Perhaps Travis would only have 25k emails if not everyone was expected to send him 4 emails where 1 would have sufficed.<p>Or to manage his inbox rather than spending time reading self-help and 'art of productivity' thought pieces from 'very important' people / his self-selection of 'influencers'.<p>No sarcasm is intended here.<p>I'm reminded of an article entitled 'Wanted: employees who are good at getting things done' <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d77f4d06-4fc0-11e4-908e-00144feab7de" rel="nofollow">https://www.ft.com/content/d77f4d06-4fc0-11e4-908e-00144feab...</a><p>The 'getting things done' take-away was, conscientiousness.
One way to understand why this article produces so deeply emotional responses, is that it says "it is right and proper to defect in this prisoner's dilemma"[1].<p>Why is it a prisoner's dilemma?<p>- Nobody writes follow-ups: everyone has an equal chance of being noticed and only has to write one email (and the recipient gets relatively little mail).<p>- You write follow-ups, but nobody else does: you get an overproportional chance of being viewed at the expense of everyone writing just one mail. Also you have to put up more work to organise and write the follow-ups, but that is very much worth the extra benefit for you.<p>- You write one mail, and everybody writes follow-ups: you get an under-proportional chance of being found in the sea of mails, much to your dismay.<p>- Everybody writes follow-ups (what TFA suggests): everyone has equal chances of being noticed, but everyone has to put up the extra work for the follow-ups (and the recipient gets a factor of three more mails).<p>My personal opinion on the article is that it is greatly damaging, as it is difficult as hell for society to effectively normalize "cooperate" behavior in such situations, <i>even without</i> voices suggesting "defecting" is your moral responsibility.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma</a>
It's a very shaky premise. Using that same logic I can derive: "If you want to meet with me, it's your responsibility to set up your mailbox filters"<p>In fact if one cares about the said mailbox, there would never be any significant number of unread emails in the mailbox.<p>This article is just a lame attempt to excuse self-centered people who couldn't be bothered
This feels like a tragedy of the commons. The person being emailed has a finite amount of attention. Sending additional emails will only prioritize your topic for their attention until everyone does this trick, at which point the advantage of multiple emails will converge back to zero.
> Now, if he didn’t reply to you after having 4 chances to do so, that’s a pretty good indication that he doesn’t want to talk to you. But before that - it’s just you being stupid and thinking too much of yourself.<p>Or, you should learn to use email instead of thinking too much of yourself. Unless you are CEO of a Fortune 500 you have no excuse to have 100K unread emails
If you sent a personal friend 2 twitter DMs, then 2 emails, and then 3 text messages and they don't reply, I don't think they are a friend. My inbox gets pounded as well but if a personal friend emails I skip all the other emails and reply to that one first.
Does anyone else have trouble paying attention to email at all nowadays? Particularly in workplaces that use Slack or other chat software.<p>I only have the focusing capacity to use one communication medium. I spend tons of mental energy making sure I reply to Slack threads and DM's, but at the end of all of it, my email inbox is sitting with thousands of unreads.<p>The article says "if it's important, they'll follow up [again over email]", but in my mind at this point, it's more like "if it's important, they'll hit me up on slack."<p>I think more generally, I <i>hate</i> having multiple communications systems. If we (at the workplace) generally move to Slack for communications, stop emailing me. I <i>won't</i> see it.
Cool to see my quote in there...<p>Since I wrote that post, I took a VP role at a startup and am now living on the other side of this. I'm constantly getting emails from people wanting to sell to / partner with / work with / work for Pinecone. I try to reply within 48 hours but the reality is that these emails are competing with those of my team, the CEO, other departments in the company, big partners, big customers, candidates I'm trying to hire, contractors that are blocked on me... And all those compete with time for deep work, family, and recharging.<p>I actually appreciate a few follow-ups for important or urgent things. And I do sometimes interpret a lack of follow-ups to mean the matter isn't all that important anyway.
Whether I “follow up” depends on the purpose of the communication. If I’m asking to borrow money from someone then that clearly benefits me more than him so I will follow up if necessary. If I’m asking my friend to come to my party then no I won’t follow up. If his misses the party because he couldn’t be bothered to read all of his emails then that’s his loss, no skin off my nose.
Isn't this encouraging spamming MORE communication because the inbox or whatever channel is full?<p>Now what?<p>I half suspect the just "hello" messages are a form of this whole game, rather than write a whole long block of text that might be ignored, they think they have to spam someone so they just fire off a hello... and maybe another ... <a href="https://nohello.net/en/" rel="nofollow">https://nohello.net/en/</a><p>Great job guys...<p>Depends on the context but I really don't want to have to follow up with everyone. It happens in some cases so I will, but as a rule having to repeatedly follow up means I stop caring. If someone is so busy I always have to follow up I'm not wasting my time just to hope to get their attention ... maybe.
Sending four emails to someone who doesn't even open the emails is not going to help.<p>The author should've advised people trying to reach Travis to ambush him somewhere, or get the attention of someone he interacts regularly and ask them to act as an intermediary.
Idealism: You don't manage your inbox! Shame on you! I deserve to be angry with you! I shall now grow a long and angry beard of indignation<p>Pragmatism: Fuck it I'm gonna jam some more emails up your ass
It works the opposite for me:<p>If someone constantly sends me emails and follow-ups my brain automatically flags them as unsolicited spam and usually I reply with the word "unsubscribe" (even if they were a real person).<p>I'm just a random dude, and I don't want to imagine it for people who remotely have some attention.<p>In a world with 8 billion people, we should simply accept that not everyone has the luxury of reaching another random person from those 8 billion people.
This is one option, and I'm sure it works for some people, but I prefer to overdeliver for the trusted contacts that I actually have then get introductions slowly over time to more important people. Not my only tactic, but by far the best one. I don't really care about status or wealth, but I've had calls with multiple billionaires and world renowned subject area experts. None of these were from cold calling or cold emailing.<p>Honestly, I've found cold contacting to be such a slog that it demoralizes me more than the meagre amount of work it brings in. Sometimes the front door works and its the only option for some circumstance or another, but if you have enough time and enough of a buffer there's always a better way. Even something as simple as finding, say, the person's philanthropic foundation and showing up to a $500 fundraising dinner is far, far more effective.<p>But for some, the sales grind works just fine and they like the fact that they can set up funnels and process around it. I prefer a more fortuitous, organic life. I find it more fulfilling and authentic.
> I live by the rule that if it’s important, the sender will follow up.<p>And I live by the rule that narcissistic assholes who don't value my time don't deserve that second email.<p>You can at least <i>acknowledge</i> the email to say you'll reply later, saving everyone grief (not to mention another 4 followup emails cramming up your inbox even further, if Alex Guzey is to be believed).
This applies if the masses' perception of your importance is as inflated as your own. It fails in contexts where the person messaging you can just move on without your input. ie., I'm making a decision and I'm informing you as a likely-interested party. I'm not going to force you to be included if you're not actively including yourself, and if the decision doesn't have the outcome you desired, that's on you.<p>And this doesn't work for my inbox. If you're cold-emailing multiple times, your emails are already going to spambox, and each is just earning you another negative ding. This goes for all tech recruiters and anyone who succeeds at guessing my work email using context clues from LinkedIn. I don't owe you my attention any more than I owe it to any other stranger on the street.
Email will go the way of ticketing systems and have a status for each message so you (or the system) can keep following up with a delightful series of canned messages.<p><i>"Just circling back"<p>"Any ETA on this?"<p>"Checking in to see were we're up to"</i><p>The other end can then color the messages depending on what reminder number you're on.
Most responses comes from the 2nd or 3rd email. For any external (not at my current company) outreach I expect to have to follow up 3 times at least to get a response.
Tech recruiters seem to have some kind of god-awful candidate management software that sends follow ups automatically now. It's always the worst recruiters.
fuck this - if you send me even one unsolicited follow up I'm setting up a filter to report all of your messages as spam<p>if you text me once/day until you get a reply, I'm getting a restraining order<p>have some respect
On the flip side, I get about ~2.3k emails a day.<p>If I've not responded to your first email - I could have passed over it. If I haven't responded to your second and third emails, I'm not interested and continuing to contact me is just spam.<p>I use filters and tags to categorize my email so its very unlikely that I'd ever miss an email I <i>wanted</i> to read. The person in the article seems like they have some kind of executive disfunction when it comes to dealing with communications - which is entirely understandable, many people do. But it's on them to find the methodology to cope with that, not on other people to keep re-sending reminders to read a message they've already sent.
This is really bad take especially the part about him wanting to meet his friend when he is town.<p>With a close “friend”, I’m going to text him once or twice to his personal phone, then call him. If he doesn’t answer my text or phone calls, I’m calling his wife to see if everything is okay. Because after us being friends for 30 years, I know some of his people. I can at least reach out to them on FB messenger.<p>If it is someone I don’t know that well, I’m playing 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon until I can reach them through my network if it’s business related.
What? This is greylisting on mental level. If I say "hi" to you and you ignore me, I won't repeat it. It's your responsibility to get your "things" together..
If you "follow up" like that, you are, in fact, a rude piece of shit.<p>Maybe you just <i>don't get to have</i> a conversation with just anybody you feel like talking to.
I wonder if a secretary would reduce the friction.<p>First, let's agree that we almost all do this. As soon as we have a bit of power, we allow ourselves to forget replying. You really need this plumber right now? The plumber suddenly ignores you. They know they can let you work for it, you are the one in need. A new bug report comes in and you are the only one that can fix it? They better get going sending those follow up emails already.<p>When I was a wee programmer in search of a job, I would beg to be considered and would reply to any email in mere minutes. Now that the tables have turned, I can just wait for recruiters to follow up few times until I grace them with an answer. The ones that do not follow up? No need to reply.<p>At work I got some high ranked title? The juniors better be honing theirs ping skills.<p>My point is, as soon as we have a bit of power, it is easy to drop the ball. Because you can simply ignore the issue as you don't need the resolution as much as the person asking.<p>Anytime you want or need something, you must be ready to spend time asking over and over again. What a colossal waste of time for all humans.<p>And so I wonder, is this what a secretary solves by being paid to be conscientious for you?
My strategy is simple: I just walk to the person's desk, have a chat and kindly ask if he can help me. Health point : I walk. Social point: you get to understand the person better and feel if he/she's under pressure.<p>It doesn't scale. But I work only with people I need to meet.<p>Customer is different. I'll pick the phone more often than not.<p>Yeah, meeting people is more stressful than sending emails. But in the end, it gets better.
It's the responsibility of the party with more to gain to follow up/ensure they see the emails. Anything else is just sugar coating the power dynamic.<p>But telling people they are expected to follow up is important for people who think that they aren't supposed to. I think it's universal that anyone who would have questions about following up should.
A lot of facets of this power balance have been mentioned.<p>Here's a new one (I think):<p>Imagine busy CEO B that doesn't care about <i>your</i> time, that you need to pester with emails to get his attention.<p>Now imagine thinking-along CEO T that tries to have a well organized inbox, possibly assisted by a secretary, so that when you send him an email you receive an auto-response telling you when and if you should get a response and how you should interpret a no-response; this may include letting people know that too complicated or unclear messages will go unresponded. (Richard Stallmann had this approach when I mailed him years ago, before his scandal, where I'd get a response with an average waiting time in hours, pretty neat. Using NLP probably anyone could filter his/her mail quite efficiently these days.)<p>Who would you want to have as a boss?<p>Yes, it's a power balance. But all parties should wield their power responsibly.
I bet if I cc Travis boss on the email I get a response. :) . I always have a backup plan for emails not getting read, and typically state it in the email. Things like, "if I don't hear back I'll assume you want me to make this a ticket and assign it to you". Then it's out of my hands.
Yeah.. I'm definitely in the camp of "follow up more than once and I instantly mark you as spam". If its an urgent message you are sending me then fine, whatever (although you should have alternate means of contacting me as well). If you are just "hustling" then no, absolutely do not badger me in any communication channel.<p>Its like a telemarketer saying "just keep leaving voicemails until they call you back", or a door-to-door person saying "you have to knock for several minutes to be sure they heard you". No way! One follow up, no exceptions. Work on your pitch instead of spamming the void.
The most "follow-up" emails I get are from spammy sales people I already hit "Report Spam" on their previous emails.<p>Guess I'm not important enough to be chased until exhaustion, held down, and have my face screamed into.
If you respond only to people who follow up, you're filtering for more dedicated senders. On the other hand, even if you're a very busy person who gets a ton of email, dedication is a very rough proxy for importance.
Gross. If the problem is email overload, everyone sending you 2-4 emails instead of one is actually making the problem worse, right?<p>But yeah, in contemporary society it's hard to get in touch with people, unclear what the etiquette is, and it may take multiple attempts. Is just a fact, sure. I'm not sure about "responsibility".<p>If OP is actually about how to be effective making sales emails (recruiters included), then I have no experience to have an opinion on that, but I would unfortunately believe that when doing sales communications, the venn diagram of effectiveness and annoyingness may have a lot of overlap.
"If you want to connect to famous and busy people, you should keep trying N number of times".<p>"I am too important and you should pester me until I reply because did I mention I am important?"<p>Yeah, very profound insights, lol.
Unfortunately, email is not a business process. I'll leave it at that. I may be on my own little island over here in the middle of the sea of internets - but, going to hold that opinion till I die.
It's your responsibility to follow up in the sense that if you need them and they don't need you, then it's on you.<p>But if you're reaching out to them about one of their responsibilities in the organization, then it's on them.<p>"He dropped the ball" is a perfect reason for my not having accomplished a goal. Nagging might help, but it does not address the problem.<p>On the other hand, "avoid regression to the weakest" is something to avoid. Not sure how to avoid that without "managing" people.
Agree with the premise, and it can be more effective to choose a different medium for your follow-up communication. Someone not responding to email? Try sending an IM or giving them a phone call.
This post crops up enough and annoys me enough that I wrote a full response to it: <a href="https://floverfelt.org/posts/it-is-your-responsibility-to-respond" rel="nofollow">https://floverfelt.org/posts/it-is-your-responsibility-to-re...</a><p>It's pretty sad that we've reached the point of spamming close friends just to get their attention, though I understand exactly what he's talking about. I just don't think it translates at all to a knowledge work setting.
So when do inboxes evolve into having a second layer that only filters emails with follow ups as real ones, and everyone sending emails has an AI that follows up x3 or more lol
100k unread mails, of which 75k are "hey have you got my previous emails" ?<p>If someone doesnt answer me after the first email, too bad for him - i will go somewhere else.
> so unless you follow up, they will probably just ignore you, correctly believing that you do not even want to talk to them so much<p>This is just bs. They are not "correctly believing", they are just assuming my time is worth less than theirs. Unless they are my direct boss, I won't be "following up" at all. I will just say I am blocked on action so-and-so by person so-and-so who is not responding.
You should:<p>1. Create an email subfolder hierarchy.
2. Automate a categorization of messages to said folders<p>Now you have a much more managable set of email backlogs. Spend some time getting to "0 unread" in all important categories (and in "uncategorized") - and then you can live like a king _keeping_ those subfolders at 0 unread.
Or otherwise said, "it is your responsibility to be more obnoxious than others, maybe then you get noticed". However being obnoxious is not really a good first impression, so maybe you will be ignored anyway...
Oh. That might explain why I've started receiving lots of follow up spam e-mails that are obviously sent by automated Crams and often doesn't even get my name or the company's correctly.
I'm thinking too much of myself if I assume that you will read an email I send to you and follow up with me at some point if it's appropriate? I guess that reveals what is thought of me...
Anyone who tries to follow-up more than twice comes off as desperate or an automated spambot. I don't appreciate that hustle.<p>2 follow-ups should be the absolute limit (preferably, a single follow up).
I disagree. On contrary, if you do follow-ups, the recipient may think you're too pushy and entitled. I'd never dare send follow-up in my university.
Hey look, it's the very same bro culture that caused Travis Kalanick to have to step down from Uber in the first place!<p>Maybe it's true, but acting like it <i>should</i> be true, and insulting the people reading the article for apparently not knowing it's true is toxic masculinity.<p>Is the author an early Uber employee? That would make a ton of sense, and if not he would have fit right in.
It is _your_ responsibility to configure your mail filters and use your tools to organize your workflow in such a way that you do not miss important emails. Your failure to do so is your own failure. If you fail to see my email because you have a laughably amateaurish gmail-based workflow consisting of a single 100k-message inbox, then please, kindly fuck off. You're not worth my time. The notion that a message "must not be important because they only sent one" is absolutely hilarious!<p>If I don't reply to your message, it's because I feel there is no need to reply or because I'm ignoring you. Sending multiple such "did you get my email?" followups will land you in the kill file.<p>protip: I whitelist signed and / or encrypted emails and they go to the top of the queue. Spammers never PGP. Marketers and slimy recruiters can't be bothered to look up a public key. Easy way to get my attention.
I think this is not only wrong, but harmful advice.<p>Speaking louder or more frequently does not cause attention. The opposite is true. Speaking less, and softer, causes your interlocutor to focus on what you're saying. He has to try harder to hear, and thus values it more.