Email may be an efficient method of communication but it is frequently not the most effective.

Because email lacks tone and nuance it is very easy to misinterpret the mood of the individual on the other end. For example, I am frequently trying to get through my emails quickly so they are terse – short and to the point. I’ve had people ask me to be more patient or they think I’m in a bad mood. And that it isn’t the case at all – I’m just trying to answer emails and move on to the next task.

I haven’t figured out a way to seem less impatient or grumpy in my email other than using exclamation points – “thanks!”. Perhaps if I express excitement than I won’t be perceived as out of sorts.

There are, however, words or phrases that will set me on edge when they are in the emails that I receive.

1. Quick Question – this is often used as the subject line and in the body of the email. It’s never quick. And somehow the word quick implies that I will be able to answer it immediately.
2. Easy – this is usually a question like “Is it easy to edit my style sheet?” or “Is brain surgery easy?” ;-) Well, I think editing a style sheet is easy because I have a lot of experience doing that. But, that doesn’t mean someone else will think it’s easy. You might think knitting is easy and I’ve never been able to figure it out. Whether something is easy is based on experience and I really can’t answer that for you.
3. Hard – “How hard would it be to …?” This is like easy. It will probably be harder than answering the email but not as hard as quantum physics. Again, this is based on experience and interests.
4. ASAP – I know this is often used as a way of saying “as soon as you can get to it” but it bothers me. It implies that what you need is way more important than what I am currently working on.
5. Simple – When someone tells me that what they need done is “simple”, it implies that my skills are lacking and that it shouldn’t cost very much. Really, if it’s so simple, why don’t you just take care of it yourself?

The other thing I don’t like about email is that sarcasm is completely lost. Since I am a sarcastic person, my “jokes” often fall completely flat in my emails.

In the mid 1990′s when I first started using email I thought it was so exciting and loved getting them. Now, not so much and I kinda yearn for an actual letter. ;-)

What words or phrases do you dislike reading in your email?

photo credit: ktommy

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

5 Words or Phrases I Don’t Want to See in my Email

This week I have science fiction, WordPress, muppets, advertising and more.

Enjoy

• 55 Science Fiction/Fantasy Movies to Watch Out For in 2011 – Most of these don’t really interest me even though I love sci fi (I’d rather read it than watch it) but I am intrigues by Cowboys and Aliens.
• The anatomy of a WordPress theme – An infographic explaining all of the parts that make up a WordPress theme.
• The Muppet Show, Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock – How well do you know your monsters? Take this quiz and say whether the monster was on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock. I got 8/10, which is pretty good considering I never watched Fraggle Rock ;-)
• 7 Reasons You Should Never Check Email First Thing In The Morning – A case for not making checking your email the first thing you do. I have to admit that I do – I often have 30 mins between the time I get up and the time I need to start getting my daughter ready for school. I usually sort through it, delete a bunch and answer any that can be done quickly. I frequently use this time to answer comments as well.
• How My Handwriting Has Changed Since Kindergarten – A funny post from The Oatmeal about penmanship.
• In London, Joggers Run Errands for the Isolated and Immobile – An absolutely simple yet brilliant idea.
• Frog Rides a Snake to Escape Floods in Australia – An amazing photo of two creatures helping each other during a crisis.
• Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising – A funny tumblr site that pokes fun at advertising.
• Dog “Sings” While “Playing” the Piano
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social Lists 1/16/11

This week I have WordPress themes, free eBooks, email, Johnny Depp and more.

Enjoy!

• 0 Views – YouTube videos that at the time added to this site had zero views. Scrape the bottom of the YouTube barrel.
• 10 Useful Free Graphic Design Books – Free graphic design eBooks
• BrainHex – Take the quiz to find out what type of videogame player you are. I got Mastermind Achiever.
• If You Do This in an Email, I Hate You – Funny post from The Oatmeal about email.
• 40 Green Eco Free WordPress Theme – A nice collection of WordPress themes.
• Guest Curator: On Creativity and Savoury Broccoli Cakes – I’m not sure how these would taste but I’ve got to try making them – they are so cool looking.
• The Ugly Side Of The New Facebook Groups – All I can say is I wish Facebook would understand the concept of opt-in rather than forcing us to opt-out.
• 10 (Plus) Great Free eBooks: My Top Picks for Freelancers – More free ebooks – this time for freelancing.
• Yesterday would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday. His death was a pivotal moment in my childhood – I realized how violent and random the world truly was. I wonder what Yoko Ono is knitting.
  
• Reason #1349 why I love Johnny Depp. The video quality isn’t great but he visited a school in London because one of the children wrote him a letter asking him to lead a mutiny against the teacher.
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social Lists 10/10/10

About 10 or so days ago Facebook started emailing page admins a weekly page update. I was curious about what information would be included in this email but didn’t receive one until a week later.

The email I received was actually quite long. I realized that I am still an Admin on almost every Facebook page that I have worked on.

It occurred to me that I should email my clients and ask them whether or not they still want me to be an admin on their pages. That, of course, will go on my list of things to do when I’m really super bored, which is basically never ;-) No, seriously, I will contact them. Personally, I think if someone is done working on your fan page that you should remove them as an admin. I also look to be removed when I have finished the work because I don’t want any any errors that are caused by the client or by Facebook to be blamed on me. If I’m not an admin I have no access to make any edits so the error couldn’t possibly be my fault.

Anyway … the email wasn’t that exciting. If you are monitoring your fan page, which you should be doing or it’s not going to really work for you, you will already know the information contained in the email. The email looked like this:

Here is this week’s summary for the Facebook Page: (Anti) Social Development

+36 Fans this week (745 total Fans)
10 Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (23 last week)
1,465 Visits to your page this week (1,200 Visits last week)

Update your Fans:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?Anti.Social.Development&v=wall&mid=215c534G25801a98G450675eG66&n_m=kwbridge%40gmail.com

Visit your Insights Page:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?business%2Finsights%2F&pages&i=84300445447&mid=215c534G25801a98G450675eG66&n_m=kwbridge%40gmail.com

Get more Fans with Facebook Ads:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?ads%2Fcreate%2F&src=pg_edit&fbid=84300445447&mid=215c534G25801a98G450675eG66&n_m=kwbridge%40gmail.com

I liked seeing the numbers for new fans for the week and the number of visits but somehow I expected this email to be more exciting or prettier or something. I guess with Facebook we should be happy with what we get.

And if I was actively working on the pages that I am an Admin of, it would be useful to see all the stats information in one email.

The email also reminded me that I had started a fan page on another topic and then didn’t do anything with it – I should probably spend some time on that project.

Are you a Facebook page admin? Did you receive the page update email? Did you think it was useful?

photo credit: Jdmrhd

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

Weekly Facebook Page Update

This week I have WordPress, Twitter, Morgan Freeman, coconuts and much much more.

• How to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org – A comprehensive tutorial on moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. The tutorial includes two screencasts.
• How to Fully Secure Your WordPress Blog WordPress security is important and is a popular topic. Here is a security guide from someone who learned things the hard way.
• Do it Yourself: 12 WordPress Solutions Without Using Plugins – 12 Ways to implement common WordPress features, such as related posts, without using plugins.
• 5 Creative Ways to Use Your Twitter Favorites – I don’t really use the favorites feature on Twitter but this list of ways to use them almost makes me wish that I did.
• Bizarre Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters – A really interesting article about octopus and coconut shells.
• Instant Chewbacca – I do a terrible Chewbacca impression. This site can help me practice.
• The Morgan Freeman Chain of Command Morgan Freeman has been in a lot of films and has had a lot of great roles. This is a funny chart creating a chain of command out of them.
• Nutshell Mail – This is a way to manage your social networks through email. If you are really busy, one email digest can notify you about updates on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace; new followers, birthdays, news stream, direct messages, replies, etc. I haven’t tried this but it seems like a great way to manage all of this information.
• A clever kitten
  
• Pug vs. Laser
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social Lists 12/27/09

Quite a few people subscribe to blogs via email as well as RSS – I have a number of them.

Call me slow on the uptake, but recently I noticed a couple of features for feedburner email that will allow for some minor customizations.

You can add a logo for your site and you can add the title of your article to the subject line and heading of the email.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Login to Feedburner. (Create an account first if you don’t already have one.)
2. Click on the name of your feed.
3. Switch to the Publicize Tab
   
4. Click on Email Subscriptions in the left side navigation.
5. Click on Email Branding on the submenu in the left side navigation
   

There are a number of things you can set to customize your feedburner email.

1. Email Subject/Title – if you add ${latestItemTitle} to the email subject line, the name of the article will be in the subject line and title of the email. If there is more than one post, you can click on the box that says Change Subject Line when email has 2 or more items, and you will get additional choices for customization. Before I added the title my subject line only had the name of this site.
2. Logo URL

– You can add the URL to a logo that exists on a server that Feedburner can access. The logo has to be in .jpg, .gif, and .png formats and shouldn’t be bigger than 200 by 200px.

3. Headline Font and Size – you have a choice of 5 fonts for the headline and can adjust the size.
4. Body Font and Size – you can set the font and the font size for the body text like you can for the headline.
5. Body Color – the color of the email background can be changed.
6. Item Headline/Body Link Color – the color for the all the links can be set to any color.

The bottom of the Email Branding screen will show you what you changes look like. Here is mine with the title of the post added to the headline and my logo.

Make sure you save all of your changes.

Now you have a slightly customized feedburner email.

photo credit: K a t e y

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Add Your Logo and Other Customizations to Your Feedburner Email

This week I have a lot of WordPress information, email newsletters, bicycle commuting and some great videos.

• Facespace – A funny look at what might happen if Facebook and Myspace merged.
• Excerpts and Taxonomies for Pages in WordPress 2.9 – A tutorial on using excerpts and taxonomies with pages in WordPress 2.9
• 16 WordPress Sites to Help You Build a Better Blog – 16 great sites about WordPress. Some of my favorites are on this list.
• How to Secure Your New WordPress Installation – Techniques for securing WordPress during and immediately after installation.
• A Guide to Creating Email Newsletters – A great guide for getting started with email newsletters. The article even discusses email newsletter software, such as MailChimp.
• Philadelphia Vanquishes New York With Highest Bicycle-Commute Rate – An article about bike riding here in Philly.
• 40 Free High Quality WordPress Themes – A great collection of free WordPress themes.
• Hopefully you can park better than this.
  
• This kitty loves her food.
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social Lists 11/22/09

I love to read and will read anything, if a book that I want to read is available. I would even read a Chilton car manual, which are kind of interesting.

I also have a terrible addiction to magazines but have mostly broken that habit. As the subscriptions expire I will probably only continue to receive The New Yorker (maybe), Bookmarks and maybe Edge. I don’t have time to read them, they aren’t environmentally sound (although I do pass my issues along) and I can get a lot of the same information online.

But, I will not give up my subscription to Bookmarks and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to read.

This is because it provides outstanding review information and they have awesome customer service.

Bookmarks compiles book reviews from major newspapers and magazines. Every other month they rate the books and provide reviews of the best of the best. It also contains author interviews, a book club profile, and a special section such as Science Fiction or the Civil War. Because of Bookmarks my reading list is even longer than it used to be and I will never read all the books that I want to.

Runaway Mail

Recently a couple of pieces of mail have gone astray. I suppose it could be the mail carrier but I’ve lived here for 7 years and haven’t had a problem. And I know things can happen. One time I ordered some back issues of a Tori Amos fan magazine and realized that a long time had gone by and I hadn’t received them. For some reason, which is unlike me, I didn’t follow up on it. Months later I received the charred remains sealed in plastic with a note from the post office telling me that the mail truck that my stuff had been on had caught fire and this is what was left. Seriously, the post office delivered charred scraps of paper.

I’ve had an invoice from our health insurance not arrive, missed a couple issues of The New Yorker and realized that I had not received Bookmarks since the end of last year. Since it is every other month, it isn’t as noticeable when it is missing.

The health insurance people told me that they’ve had trouble with the billing department, that they didn’t take payments by phone and that payment still had to arrive by the due date or the insurance would be canceled. Nice </sarcasm>

The New Yorker was very polite, extended my subscription by a couple of issues and told me to let them know whether or not the next issue arrived. When it didn’t arrive, I emailed them back, as requested, and got a somewhat nasty response telling me that they WERE being sent and the problem is on my end and that they can’t do anything about it. Really? I’ve been subscribing for years and this is the best they can offer? They did, however, manage to add my email address to their email list, which won’t stop sending me emails. “last chance to order before Mother’s Day”. And then two days later, “last change to order before Mother’s Day.” But I thought my last chance was 2 days ago, and my Mom passed away (thanks SO much for THAT reminder) and I get enough email so please stop bothering me. ;-)

Bookmarks and Customer Service

And then there is Bookmarks. Not only do I love the magazine but the editor Jon Phillips is the greatest. Now, I had an issue go missing way back (well a couple of years ago) when I first subscribed and I contacted them via the contact information on the website. And the editor, Jon Phillips, is the one who replied. He was apologetic, said he would send me the missing issue, and it arrived in a couple of days.

Since I still had Jon’s email address, I emailed him directly this time. I wasn’t sure what would happen – I was still a little gun-shy from my New Yorker experience and I felt bad because this was the 2nd time I was complaining about missing issues.

Jon replied within a couple of hours, was apologetic, annoyed with the post office and genuinely appreciative of my love of the magazine. He also told me that you can request the post office put a watch on certain items in your mail, which I did not know. And even though the problem could have been on my end he located the two missing issues from his stash, mailed them to me and they arrived in a couple of days. Awesome!

This is how customer service should be done. I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker on and off for over 10 years. I’ve subscribed to Bookmarks for maybe two. While I will definitely continue to subscribe to Bookmarks. I may decide I’ve had enough with The New Yorker. I guess I’ll have to see how bad their emails annoy me come Father’s Day ;-) (Yes, I can stop receiving the emails but maybe there will be something useful. What I have a problem with is the frequency of them.)

So, if you love to read or know someone who does, subscribe to Bookmarks. It’s a great compilation of the best book reviews and it has an editor who obviously loves his job and his customers.

I am in no way affiliated with Bookmarks and was not paid to write this article nor was I asked to. But the experience made me think about customer service. And I thought it would be good way to pay back Jon Philips and Bookmarks by maybe sending some new subscribers his way.

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

Bookmarks Magazine: An Example of Awesome Customer Service

On my online WordPress journeys I come across a number of WordPress plugins.

Some are interesting, some are annoying, and some are very useful. Here I have listed 5 that are definitely interesting and could be useful for some users.

Areas covered by these plugins are twitter, tweetbacks, spoilers, email to staff, and statistics.

1. WP Twitip ID – This plugin, which is by the same author as CommentLuv, adds a field to your comment form to allow users to input their twitter username. Tawny Press at Innoventions provides detailed instructions on adding the twitter field manually. I followed these instructions before the plugin was created and they worked great – my problem was I couldn’t decide where to display the twitter username in the comments. Silly, huh? So, if you love twitter and want your commenters to join you there, you can use this plugin or follow Tawny’s manual instructions.
2. Tiny Spoiler – This plugin allows you to add spoilers to your content and then show or hide it with a plus or minus sign. I don’t have a use for this right now but this would be ideal for a gaming site that includes hints and walkthrough information.
3. Mail to Staff – I don’t have a use for this plugin either because I am the only user of this site but this plugin will allow you to email all users. It provides an easy method of internal staff communication. In the back of my mind I keep thinking someone asked me about something like this in the last couple of months but it isn’t coming to me. That’s not that surprising since I can’t really even remember what I had for lunch ;-)
4. Blog Stats – This plugin is for the stats junkie (you know who you are). This plugin provides stats on RSS subscriptions, page rank, Alexa rank, and technorati rank – you know, all those stats we say we don’t care about but secretly obsess over. The plugin provides the stats within the WordPress admin and updates them daily.
5. Tweetbacks for WordPress – This plugin works like trackbacks in that anytime a link to your article is tweeted, that link is added to your tweetback section in the comments. It works with all of the major URL shortening services. I have not tried this yet because it has some pretty detailed installation instructions but I am going to test this one. I would like keeping track of when my articles are mentioned on twitter. If I do test it, I will provide a more detailed review.

So, do you think any of these seem useful? Have you tried any of them or do you think you will?

photo credit: ConspiracyofHappiness

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

5 Interesting WordPress Plugins

It seems that backing up is going to be the theme for the week.

I have frequently mentioned that there is a plugin to automate backing up the WordPress database but that there wasn’t an automated solution for backing up the template and plugin directories.

Well, now there is a plugin that will assist in backing up your themes, plugins and uploads directories.

WordPress Backup is a new plugin that will backup your themes, plugins and uploads directories. You can schedule the backups in three intervals; hourly, daily and weekly. (Can anyone tell me why you would need an hourly backup?) The backups can be emailed to you, if the files aren’t too large. Links are also provided on the plugin’s options page, which provides a simple click to download right from the WordPress admin. Two of the three were emailed to me when I tested the plugin; themes and plugins. Apparently the Uploads backup was too large so I downloaded it with the provided link – the file was over 19MB. (I definitely need to examine what I have stored in there.)

The backup email looks like the following:

I was impressed by the email. The subject line told which directory was included in the email, the email contained the date and time and was very professional, and the zip file was attached.

After installing the plugin the paths to the directories need to be set. The plugin found my paths so it seems that on standard WordPress installations that this won’t be a problem. It did, however, require a backup directory to be created in wp-content and the directory needed to have full (777) permissions. Update: Donace noted that a folder with full permissions in wp-content could be a security risk. I created a folder above /public_html/, gave it full permissions, and changed the path in the settings for the plugin. The backups still worked without any problems. The options page provided all of this information and I didn’t have to go back to the plugin page or the read me file to figure this out. I created the directory, saved the options and the plugins and themes backups were emailed to me and a link was provided to backup all three directories.

So far, I am impressed with the ease of use and the function of this plugin. The author says it can be memory intensive but if it is run weekly, I don’t see this as being a problem. And personally, I don’t see a reason to back any of these files up more often than weekly. I do, however, want to test it over a longer time period and make sure the memory doesn’t become an issue.

What do you think? Does this make the backups easier? Is this something that you would use?

photo credit: godog

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

WordPress Backup Plugin for Themes, Plugins and Uploads