Posts for November 2011

When it comes to email replies, is faster better?

A few years ago you might have expected to receive a response to an email within a few days, or even a week. However, a recent survey of 100 organisations conducted by Mesmo, my consultancy, reveals that a quarter of people expect a response within the hour. Over a third of people expect a response within two hours, and over two thirds within half a day.

In fact, only a quarter of people think it’s acceptable to wait a day for a response. A tiny seven per cent of people are prepared to wait two days.

We’re making unnecessary mistakes

These expectations are driven by our ‘always on’ culture of email, smart phones and social media. We pressure ourselves into thinking that most email has to be answered as soon as it arrives.

But actually, it’s a bit like driving: the faster we respond, the more damage we do when we make mistakes. We are confusing speed of email response with effectiveness – in essence, we’re allowing the technology to dictate how we work.

Putting ourselves under pressure to respond to emails quickly only adds to the email overload that’s rife in companies today. It’s time to reduce this overload and set more realistic timescales for replies – allowing enough time for a considered response.

Interestingly, the pressure to reply quickly seems to lie in the mind of the recipient. I’ve interviewed many senior managers who have been surprised by how quickly people respond to their emails.

The survey bears this out. It shows that most respondents (83%) felt that internal senders expect a quicker reply than external senders, and that 87% believed senior managers expected a faster response than junior managers.

The devices we use for our email play a role too. Over three quarters of respondents strongly believed that people picking up email on smart phones expect a faster reply than those dealing with email on their computer.

We don’t give people enough time to reply properly

The survey also highlights double standards around email response times. Although most of us now expect a response within half a day, 60% of respondents admitted they only sometimes left people sufficient time to respond to their emails and only a third (39%) of survey respondents thought they ‘frequently’ left enough time.

In other words, we’re sending messages requesting a fast response, even though we know we’re not giving the person on the other end enough time to craft a considered reply. This is a worrying trend, as emails often need a substantive response.

Break the cycle

It can become a vicious circle. The more you respond quickly, the more people who send you emails will expect fast replies.

To help break this cycle, we could all do with improving our email etiquette. For instance, you can add a line to your email signature stating that you check your email at regular intervals, but not as each email arrives.

Alternatively, use an auto response with the same message. Or take a lead from organisations that state on their website how long a response will take. You can certainly  create a framework for use within your company, and even make it part of your email policy.

Respond in haste and repent at leisure has been the mantra of many who have found their emails used as evidence in a dispute. An incorrect or badly-thought-through response can be costly. This survey confirms that it’s time for us all to recalibrate our email expectations.

• Ten ways to use email effectively
• Streamline your email to save time
• Email blunders you really don’t want to make

Monica Seeley is an email overload and email etiquette specialist who runs Mesmo, a company offering training, coaching and other consultancy services to help businesses use technology more effectively.

Why graduates should look to tech start-ups

Sam England of PostDesk recently caught up with Songkick founder Pete Smith to ask him about start-ups recruiting new graduates:

I’m co-founder of east London-based startup Songkick, the company behind Silicon Milkroundabout, which brings together over 100 UK start-ups offering more than 500 tech jobs. We held our first event back in May and our second in October.

The idea came about over a pint with Ian, one of my co-founders. We were discussing a common problem. When recruiting graduates, many start-ups, say, looking for a graduate to fill a software developer post, struggle to compete against large employers, such as the big banks.

It’s good for graduates to think smaller

Silicon Milkroundabout encourages graduates to think about working for start-ups rather than a bank or other large corporate. I’m not totally against working for a large bank or corporate, of course. For some, it can be the right decision.

But graduates should know other options exist and that start-ups can be the answer when making important career decisions. Often people can get the wrong idea about working for a start-up, that it’s risky, for example, or that they’d need to waste loads of time visiting hundreds of offices until they find somewhere they really want to work.

In many cases, working for a start-up can be more rewarding. Often you get more choice about whom you work with and what you work on. I meet a lot of people who work in start-up engineering teams and usually they love the product they work on.

And whether they have business or consumer users, they know what their users do with their products and receive feedback immediately after release. That’s extremely rewarding when you’re building something you actually care about.

You learn how to run a company

Ultimately, if you have ambitions one day to start your own company, there’s no better way to learn the ropes than to spend a few years at a small company, so you can see how it is run and grown.

Things have changed. Tech start-ups now have the DNA of product and engineering teams. No longer are they two MBA guys raising a bit of money and getting some dude in Eastern Europe to build the website, as was often the case five years ago in London.

Just as you can go into a tech job at a bank thinking it’s going to be pretty secure (and you’ll make a bit of money), you can go into a start-up knowing 18 months or two years will go by before the next funding round is needed.

You may think it will get profitable in that time (and you’ll make a bit of money). Go into it with your eyes open and it’s a nice period of time to work with people you like, on a product you enjoy.

I don’t believe in the natural attrition rate of start-ups. Make wise decisions and your business shouldn’t fail.

My advice to graduates? Be smart. Choose a start-up with a plan you feel comfortable with. Ask yourself – “Do I trust the founders, the CTO and the developers?” If you can truly trust them to make smart decisions, there’s a very good chance you’ll make the right career move.

• Will the economic recovery be driven by tech companies or start-ups?
• Read more about staff and IT training
• Are we using technology, or is it using us?

Pete Smith founded Songkick, a website and mobile app which lets people track concerts happening in their area.

This is an edited version of an interview that first appeared on the PostDesk blog.

Conference calls aren't just for big businesses

Waiting for the phone to ring...(Image: Richard Stebbing on Flickr.)

If the nature of your business means you and your employees have to meet clients and associates regularly, then investing in a conference call service can be the best way to coordinate your business operations.

Conference calls are becoming increasingly popular with small businesses. A good conference call service will let you hold vital meetings with employees and clients without you all having to get together in the same place. It means you spend less time and money on travel.

What is conference calling?

A conference call is a telephone call which involves more than two people. They must be, of course, calling from more than two phones.

A conference call organiser can simple allow participants to listen to a single person speaking (good for giving presentations, and often called an audio tele-conference, or ATC). Or they can choose to allow everyone to speak, structuring the call as a meeting to which everyone is able to contribute.

Each participant in a conference call is given a special dial-in number which connects them to the conference bridge. This links all the participants together so the call can take place – even if people are in different countries. Once they’ve dialled the number, participants usually have to identify themselves by entering a special PIN number.

To hold conference calls, you need to sign up to a service provider which can provide the necessary dial-in phone and PIN numbers.

Why hold conference calls?

When people are far away from each other, conference calls can take the place of face-to-face meetings, enabling businesses to cut down on costs incurred by travel and the cost of the time it takes to do so.

They also make it easier for people working together to catch-up regularly.

What kind of meetings can we hold using conference calls?

Use them for sales presentations, client meetings, training sessions, team meetings, project meetings and regular catch-ups. Anything you like, in fact, that requires the presence of more than two people.

You can also use conference calls in conjunction with web conferencing. This allows you to share and display documents like corporate reports, company data and sales figures.

Why not use Skype or a similar service?

Instant-messaging and voice over IP software Skype does let you hold calls with up to 25 people. However, it’s a free service which relies on everyone having access to the software and a fast, stable internet connection. With a paid-for service, you have the assurance that the service is of a high quality, and you have some comeback in the unlikely event of anything going wrong.

A good conference call service can save your business time and money. So why not give one a go?

• Conferencing systems
• Face it – who needs video calling?
• Avoid the hidden costs of unified communications

Andrew Pearce is CEO of Powwownow, the UK’s leading free conference call provider.

Will economic recovery be driven by tech companies or start-ups?

Both the technology industry and UK start-ups are crucial in determining the health of the nation’s economy, but which holds the key to the economic recovery?

In October, technology experts and entrepreneurs were invited to fight it out in attempt to answer this question as part of the Dell Solutions Tour. It all happened in Twickenham, under the watchful eye of referee Charles Ward from Intellect.

The power of start-ups

Championing the cause for start-ups, entrepreneurs Dan Scarfe from Dot Net Solutions and Chris Book from Bardowl kicked off proceedings. They used some impressive figures to highlight the power of start-ups.

Half a million start-ups set up shop each year and 49 per cent of turnover comes from small companies. What’s more, research from the US has demonstrated that existing firms lose one million jobs per year whereas new firms are generating three million each year.

Small businesses need technology

But technology champions Tristan Wilkinson from Intel and James Griffiths from Dell were quick to point out that technology is at the heart of the small business community. They said 99 per cent of start-ups are either building innovations on existing technology or enabling their business growth through efficient use of technology.

While hardware and structured technology sit firmly in the realm of large businesses with the resources needed to develop them, start-ups have the freedom and flexibility to innovate in the service and software space. But as Dan noted: “start-ups can scale fast and fail fast.”  

We all need technology

Surely technology is an enabler for both small and large businesses alike? Tristan highlighted that we’re not even close to breaching the limits of technology.

After all, the power of technology is universal. The mobile device in your pocket has more computing power than was used to put a man on the moon. What’s more, technology empowers people to work on their own terms and on the things they’re most interested in.

In effect, argued James, it’s technology which enables today’s small businesses to exist. It’s also levelled the playing field between start-ups and larger companies - it’s never been easier to get your message out there and alongside the established corporate players.

Perhaps the most fitting conclusion came from referee Charles who noted that this is the classic ‘chicken versus egg’ argument.

Technology and start-ups go hand-in-hand. Remove technology and you limit start-ups. Remove start-ups and you limit the innovation that is so important for the economy. So, far from fighting it out in the ring, our panel experts fast realised a love-in was more in order.

• Buying IT for your new business
• Trends that could influence your IT strategy

This is a guest post from Dell Small & Medium Business.