Collaboration Tools and Process

Tips for Facilitating an Environmental Email List

jons — 2008-08-29T21:48:01Z

The popularity of email lists within the Northwest environmental community has increased enormously in recent years and are an important organizing tool. However, as the number of email lists has proliferated, the quality and focus of these lists has not necessarily improved along with it. There is considerable duplication of effort, and well-managed email lists take a long time to find. The combination of these factors has often caused activists to spend a lot of time in front of a computer rather than building relationships with people.

This manual was created to help Northwest environmental organizers learn to use email discussion lists more effectively. Its goal is not to encourage an increased volume of email. Rather, we want to encourage more strategic use of email, to make it more effective as an organizing tool.

Table of Contents

I. Tips for Moderating Email Discussion Lists
-- What is moderation?
-- Encouraging relevant discussion
-- Curtailing excess verbiage
-- Evening the flow of discussion
II. Large Scale Email Organizing (500 or more subscribers)
III. Technical considerations

Please note that this document mainly addresses discussion lists (lists which allow all subscribers to post), rather than broadcast lists (one-to-many email newsletters). Specific tips for email newsletters will be covered in a future article.

I. TIPS FOR MODERATING EMAIL DISCUSSION LISTS

Small to moderate-sized lists can be either moderated or unmoderated, but typically allow all subscribers to post. Regardless of whether a list is moderated, an email list moderator should play an active role in discussions, trying to promote relevant discussion and ensuring that the list is not being abused. The following sections will outline what the role of a facilitator should be in a discussion and will also provide some useful tips for email list moderators.

-What Is Facilitation?-

Progressive groups commonly use the term "facilitate" rather than "moderate" when referring to the person who "chairs" a meeting. Software or online services often employ the term "moderator". In common usage, the terms are nearly interchangeable.

The facilitator is concerned with promoting good process encouraging participation, allowing many people to participate and ensuring that the discussion remains democratic. Most of the software designed by various hosts usually attempts to apply some of the concepts of "in-person" facilitation to the Internet. This doesn't mean that facilitation online is the same as it would be in face-to-face situations; the medium is very different. However, email can be used successfully to encourage participatory dialogue and decision-making.

-Responsibilities of a List Facilitator-

Facilitation is what you make of it. On active discussions, it takes about 10 minutes a day to do a minimal job, 20 minutes to do a good job, 30 minutes to do a great job. Some discussions function as occasional alerts and the time commitment may be even lower. Facilitation is a skill that takes time to perfectthe more time you put into it, the better your discussion will be.

Key responsibilities of a list moderator/facilitator include:

1. Helping to create or revise the description used to promote your discussion and the welcome message people get when they subscribe.

2. Encouraging people to post (submit) material that is appropriate and relevant to guidelines in your welcome message -- and to be polite.

3. Cleaning the list when you get "bounces" due to bad email addresses or full mailboxes and helping users who have problems getting off the list.

4. Helping people subscribe or unsubscribe and answering any questions that pertain to that list.

5. Balancing power dynamics within the discussion -- often people who work 9-to-5 jobs that involve using computers have their opinions over-represented on lists.

6. Bringing debated topics to closure by summarizing and reposting the conclusions of important discussions.

Facilitators are also expected to be able to check their email regularly and to plan in advance when they are going to be away for more than 4 days to have someone help them. Facilitation can be shared with someone else if you configure the list hosting software to permit additional facilitators. You should also be able to make a commitment of several months.

Most people who have been involved in group meetings can exercise pretty good judgment about what is appropriate to put out on a list. The biggest obstacles are usually dealing with the email system, not because email itself is that complicated, but because the software that operates mailing lists can sometimes be confusing.

-Encouraging Relevant Discussion-

So, how in practice do you encourage people to send material to your list that "is appropriate and relevant to the topic of the list"? At first, the challenge is to get the discussion going. When new people subscribe, a "welcome" message could ask them to introduce themselves; since people are understandably "net-shy," a little gentle prodding may be necessary to make the introductions really happen.

Asking people questions that directly pertain to the topic of your list will help your discussion stay focused. For example, if you run a creative action list and you don't explicitly encourage people to share creative action ideas, what you end up getting on your list may mirror the rest of the Internet -- activism ideas may comprise less than 5% of the content, and creative actions less than 1%. By merely asking people to report what creative actions they have organized or participated in and then asking them to say how they were able to do it, you should be able to increase the flow of information related to "orchestrating creative actions" to at least 20%.

Here are some general suggestions on how you can open up discussion:

-- Announce on the list and elsewhere that the list will be used for discussion of a particular issue or event that is imminent and start this discussion off with an initial message introducing the issue or event and how it affects or has inspired activism

-- Establish a reserve of flyers and articles in your computer, either ones you have made or ones collected from other Web sites or lists, that you can send to the list whenever there is a lull.

-- Scan other lists on the Internet, picking out relevant articles to repost, sometimes tagging on provocative questions to generate feedback

-- Establish a list "editorial board" of some active users who are responsible for posting interesting material to the list

-- Encourage people to post drafts of their work to the list for comments (poster ideas, pamphlets, or analyses of previous actions)

-- Give private feedback to people who have posted good stuff, encouraging more

-- Advertise the list to get new subscribers with a fresh perspective

-- Conduct some sort of inquiry or survey requesting info on what's happening "out there." This can be as simple as saying "Do you know about any interesting actions or campaigns that are currently taking place?" (this works very well)

-- Remind people occasionally about the potential for email to build social movements

-- Put policies in the "welcome" file for new subscribers setting up guidelines to limit the length of messages, posted, or to prohibit the forwarding of messages, articles, etc. from other places to the discussion.

-Curtailing Excess Verbiage-

The flip side of the problem of getting a discussion going is the problem of preventing long discussions, which digress from the main purpose of the list. You may just have a problem with a few people posting too often, or people posting messages that are too long. Or you may have people who wish to disrupt the discussion.

History has shown that when progressive discussions on the Internet are effective, they get attacked and subverted by ideological individuals who criticize every point and every assumption, to the extent that a constructive discussion is no longer possible. For example, on the ACTNOW-L campus activism list, there were 100 messages posted per day for a few weeks debating libertarian positions on gun control. This activity effectively forced people interested in having their mailbox free for discussions about student activism to take themselves off the ACTNOW-L mailing list. Readership fell off 70% during this period.

To help your discussion stay focused, prevent it from circulating impertinent material, and to make sure it remains a friendly environment, we suggest that you adopt clearly stated list guidelines. These guidelines should be emailed to all new members, periodically be sent out to the list, be kept on a Web site for the list (if one exists).

We suggest that you consider including the following guidelines for email discussion lists.

A message may be judged inappropriate if it is:

-- not relevant to the subject of the list at hand.

-- dated (no longer relevant)

-- shameless self-promotion or a fund-raising gimmick.

-- a personal attack (it is O.K. to criticize someone's ideas, but not OK to call the person stupid.)

-- too long (anything over 35K should be checked to see if it needs to be that long)

-- contains large attachments

-- part of an endless back and forth argument that has grown tired

-- a me too message that doesnt add anything substantive to the discussion

-- part of too-frequent postings by the same individual (i.e. more than 7x a week) unless that person has made an extraordinary contribution

-- a local event of local interest posted to a non-local group

-- already cross-posted to many other discussions lists

-- in violation of guidelines you have established for your discussion.

If you need a sample set of list guidelines to work from, we have published a set of Sample Guidelines for Large Email Discussion Lists.

Even if you are running an unmoderated list and cannot prevent inappropriate messages from being posted, you can still remind people on the list about proper protocol if the list seems to be receiving too many inappropriate messages. Alternatively, you can email individuals if you see that they are repeatedly violating guidelines and, in a worst case scenario, unsubscribe them from the list.

Also, the Internet tends to produce a lot of action alerts that may draw people away from local activism. Repeatedly sending out action alerts that are about issues other than the one your list focuses on can result in your list becoming "just another hodgepodge activist list" that does not serve any specific purpose.

To help compensate for the globalizing tendency of the Internet, only post action alerts that are pertinent to your lists topic. Alerts should be relevant to your issue, constituency, or local area. By focusing on localized goals, action alerts can be much more effective. If a list is sending out ten action alerts a day notifying subscribers about another national campaign or an action that is taking place 1,500 miles away, it is unlikely that the one action alert out of 50 that is pertinent to the reader will actually get read. However, if a list focuses on a specific issue or local area, and only transmits action alerts that are relevant to that list, there is a greater probability that the action alert will be read and acted on.

Finally, a danger in Internet-inspired activism (or with groups focused exclusively on lobbying) is the tendency to bounce around to whatever "fashionable" issue has won this month's competition for national or international attention. You can counteract this tendency by periodically reminding people of the importance of staying focused on outlined goals and objectives, rather than becoming caught up in discussing the latest action-of-the-month.

-Evening the Flow of Discussion-

Finding the middle ground between an excess and an insufficient number of postings can be difficult. Listed below are a few suggestions that might help you to achieve equilibrium. These tips will also make messages sent by your list more absorbable.

-- Limit postings to no more than one or two per day per person (or per week for larger lists). This forces list members to wait for commentary by others and provides an opportunity for people who are able to check their email only once a day to participate equally with those members who are online 10 hours a day.

-- Set the list to default as a "digest" if your list software permits. This will cause all the messages in one day to be delivered in one large "batch" every 24 hours. The Hanford Watch list, dealing with controversies involving cleanup of radioactive waste, uses this approach. It makes the volume of 8-10 messages per day more "digestible."

II. LARGE SCALE EMAIL ORGANIZING

Tips for lists with 500 or more subscribers

Email lists with 500 or more subscribers seldom work well as discussion lists. Therefore, large email lists need to be configured differently than smaller lists. Similarly, if a list is intended to be used for organizing large numbers of people, it must be designed in a special way. There are several ways to approach a list this size.

The easiest way to administer a list of this size is to run the list as a broadcast list. Only the list owner can post to a broadcast list. Broadcast lists are thus often known as email newsletters. How frequently email newsletters are published depends on the interest level of subscribers, the amount of information that needs to be circulated, the time sensitiveness of material and how much time the facilitator/editor can spend developing newsletters.

A second alternative, which is primarily useful for moderated discussion lists that have grown too large to be administered in the manner that they previously were, is to have multiple moderators for a single list. Moderators can then share facilitation tasks, reducing individual time commitment and improving the quality of the list. In many cases when lists have become unmanageable because the facilitator no longer can devote the time necessary for administering the list, changing the design of the list to have multiple moderators can save the list. ONE/Northwests email list hosting software allows this feature to be turned on at your request.

Breaking down discussions into smaller, more focused subgroups and then sending out the most pertinent mail from each discussion to all the lists is another way to deal with large scale e-organizing. This is a good solution because it creates a greater sense of community and allows stronger relationships to develop through the list. Encouraging specialized or local discussions is an important way to reduce the amount of email that activists receive and to streamline the Internet to make e-activism more effective. Smaller lists with a narrower topic will be able to generate the most effective and directed discussions with the least amount of traffic. For instance, it is more sensible and efficient for a teacher to join a discussion for fourth grade math teachers (assuming that this is their specialty), than it does for the same teacher to join a nationwide discussion for teachers.

This is not to say that large lists are not as effective as smaller lists or vice versa, each has their virtues. It is just to highlight the importance of having a list designed for a specific purpose and running your list according to your goal. If your objective is to keep as many people as possible informed about your organization work or recent events, than a large list is ideal.

III. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR EMAIL LIST FACILITATORS

List facilitators are the point-people for keeping on top of the technical and administrative aspects of the list. Some suggested best practices include:

-- Include list rules and posting guidelines in the list's welcome message, and configure the list hosting software to send the welcome message to all new subscribers.

-- Make the list guidelines clear, and enforce them, but avoid being dictatorial.

-- Keep your current members informed of any changes in the guidelines.

-- If you set guidelines, follow them yourself. Don't expect that just because you're the moderator, you should be able to blatantly promote yourself, etc.

-- Include instructions for leaving the list in the footer of list messages.

-- Problems with list members should be handled off-list and kept private.

Some list facilitators put in place rather stringent technical rules to keep postings readable and to prevent confusion. These types of rules are usually most appropriate for larger lists with active moderation, but may include such practices as:

-- Email must be in plain text, not in HTML or in some other format that is not accessible by all list members.

-- Messages should include the authors full name and organizational affiliation (if any).

-- Replies should not quote an entire previous message. Unfortunately, some email programs make this easy to do by automatically including the original email at the end of all replies. You should edit the original message to only quote relevant pieces and put your comments in context.

-- Copyrighted material should not be posted to the list. In general, long articles should be referenced by URL, rather than copying large portions into an email.

-- Cross-postings (messages sent simultaneously to other lists) are discouraged.

List facilitators may also filter accidental postings, such as SPAM, list administration ("add me," "remove me," etc.) and replies mistakenly sent to the list instead of an individual.

Again, you may find it helpful to refer to our Sample Guidelines for Large Email Discussion Lists as a source of inspiration for creating your own list guidelines.

Conclusion

Running a successful email discussion list requires active moderation, both to draw out discussion and to keep distractions in check. Email list facilitators also have an important role to play in managing the administrative and technical aspects of discussion lists, which helps lists maintain a high "signal to noise" ratio.

Are there specific "best practices" that you've found helpful when you're facilitating email discussion lists? Do you have questions or comments about this article? Drop us a line at info@onenw.org -- and we'll refine this article based on your feedback!

This article is adapted from Tips on Facilitating a Social Change Email List by Marissa King and Rich Cowan of Organizers' Collaborative, which can be found at: http://www.organizerscollaborative.org/

Movement as Network

gideonr — 2008-07-21T17:52:52Z

In early 2004, ONE/Northwest’s executive director, Gideon Rosenblatt published a paper called “Movement as Network: Connecting People and Organizations in the Environmental Movement.” This think piece represents much of the philosophical underpinning of ONE/Northwest’s work in the decade ahead.

You can download the full paper in PDF format. Below is a synopsis of its core ideas.

Movement as Network: The environmental movement is not just some vague concept, but an actual entity. It is a network, made up of very real interconnections between people and organizations; a networked whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Fragmentation of the Movement: Today’s environmental organizations are so disconnected that they are barely recognizable as a movement – particularly by those within the movement itself. Some of this fragmentation is due to the broad diversity of environmental issues and the large number of places in which they occur. But a frustratingly large portion of the fragmentation is institutional. It stems from a lack of diversity in organizational models, which leads to competition for resources and resistance to building the kind of collaborations and value-added networks prevalent in newer industries within the private sector.

Fragmentation of Power: To engage on environmental issues in and around the places they live, citizens must choose from among a dizzying array of issue-specific organizations. While a small number of citizens do have a particular affinity for specific issues, most are frustrated by the movement’s failure to address their more holistic understanding and concerns around the environment. Citizens who do join the environmental movement are scattered across hundreds of tiny membership bases within issue-specific organizations. Their political clout is fragmented, thus critically weakening their political and economic power at the local and regional level.

Differentiated Roles in the Network: Movement as Network uses three prototypical organizational models as an analytical framework and prescription for addressing this fragmentation:

People Organizations serve as an interface between the environmental movement and various segments of society. They define themselves by the specific audiences they serve – and not by specific issues. In fact, they move from issue to issue, serving these audiences by “aggregating” issue-specific information and engagement opportunities supplied by Solution Organizations. People Organizations are largely missing at the local and regional environmental movement today, yet are essential to reaching new and broader audiences.
Solution Organizations define themselves by the issues they focus on and by the solutions they use to address these issues. Examples include land trusts, agency-specific watchdogs, and water policy experts. These organizations are critical to keeping long-term attention on specific problems, yet the large number of potential solutions and places in which they are needed is one of the key sources of the movement’s fragmentation.
Resource Organizations define themselves by the particular expertise or resources they bring to the rest of the network. Examples include foundations (which supply money) and capacity builders (which supply some particular expertise).

A Connected Network: These different types of organizations can be combined to form powerful new network clusters for the environmental movement:

People Organizations and Solution Organizations have the potential to form powerful new networks, where solutions are aggregated for specific audiences, much like retailers aggregate products for specific customer segments. These networks might start with news aggregation, with a People Organization pulling together and interpreting the most salient environmental happenings in a particular city or state. The organization would specialize in understanding what matters most to its audiences while pulling most, if not all, of its issue-specific expertise from Solution Organizations in its network. This collaboration could eventually lead to the aggregation of civic engagement opportunities, shifting fluidly from one campaign to another based on opportunity and audience interest.
Solution-Coordinating Networks help organizations with different solutions collaborate and target their different approaches on a particular issue. Forest campaigns, for example, might connect one group’s legal strategies with others’ public outreach and land acquisition work in a coordinated push for protection in a particular area. These types of solution networks typically take the form of short-term collaborations and account for the bulk of multi-organization campaigns in the environmental movement today.
Solution-Sharing Networks share knowledge and resources related to a particular solution to environmental problems. These networks tend to be geographically dispersed to minimize competition over resources. In some cases, the network is hub-like with the bulk of the expertise and innovation occurring in one centralized location. In others, the network is more peer-like with expertise shared in a more distributed fashion across organizations.
Resource Organizations are already pulling together loose outsourcing networks in which they supply needed expertise and resources to a variety of environmental organizations. ONE/Northwest works within this type of network, building skills and resources that can be distributed cost effectively through the Pacific Northwest environmental movement. Resource Organizations play a critical role in knitting the movement as a network. These organizations also need to be better networked to one another in order to provide clients with holistic and integrated services.

Network Building: The kinds of shifts in organizational behavior outlined in Movement as Network will not be easy. Entrenched ways of thinking and the sheer scale of the changes will lead many to conclude it is unrealistic and cannot be done. And yet, deep down inside we know that something is not right. We see that despite all its advances over the past quarter century, environmental protection is still dangerously dependent on short-term shifts in the political and economic climate. True and lasting environmental protection depends upon building a society that thrives in harmony with the natural world and this level of impact requires integrating environmental concerns into the fabric of society at a much deeper level than exists today. Working harder doesn’t get us there by itself. We need new models and new approaches. ONE/Northwest’s work over the next decade is focused on building the infrastructure, tools and strategies necessary to bring these new approaches into reality.

A Strategy for Using Email Lists

jons — 2007-06-26T17:46:41Z

1) Discussion list for your board of directors

All your board members should have email access. (If they dont, and you value their participation, you should do whatevers necessary to get them hooked up.) Every organization should have an email discussion list for its board; this is the single most effective way to keep your board up-to-date with the latest information, and for the board to have an ongoing conversation between meetings. Because ONE/Northwest-hosted email lists include archives, it is easy for new board members to catch up on past conversations.

If you have a larger board, and active board committees, you may want to consider creating an email list for each committee.

2) Discussion list for your staff

This might seem like overkill for small organizations, but we've found that routing less-urgent communications and updates through email helps reduce interruptions and makes staff meetings and phone calls more productive. Email lists are especially useful for groups who have field staff or other folks who don't come into the office every day.

3) Email newsletter for all organizational stakeholders

If your organization doesnt have a general email newsletter, published at least monthly, then youre probably missing an important piece in your communications strategy. Email newsletters help you sustain your ongoing relationships by providing regular, small doses of information. Studies have shown that folks who receive email newsletters are better informed about your organization, and more likely to support your organization when asked.

4) Email newsletter for volunteers

If your organization makes heavy use of a corps of volunteers, you should strongly consider creating an email newsletter or even a discussion list just for your volunteers. These folks have a special kind of relationship with your organization, and communicating with them regularly via email will help you sustain that bond over time.

ONE/Northwest provides donation-supported email list hosting for Northwest environmental organizations. To start an email list, or find out more, please see our Email List Help Guide.

Signing Documents Electronically with EchoSign

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:56Z

If your organization frequently generates contracts, memoranda of understanding, or other things that require signatures from partners, you've probably experienced the frustration and hassle of shuffling the paper necessary to get these documents signed. It often seems like this is the last possible use of the fax machine!

The continuing march of technological progress has finally started to offer some simple solutions to this problem. Here at ONE/Northwest, we've started to use a web-based service called EchoSign to manage the process of signing database and website development contracts with our partners.

EchoSign allows you to upload your document (signed or unsigned), request a signature and manage the entire signing process. It shows you when things have been signed, converts final copies to PDF and sends them to all parties. It also archives copies of your contracts online.

Digital signatures are legal. According to the EchoSign FAQ:

The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (“E-Signature Act”) became effective in the US on October 1, 2000 deeming online electronic signatures on commercial transactions and most other agreements have a legal status equivalent to a written signature.

Learn more about Electronic Signatures in the US and abroad.

EchoSign is free for up to 10 documents per month, and $19.95 per user per month for unlimited signatures. For power users who want to seamlessly integrate document signing with their database, EchoSign also offers integration with Salesforce.com.

More information at:

http://www.echosign.com

Avoiding the Dark Side of Email

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:54Z

USUAL SUSPECTS #19 - writings for activists by Jim Britell

This article is by Jim Britell, author of the excellent "Usual Suspects" series of articles about grassroots organizing. Read more from Jim on his Web site at http://www.britell.com/.

Background

Email differs from other written communications like letters because it does not have the inherent "second thought" protections automatically provided by the physical preparation, assembly, built-in delay, and cost which postal mail provides. A letter cannot be easily composed, written and dispatched in a few minutes as email can. Even a one-page fax takes a little time to create and imposes some costs to the sender.

Email is very different from speech too because written and spoken words are different. Spoken words have the ability to convey meaning through inflection and the stress, accent, and pauses on certain words and syllables. So, while email sometimes feels like speech, and may be used as a real -time substitute for speech, it lacks most of the feedback present in face-to-face and phone conversations. In speech, as the conversation unfolds, the recipient's reactions can be immediately assessed, corrected and adjusted as we go. In speech there are some words and phrases used just to establish and maintain rapport or "communion" between the parties. e.g. "I see"; " I hear you"; and "hmmm." These are are referred to as "Phatic Functions."

For example, the simple phrase "I will sleep with you." might convey wildly different messages depending on which word in the sentence got an inflection. While writers of email may compose their missives as if they are speaking to their intended recipient, the person on the other end just reads it.

Since email lacks the benefit of the many unconscious inflections and facial expressions that often moderate, soften, or contextualize speech, email is particularly ill suited for messages where words are meant to carry humor, satire, irony, criticism, or an emotional charge. Messages never intended by the writer may sneak into these kinds of posts; particularly between people with little prior history of oral communication. Email replies that insist "I already told you that" or are radically different from what the writer anticipated may indicate that speech vs. writing problems have crept into your email.

Of course, after you have dispatched an email and are waiting for a reply, you cannot be sure if your intended recipient actually received the message or, if he did, if he read it with the care appropriate to the care, attention, or spirit in which you composed it. In the first few seconds of a phone call, the parties make an implicit contract to do two things:
1. participate in the interaction and,
2. commit a portion of time for the exchange.

Email establishes no such contract so one is never sure whether a lack of response is itself a message i.e. your email was uninteresting or not worthy of response; or the recipient didn't receive your email or is perhaps on vacation, or is otherwise too busy to respond. In a phone call, a lot of crazy things can happen but the other party will seldom fail to say anything at all; and if that happens, one generally knows if he or she is still listening. With mail you cannot ask the equivalent of, "Are you there?"

Paradoxically, while email may travel at the speed of light "for free", when it goes undeliverable, it is a medium far inferior to surface mail back in the age of the sailing ships. Post offices have always handled undeliverables better than email does. At least the post office will forward mail to a new address, and they don't return letters as "undeliverable" because a single character in an address is bad, or the local post office is "down" temporarily for maintenance. And of course no post office would reformat and deform your text so your carefully composed missive displays like the product of an illiterate or someone writing in a secret code - as the email process occasionally does.

"NON-RECIPROCATION, EMAIL'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

As the volume of an individual's email increases, people have to resort to triage in disposing of their email to keep their in-basket from growing into unread mountains. This causes much incoming mail to simply be unread and trashed. Frustration and confusion can arise when a person consistently opens and reads another's email with a care and diligence not reciprocated. In other words, person A is carefully reading incoming email from person B, but does not know that person B is not reading the incoming email from person A with commensurate diligence.

Unfortunately there is no consistent "netiquette" which gives feedback to a person when they begin to overuse or misuse email. Indiscriminate, inappropriate, or overuse of email can cause others to trash incoming email unread. Some people create so much email that it begins to border on spamming and their email credibility deteriorates. Then, like the boy who cried wolf, when they have something original or important to say, their message never even gets opened. In extreme cases, people can and will set their email program to reject all email from a particular person so it never even arrives in their in-basket.

Don't become an email-abuser. When a person is "blacklisted" and then sends an email to another, especially if they use the [reply-to] function and their email goes out with a subject header that does not clue the recipient that it is personal, that email may never be read. If you don't want your email read - just send out a steady impulsive stream of unsolicited email, and combine in your messages: personal and generic messages; copies of articles and reposts from others, redundant alerts etc. To clinch it, use subject lines that are not clear.

Problems with spouses who use the same email address.

Under the misguided notion that "we are one!" or an attempt to save the $5.00 a month a separate email address can cost, some spouses both use one email address. Their email always arrives from [john and mary], so you can not tell from your in-basket which one actually sent it and they cannot tell which spouse an incoming post is intended for. This inevitably leads to trouble when a person opens an email intended for their spouse and then forgets to tell them. Or when a person is traveling and a lot of their email accumulates.

In one case, I was exchanging a long series of emails with [John] of the couple [John and Mary] and when the issue was finally resolved, I received another post from [John and Mary] and assumed it was a redundant reply from [John] and I trashed it unread. But the email was actually a message from [Mary] about something completely different. Months later I learned she was very offended because she thought I had ignored her long, personal letter. There would have been no problem if they had separate email addresses. My relationship with both went off the track and could not be repaired.

Here are some indicators or predictors of whether the content of your email is in danger of being misunderstood.

CONTINUUM OF PREDICTORS OF PROBLEM-PRONE EMAIL





FEWER PROBLEMS ---------------------------MORE PROBLEMS







THE RECIPIENT(S) OF YOUR EMAIL MESSAGE:







Well known to you -----------------unknown to you







Stable and mature --------------------------loosely wired and unstable







Friendly ----------------------------unfriendly, unknown to you







Frequent face-to-face-communication--------Infrequent







Reasonable workload--------------overworked, harried







Has time to compose email ------------Inundated with email







THE CONTENT OF YOUR EMAIL:







Simple, straightforward ----------- Complex







Non-threaded---One of a long thread with many contributors







One addressee -----Many addressees, cc's and bcc's







Simple format & layout)---------Complex formatting







u/75 characters per lines, ASCII------o/75 chars, Non-ASCII

EMAIL HELPERS

Problems with email, especially those that lead to flaming or misunderstanding, can be avoided with some simple conventions which have been developed by those who use email extensively. There are a number of simple "helpers" which will insure that your email always works. Whenever an email exchange goes poorly, your first reaction should be not to respond in-kind, but to pick up the phone or get together face-to-face with the other person to get the communication problem cleared up. Hopefully the situation has not gone so far that it cannot be remedied. Humans have had thousands of years to work out conventions of spoken and written communications. Email is a new form of communication that has only been around for a few years and we have only begun to establish its conventions and ground rules. But the following one seems inviolable and non-negotiable.

Read and spell-check all your email before you send it; and if you must compose a nasty or highly critical email, hold it at least overnight before you send it. You will usually cool off enough that it will never have to be sent. BTW, I have accumulated about 50 of these in my "hold file" over the years.

BRITELL'S HELPFUL HINTS FOR IMPROVING YOUR EMAIL.

HOW TO BE COURTEOUS AND MAINTAIN RAPPORT

1: If I want to tell you something, but I want you to know I am humble about it or I understand I may be wrong in what I am about to say. I preface my remark with: <IMHO> which stands for "in my humble opinion."

2: You send me an email but I am busy. I want you to know I received your email but I do not have time to send a response right now. I reply: <thanks - more later>.

3: Courtesy is important, especially in email communication. Begin email like a phone call or letter by always addressing the person by name.

4: I am emailing a copy of a memo and the recipient may already have it. I do not want to appear to insult his intelligence, so I may say: "for ease of reference, I attached the following."

5: If I do not want an email forwarded under any conditions, I type at the top: <DO NOT FORWARD>.

6: The most gross violation of "netiquette" is to forward someone's email without their express permission. NEVER DO IT! However, if you are sent an email with an address-list format, it may be a special situation that permits forwarding.

7: I am going to tell you something general or pass on some information I think would be of interest to you, so I preface it with which stands for "for your information."

8: Sending unsolicited distributions of email is "spamming" no matter how important your ideas and observations may seem to you. If you want to create a list, set it up formally. Do one mass distribution and ask people if they want more alerts from you. Only send your material to those who respond.

AVOID MESSY FORMAT AND APPEARANCE PROBLEMS

1: If you simply copy and paste text from someplace else and put it in an email message without first cleaning it up, the chances are pretty good that it will become garbled in transmission. There is no excuse for mail to have broken lines, poorly formatted text or odd characters. Most of these problems arise when text is cut and pasted from programs with large character sets (like Word processing or the Web) into email with its smaller set; or pasted in from text whose line length exceeds what than email can accommodate (usually 75 characters.).

2: If you see a poorly formatted post tell the sender so they can see what they might be doing wrong by consulting their email manual or technicians at their host.

3: Before you release a complex post send it to yourself first and see if it looks OK. Check for line breaks and garbage characters and look in the "long headers" or expanded address to see if your email was sent as a "ascii" message. If so, you can be assured that it has no problem characters. If it says "OSO " then you are likely to have formatting problems

4: Some servers and programs truncate messages that exceed a certain length. If your post is very long put END at the end and tell your readers that you have done so.

USE CARE, & CONSIDER THE RECIPIENT, IN COMPOSING REPLIES

1: John Doe sends me an email three lines long which says "blah, blah, blah." I want to respond and I want to make it clear exactly what I am responding to, so I begin my reply with: John: You said "blah, blah, blah." Then I reply.

2: John writes a ten-line email and I want to respond to just one line, so I begin: John: You said (then I reiterate the one line) and then I respond to the line. Alternatively, if I am lifting a long section from an email and I want it clear there is much more I am not including, I leave a line and type: [snip]; then I quote with brackets:

 <BLAH, blah blah>

3: I am responding to a thread, which is a sequential exchange that has been going on for a number of emails that has several people responding back and forth, and I want to reply to someone's response. I could preface my reply with: John said: "blah" and Bill said "thus and so. My reply would then follow.

4: I am sending an email and in my text I am referring to something you would enter on a keyboard. I enclose that phrase in <brackets> i.e. "To do this just enter <Return>", which is clearer than: "To do this just enter Return."

BE CAREFUL WITH HUMOR, TEASING AND EMOTION

1: Teasing in an email message is generally best avoided, but I want to make a teasing remark to John like, "John, you are completely full of crap!" Which if John was present, I would say with a smile so he could tell I was just teasing. In email, I would type:

John, you are full of crap! ; )

Note the "smiley, : ) or "smile face". It is called an emoticon, and tells John I am trying to be funny. Try reading the above phrase with and without the "smile face."

2: I am writing something and feeling sad. It is important that my email convey my sadness. I might type : (

3: I think something is very funny so I preface it with: <LOL> which stands for "laughing out loud."

4. Hold a nasty message overnight and have a third party read it before release.

5. Always read your own outgoing messages and spell check them before you dispatch them.

BE CLEAR ABOUT AUDIENCE, AUTHOR, AND SUBJECT

1: I am sending an email to a list of people. I begin it with "friends:". If I am writing to John, but copying to others, I address the email to John and use "cc" for the others on my list.

2: When forwarding material from someone else or if your reader could be confused as to who the author may be include a sentence at the top telling the reader what the post is about.

3: If I want to hide the names of addressees to a post I use bcc's (abbr. for blind carbon copies) to hide the address list. Failing to do this properly when for example changing an email address will disclose to everyone in your address book, ALL the other people in your address book. (Last week for example I learned something VERY interesting when someone accidentally used cc's instead of bcc's.

4: I am sending out a draft by email. I put in caps at the top so anyone who receives it knows they are reading just a draft and not a finished copy.

5: If I am transmitting a draft for another person, the content of which, I may not personally agree with, I may say at the top: .

6: I am sending you a number of items. I number them 1...2...3... etc.

7: If it is important that John read a personal email from me to him, I make the SUBJECT LINE [Jim to John]. That way John knows this email is personal. But if I use up the subject line in this way and the content of the email is about another piece of email, I indicate this on the top line of the post itself: <This email is about:> <email dated such and a date, subject>. I have to do this in this way as I have already used the SUBJECT LINE to get my readers attention.

8: Never change the SUBJECT LINE of a thread midstream, as the sequence of the thread will be hopelessly lost. Also remember that different email programs date email differently so the recipient may get one of a sequence of emails out of context. Some programs date your email from when you first begin to compose it not when you dispatch it.

Finally If you have any question about how someone will receive your message, you can end it with: <your friend> or in an extreme case: <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> which, of course, means: "lots of kisses."

And if you do not want to be misquoted or you are conveying an important secret strategy or you want to be sure your message can not be misrouted, well, you'd better use a fax or the US mail.

Some references:

For an essay on how the absence of the use of "smileys and other emoticons like always lead to flame wars, see: http://www.emoticon.com/original/smiley.html

For "netiquette" in general use: http://webreference.com/roadmap/map07.html

Today Messages: A Simple, Effective Technique for Improving Small Group Coordination

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:54Z

Our recent experiences, and the results of an in-depth field study conducted at the University of Washington UrbanSim lab both show that today messages are a simple and effective way to improve small group collaboration.

What is a today message?

Today messages are short emails sent by each member of a small group to the entire group at the end of each workday. Today messages briefly summarize in a few bullet points the main activities that you engaged in that day. Today messages are informal in tone, and often include tidbits of personal information. People only send today messages on days they are actually working.

Heres a recent today message from a ONE/Northwest staff member:

From: Jon Stahl

Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 5:25 PM

To: ONENW Staff

Subject: today message - jon stahl   - 22 October 2003



  Today I:



    * Worked on WaterWatch of Oregon infrastructure plan

    * Phone call re: ONRC Database project

    * Phone call re: Social Justice Tech Assistance

      Providers gathering

    * Talked with Sam Moscheck about open-source stuff

    * Talked with Dogwood about printer problems

    * Interviewed Kerry about project tracker reporting

      requirements

    * Did some research on laptop purchasing for

      laurie kellogg.

    * Reviewed Bullitt outcomes with Gideon

    * Personal: heading out WTC annual dinner auction



  best,

  jon

  ---------------------------------------------------

  Jon Stahl -- ONE/Northwest

  Powering the Voice of the Northwest

  Environmental Movement

What are the benefits of sending today messages?

UW computer science researcher Dr. A.J. Bernheim Brush recently found that participants in her today messages study reported the following benefits from sending today messages for six weeks:

95% of today message users reported that today messages helped them be more aware of what their colleagues were doing.
Three-quarters of today message users reported that today messages helped show the work theyve done and helped them see the broad range of their organizations activities. 59% of today message users reported that today messages increase their overall sense of involvement with the work of the organization.
Two-thirds of today message users reported that today messages help them better coordinate their work with colleagues.
58% of today message users reported that today messages help them reduce or avoid spending time on status updates during in-person staff meetings.
Today messages were perceived as an effective way to share small informational tidbits that might not merit a separate email. Because today messages can aggregate these information announcements, they can help reduce email overload.

Were not surprised by these positive results because they map very closely to our experiences using today messages over the past few months here at ONE/Northwest. Today messages use a familiar communication tool email in a simple yet surprisingly effective way. Because its so quick and easy to send and read short email messages, there is little logistical barrier to sending and reading today messages. Today messages are very unstructured, and thus very adaptable to a wide variety of types of activities.

If you work in small office like we do, at first you might think, Wait a minute! I sit right next to my colleagues all day long! I know what theyre doing! At first, we kind of thought that, too. But after using today messages for a while, and reading Dr. Brush's research results, were convinced that today messages are valuable even for small teams that work in close quarters.

Best practices for using today messages

Following are some best practices for using today messages drawn from both our experiences at ONE/Northwest and the field research of Dr. Brush:

Send today messages with a standardized, information-rich subject line. This makes messages easy to filter and sort. At ONE/Northwest, our today message subject lines look like this: today message -- NAME of person-- TODAYS date
Send today messages to a staff discussion email list. This makes it easy to centrally add or remove staff members, and to automatically maintain a central archive of messages. If you dont have a staff discussion list for your organization, ONE/Northwest can host a list for you. (More information on setting up an email list.)
Today messages should cover events of potential significance to others, such as project milestones you completed, meetings you had, interesting documents you read, etc.
Today messages should be short and casual. We generally keep ours to 5-7 bullet points of a sentence or two.
Today messages are most effective when the groups leaders model good practices. Its also important to establish clear group expectations for the use of today messages.
When appropriate, include hyperlinks to supporting documents or additional information. These can include documents on a shared fileserver, or outside websites. To link to a file on your file server, format your link like this: file://///nameofserver/directory/subdirectory/filename (yes, thats FIVE slashes). Sometimes you can just put in a hyperlink like this \\nameofserver\directory\subdirectory\filename.

Keep in mind

Today messages only work well for groups that have a high degree of trust. The fact that today messages are a self-reporting mechanism means that people can choose not to send messages or can choose to omit information they dont wish to share with the group.

Today messages work best for people whose work naturally breaks into relatively discrete tasks. People whose work consists mainly of reading and reflection tended to report that the daily granularity of today messages was a poor fit for their work patterns.

Conclusion

Today messages are a simple and effective way to boost collaboration and information sharing in small organizations. We strongly recommend that all small (3-10 person) Northwest conservation groups consider experimenting with today messages. We think youll be pleased with the results.

More information

'Today' Messages: Lightweight Support for Group Awareness and Coordination via Email byA.J. Bernheim Brush, Alan Borning, and David Socha: http://www.urbansim.org/papers/TodayDraft.pdf

Sample Guidelines for a Large Email Discussion List

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:54Z

One of the keys to a successful email discussion list is having a clear set of guidelines for behavior on the list. Effective guidelines may cover technical issues, usage conventions, and standards for acceptable behavior.

A number of list owners have asked us for sample guidelines. While different lists will require different standards in these areas, we offer the following set of guidelines as an example. These sample email list guidelines are adapted from the guidelines for a large, actively moderated discussion list. Smaller, more informal lists may be able to make do with a much shorter version.

We offer these guidelines to you as source of inspiration when creating guidelines for your discussion list. These guidelines were adapted from guidelines developed for the CHI-WEB email discussion list at: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/web/index.html

Sample guidelines for

People who wish to contribute to should become familiar with the information on this page before they post to the list.

Facilitation: Three Levels

has a facilitation team led by . The facilitators provide 3 levels of "filtering" of submissions before they are approved and sent out to the list membership.

Level 1: Technical stuff: making sure the submission is technically acceptable and other mundane checks
Level 2: conventions: applying list conventions that have evolved over the years
Level 3: Guide to professional conduct: helping posters act in manner suitable for this community

Most of our moderation happens at "level 1," where we ask people to resubmit because of an attachment or blind quoting. We also do some basic checking, like making sure any URLs in the email actually work.

We regularly ask people to make "level 2" changes, such as adding the "reply directly to me" text to the bottom of their request and asking people to clarify their message because we cannot understand it.

We rarely have to step in with "level 3" moderation, since most members act professionally. Level 3 moderation is based heavily on feedback from list members, so when you think someone is acting unprofessionally, please let us know, and we will try to deal with the problem directly. Send your feedback to .

Level 1: The Technical Stuff

These are mainly technical limitations we have put on postings to the list for the greater good of the membership. For example, attachments pose a security risk and HTML email can be a usability problem. If your submission violates one of these rules, the moderators will not accept it (unless we make a mistake, which happens sometimes).

The email must be in plain text, not in HTML or in some other format that is not accessible by all list members. See the List FAQ for help with this.
The posting can have no attachments. This includes an HTML version of the email, signatures included as MIME attachments, or other documents included as additional information. If you feel the need to send an attachment, post the file on a web server and send the URL instead.
Replies should not blindly quote an entire post. Unfortunately, some email programs make this easy to do by automatically including the original email at the end of all replies. For , you need to edit the original post to only quote relevant pieces and put your comments in context.
Copyrighted material should not be posted to the list. In general, long articles should be referenced by URL, rather than copying large portions into an email.
We cannot in general accept cross-postings (made simultaneously to other lists). This is because some replies may not be valid for and the resulting partial thread can be incomprehensible.
The moderators also filter accidental postings, such as SPAM, list administration ("add me," "remove me," etc.) and replies mistakenly sent to the list instead of an individual.

Level 2: Usage Conventions

The following conventions have evolved for over the years. Please respect the list conventions.

Make sure it is specific to the . That is the focus of . We use broad definitions here, but if it is a general web or general HCI question, try some other list.
Do not ask really basic or frequently asked questions: do some research first! Search the archives before you ask the list. And make sure you mention what research you have already done in your question (it makes you look smarter).
The best discussion-starters are firmly on-topic and present a substantial amount of background information. For example, "approach x presents these problems and solutions while approach y solves some of them, let's talk about this" is a good discussion-starter. But "so what do you think of..." is not as good because you have not set the stage for a meaningful discussion.
When sending information-gathering-type questions (as opposed to discussion-type questions), you should use the "collect and summarize" approach. This is faster and more efficient than having multiple, similar replies go to everyone.
1. Collect and summarize when you are gathering information on a topic, such as a list of sites that use Flash for searching or what browser sizes members design for. We do not want members sending the equivalent of survey responses to the list as a whole.
2. When submitting a collect and summarize message, include some text to remind other members of how they should reply. "Send your replies to me and I will summarize for the list" is common.
3. After a week or so of collecting replies, compile the replies and send it to the list. Include a brief "executive" summary and use contributors names unless they ask to be anonymous.
Replies to a collect and summarize posting should be sent directly to the contributor. They will not be approved for posting to the list. If a collect and summarize posting raises issues that you feel require public debate or clarification, there are two possible options:
1. Wait until the contributor posts the summary. The topic is then open to general discussion.
2. Start a new thread about the posting. The new posting will need to conform to all the usual conventions.
When replying to the list, make sure you provide some positive contribution to the discussion. Simple "me too" replies will not be approved.
We do not allow advertisements or announcements of any kind. There are other lists specifically for this purpose.
Remember that we have an international membership with a wide variety of backgrounds. Avoid (or explain) cultural references, acronyms, and so on.
Be as clear as possible in stating your case or asking your question. Think about what you want to say before you write it. Write it once, throw it away, then write it again (better).
Make sure people can figure out your full name and affiliation. Your email address might provide enough information (if it is John.Smith@somecompany.com, for example). You can also use a "signature" at the end of your email. But email from a vague address like "xyz@hotmail.com" with no signature can be rejected simply because professional discussions require that you identify yourself.

Level 3: Guide to professional conduct

Email removes the visual and audible cues we normally rely on in telephone and face-to-case conversations. Because of this, contributors need to be especially considerate of their choice of language and tone. Here are tome guidelines for good manners on our list.

Do not make debates personal. Avoid "you" and "yours."
Try to be clear and concise.
Do not imply fault. Misunderstandings occur frequently; work to resolve them without apportioning blame.
Accept that having a different opinion does not make anyone "wrong."
Do not present opinions as fact.
Give some attention to accepted standards of spelling, grammar and punctuation. Proofread or spell-check before sending messages.
Do not be dismissive.
Say that you agree (when you do) even if only partially. Disagree without insulting others.
Consider whether what you have said could be misinterpreted.
Try not to "fight to win." The purpose of the debate is to exchange ideas, not to score points or demonstrate inadequacies.

Guidelines for Participating in an Email List

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:54Z

As more and more people use the Internet in their activism, the importance of being an effective online communicator increases dramatically. One of the best tools available to us are "email lists," sometimes known as "listservs."

However, our use of these lists comes with some responsibilities, perhaps most importantly to not overload our fellow activists with unnecessary or redundant emails. Following, you will find a list of things you should consider before posting or responding to a list. For email, quality is definitely of greater value than quantity. Before you post to an email list, ask yourself:

1) Is this message *really* necessary?
Only respond to a previous post if you have something of substance to say, e.g., don't respond to a list to say only, "I agree" or "Thanks."

2) Does your message mesh with the list's purpose?
It is important to stay on topic on discussion lists. Many times, people become frustrated when others make posts that are irrelevant. Maintain the quality of the online discussion by staying focused on the subject.

3) Does the subject line adequately describe your message's content?
By including a descriptive subject line, recipients can easily tell if your email is of interest to them or is of an urgent nature, and allows folks to prioritize and organization their emails more easily.

4) If quoting portions of a previous email, have you included only the relevant portions in your response?
It's important to "pare down" quoted material, so that emails don't grow massive, and so that recipients know exactly to what you're referring in your response.

5) If you're forwarding a message to a list, have you asked the original sender for their permission?
Conversely, if you want to forward a message from a list, have you asked *that* sender's permission?

6) If you're attaching a file to your email, have you made sure you've saved the file as a "text file" so that people with different computers and software can all read it?
Sending attachments to lists is difficult, and we generally advise against it, unless you know everyone on the list can read it. If at all possible, rather than attaching a document, include it as text in your email message (using "cut and paste" from your word processing program, if necessary).

7) Have you proof-read and/or spell-checked your message?

8) Have you included your contact information (other than your email address) in a signature file?
It's helpful to give folks other ways of contacting you in your email, e.g. phone, fax, website, postal address.

9) Last, but perhaps most importantly, have you made certain that you are sending your email to the address you really *mean* to?
Some people have experienced very embarrassing moments when responding quickly to an email list post, meaning for their response to go to only one person, but it was inadvertently sent to the entire list. Check and make sure the right email address is in the "to" box!!

Making Phone Calls Over the Internet

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:53Z

A new generation of "voice-over-IP" tools can let you make free/cheap phone calls over the Internet -- to and from ordinary phones! The good ol' telephone is a still an indispensable tool for Northwest environmental activists. (Let's not even talk about those poor folks who are tethered to their cell phones!) But unfortunately, even plain-old "landlines" are still a major expense for a lot of groups, especially organizations with field offices, and folks who make a lot of in-state long distance calls. A number of new tools and services now offer folks the opportunity to make very cheap phone calls (in some cases, free!) over the Internet.

We're not going to try to cover all the tools out there; we're simply going to present a few typical scenarios that illustrate how we think small environmental groups can use these tools.

Vonage: a seamless replacement for one or more phone lines in your existing phone system

Vonage (http://www.vonage.com) is a new company that offers flat-rate phone service using the Internet. Vonage gives you a special router that has two jacks: one end plugs into your broadband (that's cable or DSL) Internet connection, the other plugs into an ordinary phone. Vonage assigns you a phone number (in the area code of your choice, Canada now included!). You pick up the phone, you get a dialtone, you make calls. People call the number, your phone rings. It's just that simple.

Vonage charges $50/month per line for unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada. (It's just $35/month for residential/home office lines.) Most people report that voice quality is very good..

There are two circumstances where Vonage could make a lot of sense:

1) A home office or one-person satellite/field office

If your organization has folks who work mainly from home, or other one-person field offices, then Vonage is probably a great solution that will save quite a bit on long distance costs.

2) Using Vonage to replace phone lines in a small office phone system

The real magic happens when you plug your Vonage router into your existing PBX, and configure "rollover" on your exisitng phone lines. Imagine that you have two "regular" phone lines and a third Vonage line. When you hook up the Vonage line to your existing phone system, and configure your regular lines correctly, you will be able to pick up your desk phone, hit line 3, and make free long distance calls. Need more lines? Each Vonage router can support two lines. And you can add additional routers if necessary (assuming that you have a fast enough Internet connection). We can easily imagine a lot of groups having 1-4 Vonage lines, and a single "regular" phone line.

Packet8 (http://www.packet8.com) offers services quite similar to Vonage, and perhaps a little more oriented towards small businesses.

Skype: Windows and Linux-only software for voice calls between field offices or close working partners

Some groups have staff scattered about many field offices, and find that themselves spending lots of money on calls between their offices. Skype (http://www.skype.com) is a popular new no-cost software program from the folks who invented Kazaa that makes it incredibly easy to use your computer to make free high-quality voice calls. We were up and running in about five minutes, with no configuration.

The catch? You can only call other Skype users -- you can't call out to ordinary phones. (This is coming as an extra-cost service soon.) Skype is only available for Windows and Linux (sorry Mac users!). And it's not based on SIP, the commonly used standard that many other Internet voice services use to enable interoperability between their services.

Unlike Vonage, Skype is more of a complement to your phone than a substitute for it. But if you're making a lot of calls to a few folks, such as colleagues in another office, then Skype can save you serious money. We use it extensively for intra-organizational communication at ONE/Northwest, and it saves us a bundle on phone calls between our three offices.

Free World Dialup: combines elements of Skype and Vonage -- but some assembly is required

Free World Dialup (http://www.freeworlddialup.com/) occupies a middle ground between the easy but limited world of Skype and the more powerful but more expensive world of Vonage and Packet8. Like Skype, Free World Dialup is a free service that lets you make calls between computers. However, Free World Dialup uses the SIP standard, which means that it can connect with other Internet phone networks, and also with regular phones (which requires an account with a third party bridging service). And because FWD is standards-based, you can also use a wide variety of phone hardware and software, instead of being locked into a single Windows-only product as with Skype.

The downside to Free World Dialup is that it's a little more complicated to configure than Skype, but their website does offer pretty good instructions.

Why (cheap!) headsets help

If you're thinking about using Skype, Free World Dialup or any other Internet phone service that runs through your computer, you'll want to invest $10-20 in a simple headset microphone. This will dramatically improve the sound quality of your calls. We've had great luck with cheap Labtec headsets from our local office supply/computer store.

Summary/comparison of features

	Vonage	Packet8	Skype	Free World Dialup
Cost	$50/month per line for unlimited calls to US/Canada. Cheap international calls	$40/month per extension for unlimited calls to US/Canada. Also have less expensive plans.	Free	Free
Hardware	Cisco ATA-186 router connects to your existing phone	Hardware router connects to your existing phone	Your computer plus a headset mic	Wide variety, ranging from your computer-plus-headset mic to ordinary phones via hardware router
Integration with your phone system?	Yes, via Cisco ATA-186 hardware router	Yes, via hardware router	No	Optional, via Cisco ATA-186 hardware router.
Can you call to/from regular phones?	Yes	Yes	Coming soon. Extra cost.	Third-party gateway service required. Extra cost, comparable to Vonage
Encrpytion	None	None	256-bit AES	None
Conference calling	Yes, using standard audioconference services	3-way, plus you can use standard audioconferencing services	Built in support for 4-way conferencing	Coming soon
Standards	SIP	SIP	Proprietary	SIP
Ease of setup	Moderate	Moderate	Very easy	Moderate
Ease of use	Very easy	Very easy	Very easy	Moderate

Final thought: caveat emptor, or the dangers of living on the bleeding edge

The standard phone system is extremely reliable. The Internet is not. Voice-over-IP services are brand new, and it will be a whlie before they can offer the reliability and customer support you get from a traditional phone company. (Yes, it is possible for customer service to be worse than the phone company!) We're not 100% sure we'd rely on them for our primary phone service. But as a supplementary service, or for a small organization willing to take a bit of risk in order to save considerable money, these services are worth exploring.

Scheduling Meetings: Two Tools That Help

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:51Z

We hate scheduling meetings via email. Fortunately, there are two great, free services that take a lot of the pain out of meeting scheduling. We think both are worth checking out the next time you need to "herd the cats" and schedule a meeting amongst far-flung colleagues. They're infinitely preferable to shooting around dozens of emails and trying to keep track of everyone's free and busy times.

Meet-O-Matic

http://www.meetomatic.com

Meet-O-Matic is incredibly quick and simple. Type in your name, your email, choose some times, and it gives you two hyperlinks: one to forward to anyone you want to join the meeting, and the other for you to view the responses and calcuate the best time.

The only catch is that you can only specify "AM" and "PM" for a particuar day, not specific times. That can be a drawback. Still, Meet-O-Matic is one of the simplest tools out there, and there are absolutely no strings attached.

MeetingWizard

http://www.meetingwizard.com

MeetingWizard is like Meet-O-Matic's grown up sister. It's got more features, more power... and is a bit more complex. For example, MeetingWizard lets you specific specific times for your meeting (up to 12), download meetings to Microsoft Outlook, upload your address book to send invites, and more.

If you find Meet-O-Matic to be not quite powerful or flexible enough, then MeetingWizard is a great tool to try.

YouSendIt.com: a simple, free solution for sending files that are too big to email

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:50Z

If ever you need to email someone a really big file -- something with lots of hi-res pictures, etc.- generally, anything that's bigger than 1MB -- you may have difficulties getting it through. Many email servers will not accept messages that large. But wait! All is not lost. Check out:

http://www.yousendit.com

It's a simple, free service that lets you upload files and then emails the person (or people) that you want to receive the file. They get a link in the email that lets them download. It's free, no FTP hassling, no email limits. The files are only avaiable for a week, so it's not a long-term file distribution solution, but it is a quick and handy tool.

While process is reasonably secure, we don't recommend distributing your secrets this way, but then again, you shouldn't be emailing highly confidential information anyway, right?