Comments

Really - they should have offered a private jet to zip you to a resort locale in case you wanted to visit with them [ideas and details].

Posted by sean at August 28, 2006 12:15 PM

Thud.

Thud.

as these two editors fall out of their chair for missing (messing?) a huge opportunity.

Posted by Chris Houchens at August 28, 2006 12:15 PM

From now on, I'll be sure that "include an email address" is in my response when someone asks me how to send you a book.

Posted by cathy mosca at August 28, 2006 12:31 PM

As a member of the unsuccessful 95% ... happy to re-submit mine Tom :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 28, 2006 1:45 PM

Trevor - you know no limits - shamelessly selling at every opportunity & each day toasting yourself with a "glass" [liter] of vino :>}

Posted by sean at August 28, 2006 2:04 PM

Sean - but we Brits are known for our 'reserve' :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 28, 2006 2:10 PM

'Reserve' a copy of the "Three Honchos" manifesto as Frisbee of choice for "Frisbee Golf with Tiger" :>]

Posted by sean at August 28, 2006 2:18 PM

Appreciate Tom's predicament - but some purchasing agents are worse ... Faxed P.O.'s with incomplete specifications, blurred telephone numbers and no email addresses. Fortunately Google usually comes to the rescue ...

Posted by Mike L at August 28, 2006 3:23 PM

Cathy, you are too kind. (No surprise.) My point was nastier: Anybody who doesn't include an email address in their correspondence in August 2006 deserves their sorry fate.

Posted by tom peters at August 28, 2006 4:26 PM

As someone who uses e-mail as her preferred medium of communication (no time issues with e-mail), I completely understand.

I vote you give Trevor's book another look.
I treasure shamelessness.

Posted by Kimber at August 28, 2006 10:50 PM

I would go Tom one better. I find it unacceptable in my practice for someone not to email a pdf of a letter he is already both mailing and faxing -- and I always do the same. Indeed, the only time I don't use email [and put correspondence on letterhead] is when I feel the need to make correspondence more "formal."

Posted by Richard Cauley at August 29, 2006 12:53 AM

Thanks Kimber - nothing ventured, nothing gained – my late beloved Dad always said ‘if you do nothing you get nothing.’

I’m proud to be shameless :-)

I hope you don’t mind me widening this discussion slightly; E-mail etiquette is a subject close to my heart. I have written about it many times on my Blog. Taking out of the equation the obvious junk mail that as adults we can all recognise, I feel that not replying to an e mail is no different to ignoring someone who looks you in the eye and says hello. I must have had a bad day when I wrote this one http://simplicityitk.blogspot.com/2006/03/frustration.html

I think modern technology has made rudeness and bad manners more prevalent with. I always reply to personal e-mails. I take the view if someone has taken time to write to me the very least I can do is to acknowledge it. Hitting the reply button and saying thanks takes no longer than hitting the delete button. Sorry but to me there really is no defence. ‘I’m too busy’ is an excuse we can all use – everyone is busy. As an example I recently wrote a short e mail congratulating Seth Godin on his book and within hours Seth replied with just a few words – that’s all it takes

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 29, 2006 2:38 AM

Tom, do you need me to send you another copy of "The Courage to Succeed" Success Secrets of a Three-time Olympian?

Posted by Ruben Gonzalez at August 29, 2006 6:23 AM

This is a good story to keep in mind:

Help People Say Yes!!

We may not be as busy as Tom but everyone's time is valuable; don't make it hard to say Yes.

Posted by Ted at August 29, 2006 9:06 AM

It's amazing how often people (and I'm not excluding myself here) do all the hard work and forget the simple things that make success easier.

Posted by Prospero at August 29, 2006 10:34 AM

To Richard Cauley:
You expect people to mail, fax, and email pdfs of the SAME document? Doesn't this cut their productivity to one-third what it could have been?
And yours, too? How do you ever know when you are getting new news, vs old news, old-old news, and old-old-old news.

Richard

Posted by Richard at September 1, 2006 10:19 PM

Lawyers are funny like that. In some cases we "need" to snail-mail documents. I just fax and email to make sure they actually got it timely. And often, if it doesn't get to me by email, I don't get it.

Posted by Richard Cauley at September 2, 2006 11:50 AM