There's a wide spectrum of style to "professional" email etiquette, and both ends of the spectrum suck. On one end you have the people who act like they are writing a letter with a piece of papyrus and a quill dripping with ink. They usually look like this:
Jared,
I like to type. I really enjoy the pleasure that overcomes me after producing a beautiful email and hitting the send button in Outlook. Anyways, this paragraph is going to go on for about 76 more lines re-capping project details that you already know about, but I love typing.
That's right, it's another paragraph...about the same thing. Isn't it great spending 5 entire minutes reading my important message. I even flagged it as "high priority" even though I have no idea what is all on your plate right now, and like to think that I control your list of priorities.
Blah, blah, blah. This paragraph is going to go on for awhile, and then this beautifully crafted message will end with a 14 line signature, a jpeg logo for my business, and an italicized slogan. Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Thomas The Train
555-555-5555 office
555-555-5556 fax (I know, who still has these, right?)
555-555-5557 home
555-555-5558 cell
555-555-5559 mobile
tommytrain wm
tommytrain2 aim
123 Central Station
London, Bulgaria 129312A-233AB
[ridiculous logo]
"Some slogan our marketing department came up with which sounds self-centered and ridiculous"
That's one extreme that you will experience. You will open a novel like this, and quickly delete it. The other type of email you may receive are the one-liners with no specific information like this:
He said you could call him sometime at the old number. He still works in that department with the other guys at that one location.
Emails are meant to be short, informal, and to the point. That does not mean you can roll out of bed, fire up the blackberry, and send something like the above message while taking a piss and rubbing the sleepy dust out of your eyes. I will delete this on account of you assuming that I am the keeper of all that is knowledge - which I am not nor do I claim to be.
You have to use a few descriptive or key words to make that second message a winner. Here is a nice re-do:
Johhny T. said that he would be available after 2 PM EST for a short call. Tom and Gary from the products group will be on the call. Just set up a conference call, and send him the number/appointment. Thanks.
I now know who I am going to call, who else will be on the call, what time to call (always include the time zone to avoid confusion), and which one of us will be calling the other and at what number. All in three sentences. If it is an internal email you don't need to sign your name at the end because most email clients say who the email is from. As my 7th grade algebra teacher would say, "We're not lazy, we're efficient.".
There's so much more I could say about email and probably will on another day.
