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Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

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Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#61

Post by caw »

gaius wrote: post #57
oskarth wrote: post #33

You 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).

I wonder what the M:F ratio of the name "Alex" is. I agree that it's not really gender specific, but I only know 1 "Alexandria", and she doesn't go by "Alex". This could be a function of my university (70:30 M:F), or it could be generational (I'm in my 20's). As a result, I tend to default to male.

Perhaps different demographics respond better to different names, based on their preconceived notions of class and status. Does a really exotic name change anything?

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#62

Post by jtheory »

TobbenTM wrote: post #11

I would think it is because the email becomes more personal and social. More people 'collaborate'.

In particular, more social.

My suspicion is that when recipients see the cc with a name they don't know, they're suddenly in the position of making a first impression on someone that don't know yet, but will probably be working with in the future.

Another possible (related) thought -- here's an assistant who will be taking over some of these conversations, and thus they're probably talking about me (...so if I don't reply now, that's what they'll be discussing).

People care what others think of them; these people already know the original sender and have a stable relationship they don't feel will be threatened by a slow response (which easily slips into no response); but this adds a new person into the mix.

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#63

Post by franze »

the raw data would be nice - the full emails would be best,but just the sent w. cc,sent w.o. cc figures, time of message, time of response, number of reponse asking who is alex, .... anonymified recipents,... such data would be cool,

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#64

Post by oskarth »

gaius wrote: post #57
oskarth wrote: post #33

You 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).

Right, didn't think of that. Here in Sweden Alex is just shorthand for Alexander (which means something like "defender of the men"). The female version here is either Alexandra or Alexis.

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#65

Post by tg3 »

dsirijus wrote: post #8
philbarr wrote: post #7

Perhaps, 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...

Well, I've always tried to construct my e-mails to the best of my ability. I didn't noticed any change in my content - it has all been pretty standard.

Unfortunately you not noticing any change in the content doesn't make for very reliable or convincing statistical results. Thus the suggestions for making the experiment blind to you by choosing whether or not to CC after you compose the email.

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#66

Post by quadhome »

oskarth wrote: post #50
rubyrescue wrote: post #48

i have a client who was a small 2-person startup before they got acquired. They were both doing client facing calls and emails with big multinationals trying to sell a large product inside a typical 100-200 person division. So they created a few fake personas in order to make it look like they could afford a support staff. It's fun to reply all and know that one of the cc'ed people doesn't exist.

That reminds me of Julian Assange in the beginning of Wikileaks, making up a lot of fancy titles for imaginary personas in order to make WL seem a lot bigger than it really was.

[citation needed]

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#67

Post by chris123 »

gaius wrote: post #57
oskarth wrote: post #33

You 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).

Chris if another option in the gender-nonspecific department.

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#68

Post by ArekDymalski »

Pretty interesting. Before jumping to conclusions let me ask how many variables (time of day, wording of subject, frequency of sent emails, history of relationship with the recipient etc.) can you claim to "have under control"? Did you start CCing Alex for all 70 recpients? I'm asking coz there might be several explanations for the effect (assuming it's statistically significant and methodologically acceptable)

Re: Why you should ALWAYS CC someone

#69

Post by oskarth »

quadhome wrote: post #66
oskarth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of Julian Assange in the beginning of Wikileaks, making up a lot of fancy titles for imaginary personas in order to make WL seem a lot bigger than it really was.

[citation needed]

I don't remember where I read it, and I didn't manage to find it after a couple of minutes of googling. It could be a fabrication but I have two memories about it that speaks against it:

1) I think it was in a interview with JA himself (could have been the DDB book though which does indeed make it less credible)

2) It was said in a jokingly and positive way, which suggests it's not disinformation spread by someone trying to get them.

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