Email tip: Barry Leiba expounds on subject lines

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Anonymouse says:

February 13, 2007 at 12:32 pm

I would like to add that using abbreviations other than the most extremely common ones for your project in subject lines should be considered an anti-pattern. Think about the fact that the email’s value to your email archives, desktop search, other people’s email archives, etc. will probably greatly outweight its value in the immediate term, and the trade-off from taking two seconds to make sure your using canonical forms of words vs. time saved searching archives is worth it.

Mirko says:

February 14, 2007 at 5:08 am

In our agency we work on various projects, so i find it useful to write the project title first (one word only, usualy the clients or the brands name) followed by the e-mails subject. That makes it easier to scan the inbox.

Why is it, that the typical "URGENT, URGENT, URGENT"-mail always comes from accounters? Ofcourse they never forget that little extra red flag of urgency. Jeez.

Hayden says:

February 14, 2007 at 8:36 am

Agh. Accounts people. A microcosm of the "we don’t get software, therfore it’s not important" thinking is when you get a business doc from them ( account codes, expense rules) and it’s called "Charge Account Codes (Final).xls". Like they will never change it ever? The next revision is then either the same name again, with a big slice of "I don’t see what the problem is" or "Charge Account Codes (New).xls".

Sigh.

Raider says:

February 16, 2007 at 4:33 pm

It’s funny to see "Non-Computer" and "email" tags together ;)

Date:	February 13, 2007 / year-entry #53
Tags:	email;non-computer
Orig Link:	https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070213-16/?p=28023
Comments:	4
Summary:	Barry Leiba extends my previous remarks on choosing meaningful subject lines with his own contribution to the cause. Of particular interest is his note on how to choose a subject line for meeting requests.