Using the E-mail as a Productivity Tool

Recently, I put out a teaser to all the staff in my place of work. I wanted to see how well the e-mail could function as a productivity tool. Here's the gist of the teaser: Why are the snow monkeys in Kyoto's Monkey Park more disciplined than their Malaysian counterparts? Well, not all the staff answered, but those who did certainly contributed to my insight into using the email as a productivity tool.The following is a summary of what I have learnt:                                                         1. Knowledge. The diversity of replies has increased my knowledge of monkeys and animal psychology.                                                                                                                             2. Brainstorming. This is the first time I’ve tested the e-mail as a productivity tool. The replies I
 received and the discussions I’ve had with a few respondents is just like in a face-to-face brainstorming session. The idea is not to judge any in-coming replies even if some ideas may appear to be ridiculous. And this is most true for me. Sometimes it’s the seemingly ridiculous ideas that trigger off a useful idea. In my case, it has given me an idea about storyboarding my English modules. The brainstorming has also encouraged me to write an article (answer to the teaser) instead of just writing a 2-sentence reply that I had originally planned to do. It was while writing the article that I got a brainwave for the following: 3. Classroom Management. Can we use the idea learnt from the way the Japanese use to ‘train’ the snow monkeys in Monkey Park? Most certainly This would be particularly useful when you have a large class of unruly students (monkeys?).
Click here to  read an account of my visit to Monkey Park.

The Importance of Having a Good Subject Line in Your Email

"Don't Miss This!"

"Your $12 into $4000 in 7 Days Online!"

Don't they look familiar? Like me, you probably receive countless spam emails in your Inbox on a daily basis. Yet, we can learn from these spammers in crafting our emails. Without fail, most of the spam that I receive has arresting subject lines like those above. Yet, I have received emails from friends and non-spammers that either don't have a subject line or a subject line that doesn't spell out the purpose of their  intended message.

Let's say you are writing an email to a client to correct an error in the invoice sent out by your company and you have this as your subject line: "Invoice". This subject line does not give an indication of the purpose in sending out your email. The subject line could be rephrased thus: "Error in Invoice No. 45601". This would tell the reader what the email is really about.

A good subject line will also get the reader's attention. Quite often I have deleted emails that don't have a clear or arresting subject line. You may write a good email message, but there's still the danger of your email being deleted without the recipient having read your message if you have a lame or an ineffective subject line.