Email Ettiquette

One thing that drives me nuts is when someone who emails me regularly has the ‘request read receipt’ turned on for all messages they send.  That means I have to click a button to either send or not send a return receipt so they will know exactly when I read it, or if I don’t click ‘Yes’, assume I didn’t read it.

Now, while this aggravates me to no end, I know where they’re coming from.  Oh yes. 

It’s almost like people on the highway who drive right up close behind you as if their car were of the opposite polar orientation and simply coming near you would push you ahead, faster.  So many people do that!  And I am not a slow driver.  (If you are one of those people, you should beware – I am seriously considering installing a James Bond-like oil slick gizmo on my car)

And so it’s the same with email recipients.  So many people NEVER RESPOND to emails they are sent.  Why is that?  Who knows, but it sure is annoying!  If someone sends an email asking a question, or in any way starts a new line of thought, it is your OBLIGATION to respond to them.  It’s only polite.  Like if someone asks ‘How are you?’, and you don’t answer – hey it’s the same thing!  It’s rude to ignore people, no matter how they communicate!  Just don’t do it!

Sure, if you get a message just saying ‘Thanks’ or ‘OK, see you then’ or something that confirms what you said in a previous email, no response is necessary.  But when someone sends you a message with a question, or something of importance (such as an invoice for money due) you need to respond that you received it.  Even if you can’t complete the transaction or fully answer the question – answer the stupid email!  Don’t let it sit for days, weeks without a response.

Even if you do not wish to correspond with the person anymore, let them know!

Worship Planning Ideas

Here is a short article on Worship Planning, from my point of view. I am sure I will be writing much more on this topic, but here’s the first. So why am I writing this?

Let me say this: I am not the end-all-be-all of worship planning. But I DO know something or two about the topic. Here’s a coupla things you might want to know:

• I’ve played on worship teams (drummer) at two churches over a 6-year period
• I worked closely with my Worship Leader to build the prototype for WorshipWebSite.net
• I am a web developer with 14 years of programming experience
• I receive tons of excellent feedback on new features from my member churches who use WorshipWebSite.net in their worship ministries.

I’d like to take a moment on this last one. Ideas. What are they? If not for the ideas of these wonderful people who are my customers (but who I’d rather call my friends), our website would become stale, static, boring. But their ideas continually spark within me great new ways to expand the features we have to offer worship ministries, and to make the existing features work even better.

An idea is great, but without implementation, so many great ideas are lost forever. It’s like the thought you had for that book you’ve been wanting to write. But, you didn’t make a note of it, can’t remember it now, so it is, alas, lost for all time.

So I implemented our Suggestion Box for our worship leaders to use to let me know about any specific ideas they have for new features. It’s all tracked in the database so I have a handy reference with which to work from to put these ideas into action. Nifty idea! (Well, I do come up with one every now and then )

One of my worship leaders came up with so much great stuff, some of it started to sound a bit um… crazy? Wild? Out of bounds? He said he wanted to see how far he could go before I told him no!

Well, I had to, but not before he came up with some great ideas for the site. Thank you to all who have made suggestions, and to all who will in the future.

Don’t get this wrong – WorshipWebSite.net is completely finished and ready to use. But we can never remain static. We must always be evolving, changing with the needs of our users, and adding more to the already impressive list of features. If you haven’t visited us, please do so today.

Thanks for reading!

-Mark