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Email Introduction Etiquette

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Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#71

Post by swalkergibson »

pbreit wrote: post #61
swalkergibson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with you here. In the scenario proposed by the article, the busy person is still essentially doing the same amount of work. Having to consider the intro, reading up on the subject and the requester, etc, etc. If the answer is a flat no, then so be it, but let them hear it directly from the person. I find it hard to believe that somebody could be so busy that taking a few minutes to respond to such a r…

The problem isn't that the "busy person" is too busy to respond, it's that the "busy person" did not request to be involved and should be forced to be the bearer of the bad news.

Hearing bad news is a part of being an entrepreneur. Speaking only for myself, I would prefer to hear no directly from the horse's mouth.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#72

Post by gk1 »

jqgatsby wrote: post #43

I've often been tripped up by the semantics of the word "meet" in email introductions, as in "Nice to meet you". Everyone seems to want to reserve the word "meet" for actual in-person meeting, and I've seen such constructs as: "Pleased to 'meet' you" "Pleased to e-meet you" "Pleased to virtually meet you", etc I'd love to hear how the language-sensitive hacker news crowd deals with this issue, and also what tortured…

I say "nice to meet you" or "nice to be introduced to you." If I'm feeling particularly edgy then I say "nice to be intro'd to you."

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#73

Post by omarkatzen »

wpietri wrote: post #26
omarkatzen wrote: post #7

This is why it's unreasonable to have any faith in the contemporary Silicon Valley. Cold-calling used to work out there, because it was full of people who just wanted to do a good job and help each other succeed. Now, you need an introduction because it's full of emasculated social climbers who need some way of determining whether a person is of sufficient social status to merit 30 seconds of consideration. Because o…

Oh, please. This intro etiquette isn't about status; it's about respect for people's time. People still generally want to help people succeed. But people are also busy . I do intros like this pretty much any time I talk to two people who are likely to benefit by talking. I'd guess I average 2 a week. I've been in San Francisco 14 years, and I think this place is even easier to navigate now than when I got here. Few c…

People still generally want to help people succeed.

Doubt it. Rents and house prices are at a record high due to horrible NIMBY regulations and no one's doing a damn thing about it. Startup equity slices are tiny, and the old Silicon Valley guarantee (that working for a startup meant the founders would take a personal interest in setting you up to be a founder in your next gig) is long gone. VCs are funding lots of well-connected rich idiots, but if you don't come from the "right" social milieu, it's nearly impossible to get.

What used to be a quirky and different society is now a shitty knock-off of Manhattan that copies its worst parts but none of its good ones.

Few cold call anymore, but that's more because we've got better things than phones.

s/call/email/g. You know what I mean. Obviously calling someone you don't know is considered pretty rude these days.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#74

Post by cbr »

yuvadam wrote: post #64
dudus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't make a good use of BCC. Another instance where it is useful is when asking a question at a mail list but asking that anyone who answers only addresses the you not the whole email list. Just send the email with the list in BCC, and that's gonna be automatic.

That's a pretty rude and selfish way to approach a mailing list. I wouldn't be surprised if such a question goes on to be ignored.

There are uses:

    From: me
    To: me
    Bcc: foo-enthusiasts
    Subject: [survey] what's your favorite version?

    What's your favorite version of foo?  Write me off-list
    and I'll post back to summarize.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#75

Post by coffeemug »

omarkatzen wrote: post #7

This is why it's unreasonable to have any faith in the contemporary Silicon Valley. Cold-calling used to work out there, because it was full of people who just wanted to do a good job and help each other succeed. Now, you need an introduction because it's full of emasculated social climbers who need some way of determining whether a person is of sufficient social status to merit 30 seconds of consideration. Because o…

Full of emasculated social climbers who need some way of determining whether a person is of sufficient social status to merit 30 seconds of consideration.

There's some truth to what you're saying, but it has always been the case in complicated industries. It's the cost of doing business. It reminds of this brilliant quote by Robert Henri:

In new movements the pendulum takes a great swing, charlatans crowd in, innocent apes follow, the masters make their successes and they make their mistakes as all pioneers must do. It is necessary to pierce to the core to get at the value of a movement and not be confused by its sensational exterior.

That being said, in my four years in SV I've asked hundreds of people for advice and help, and I honestly can't remember anyone ever saying no. The collaborative spirit is very much alive, people are just busy and it helps immensely to have some basic respect for their time.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#76

Post by peterwwillis »

wpietri wrote: post #27
peterwwillis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, the word 'specific' in the sentence is what makes it specific, not the phrasing. You already know they want you to provide a request for something, but you don't know it's something specific until they specify specifically. 'give a specific ask' and 'ask a specific question' are therefore equivalent, with the exception that the former looks like it was written by a 5th grader.

I'm not claiming it isn't horrific; I wouldn't say it myself. But "ask" is a pretty clear term of art. Also, I'm not sure Hacker News denizens can really complain too much about other people's jargon. Among many others, we inflicted "blog" and "tweet" on the world.

As a Hacker News denizen I exercise my prerogative to complain about anything and everything possible, as long as there's some technical merit to it.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#77

Post by pseut »

crygin wrote: post #58
potatolicious wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not the same thing. An "ask" is the item being requested, it is not the question. "Can I have a cookie?" is a question, the cookie is the ask. An ask is implicitly tangible or substantial. "What's the weather today?" is a question, it doesn't really have an ask, since the item being demanded is trivial. It exists in business jargon specifically to separate minor requests "can you send me that file?" from subs…

This is incoherent. Is the ask the item being requested, or is it a demand? Neither of these are how it's used in the article, either. Which mostly goes to show that it's not a word with a definition as we think of it -- it's a word that displays familiarity with the tech scene and is used as a social signal.

It's not incoherent, it's an idiom.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#78

Post by gcv »

pbreit wrote: post #59
gcv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nasty language change which has spread, kind of like "I spoke to she about that problem" is spreading. Not specific to SV, but extremely common here.

"ask" as a noun is fine (even outside of finance). I've never seen or heard "spoke to she" and Google doesn't seem to turn up anything.

I hear it occasionally. I hear its equally-appalling equivalent all the time: "Please join Mary and I in welcoming John to our team."

Of course, prescriptive grammar is for the birds, anyway.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#79

Post by lumens »

It's nice to have a reference like this, but as the comments on this thread display, everyone has their own preferred variant(s).

It's silly to think that there is a "one size fits all" email intro framework. Different contexts require different amounts of background information and introducer participation.

Really, the greater theme at play is the need for people to think more about how their actions (here, nearly effortless electronic ones) effect others. Sending email intros without understanding the benefits and detriments to both sides is impolite at best and downright rude at worst.

The Golden Rule applies, even to email.

Re: Email Introduction Etiquette

#80

Post by klochner »

digikata wrote: post #60
bentcorner wrote: post #22

I find the social dynamics of To/CC/BCC really interesting. You only see it in Emails and it doesn't exist in any other communication medium. Most social communication platforms I can think of the top of my head only really support the "To" part of email.

BCC is pretty close to the social dynamics of in-person conversations that sound like: "Don't tell I told you but FYI ...".

It's not typically used that way -- bcc is used to prevent disclosing all recipient emails, and it also prevents spamming all recipients on replies:

    to:  sender_address@domain.com
    bcc: recipient1@, recipient2@, . . .
Ever been part of a giant cc list that everyone replies to and hammers your inbox? bcc would have avoided that.
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