Dear Aunt Bee, Thank you for the sweater.

https://tinyurl.com/z9m89k2z

This seems to be specifically about emailing colleagues. Does anyone even do that anymore?

    Do not use email for long back and forth…

I'd much rather something be a few email messages than a phone meeting.

Best if the subject line is the conclusion and the message supports that.

Subject: feature X dropped from v4.4

Body: we all know this feature is delayed and will cause the release to slip. Marketing gave us the OK to defer it to 4.5

I find that making the very last sentence a question makes it much more likely that I'll get a response than if the question is anywhere else in the email. The person needs to finish reading the email with the question, which prompts them to hit reply and answer it.

The immediate-response-rate goes down even more if the input being sought is not framed as a question ("I've been trying to figure out how to handle this situation" versus "Which do you think is the better route?").

Of course, some people will still respond regardless, but I've found that in both personal and business emails, keeping an email short and finishing with a question mark is the best way to ensure a rapid response.

Default structure

Subject: [Action, Decision, Update, Risk]: [topic]

[First sentence: the ask or punchline.]

[Two to five lines of facts, with names, numbers, and dates.]

[Recommendation or next step.]

[Owner and deadline.]

Dollars to donuts the next generation of AI models will use this template as is, humans will forget to replace the placeholders and you’ll start getting a ton of emails with some of the placeholders verbatim.

As I was reading, I mostly thought "well, it might make sense sometimes; well, it's an opinion"

And then I reached:

> 10. AI is fine. Generic language is not.

> It is fine to use AI to draft or review an email.

> But edit it until it sounds specific and human.

Ok, maybe we shouldn't take advice from someone, who authoritatively states it is fine to put slop in the email?

> We write emails so the reader can understand the point in seconds, decide quickly, and forward the message without extra explanation.

I stopped reading right there. He's plain wrong about much (the majority?) of the world.