no statistical relationship to the number of replies received? Mails replied to could have all had a CC, or none had a CC and the CC ration for unreplied mails still be the same, no?
Yes, quite right. It's superfluous.