When working with businesses, one problem I see over and over again is people who don't know how to write an efficient email. For example, I was helping a business put processes into place to streamline their help desk. Some of the requests that were coming into the tracking system just boggled my mind. My English 101 classes years ago spent a lot of time explaining that authors need to think about the reader. It doesn't matter what you write--it matters how the reader understands what you write. Unfortunately, people forget this when writing emails. Here are some of the emails I've seen (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty parties): My computer doesn't work. … [Read more...] about More Efficient Emails
Archives for June 2011
Business is Doing Smart Things
Marketing isn't really all that complicated. If you have a decent product, you simply have to let people know what you are selling and some of them will buy right? Obviously you can be more efficient by focusing your efforts on people who are likely to buy your product. It wouldn't make too much sense to show financial services ads during Saturday morning cartoons.(Assuming that Saturday morning cartoons still exist.) Omaha Steaks probably wouldn't want to mail their flyers out to religiously fanatic vegetarians. If you have two lists, one of people who are deaf and one of people who love to listen to music, which do you think would create more sales for high end headphones? This … [Read more...] about Business is Doing Smart Things
How to Create a Scanned Digital Signature
If you like this article you might also enjoy our post about how to use your signature to sign documents in Acrobat. We also have a number of other articles about going paperless and one on Digital Signatures and Encryption that might be useful. If you want to create a scanned electronic version of your signature, there are several ways to do it. The "right" way would be to send your signature to a company that will create a truetype font of your entire signature so you can print it at any size and still have the beautiful vector drawn lines. The easy way to do it is to scan in your signature and remove the background. If you make it large enough and scan at a high enough … [Read more...] about How to Create a Scanned Digital Signature
Leaps of Imagination
Einstein was a smart, but the world is full of smart people. What was different about Einstein that allowed him to come up with the theory of relativity? Simple. Einstein was able to take a leap of imagination. At the time, everyone believed that time was constant. If you and I synchronize our watches and I wait on the ground while you take off and fly on a very fast space ship, it was assumed that when you came back our watches would still match. It was such a fundamental concept that no one even bothered to question it. However, Einstein realized that something didn't quite seem right. The basis of his uneasiness with the modern theories came when he was 16 years old and began to … [Read more...] about Leaps of Imagination
AT&T DSL Only Option
AT&T is offering DSL without requiring phone service. This is sometimes referred to as "dry dsl" or "naked dsl". For about $29 per month, you can get 3.0Mbps down and 512Kbps up high speed internet connection. This also gives you free internet service from AT&T's wireless access points across the US. This service would normally cost $39 per month, so if you need it, this can work out to be a very good deal. In my area of the country they also offer 6.0/768k internet service for about $34 per month. This is what I used before we bought a house that is a few hundred feet from where AT&T offers service. This "DSL without phone service" package has been around for … [Read more...] about AT&T DSL Only Option