I feel like the problem of ghosting begins at an earlier juncture, which is to say:
1) Don't send some of the emails that are going to get ghosted
2) Send emails that are highly intentional about describing what kind of response you want and that dramatically minimize the thought and attention that have to go into composing that response.
3) Send emails that have a lot of things to express but that are not easy to answer to with a strongly embedded pre-emptive "no reply necessary, I just needed to say this" that is sincerely meant.
You get at some of this, but from the perspective of the person doing the ghosting, which in many cases isn't really fair, because many emails put people in the position of having to consider the etiquette of ghosting are emails shouldn't have been sent in the first place or that should have been composed with the possible replies more clearly in mind.
Thanks Tim. A more comprehensive treatment of email would definitely lean on the very important concept of **cut off the flow of email at the source** which is your first point. And if you really must email someone (which is a lot less often the case than we think) then just make it clear what if any kind of response you need.
I think AI can have a role to play here. Like, the AI that is already built into most modern email clients should be able to scan messages and indicate whether they need a reply and if so how urgently that reply is needed. But then I suppose you would have people gaming the system by inserting text like I NEED AN IMMEDIATELY REPLY but not really meaning it.
At any rate again I think we should normalize the idea that the default is to not reply, unless it says so -- not to reply unless it says a reply isn't needed.
I feel like the problem of ghosting begins at an earlier juncture, which is to say:
1) Don't send some of the emails that are going to get ghosted
2) Send emails that are highly intentional about describing what kind of response you want and that dramatically minimize the thought and attention that have to go into composing that response.
3) Send emails that have a lot of things to express but that are not easy to answer to with a strongly embedded pre-emptive "no reply necessary, I just needed to say this" that is sincerely meant.
You get at some of this, but from the perspective of the person doing the ghosting, which in many cases isn't really fair, because many emails put people in the position of having to consider the etiquette of ghosting are emails shouldn't have been sent in the first place or that should have been composed with the possible replies more clearly in mind.
Thanks Tim. A more comprehensive treatment of email would definitely lean on the very important concept of **cut off the flow of email at the source** which is your first point. And if you really must email someone (which is a lot less often the case than we think) then just make it clear what if any kind of response you need.
I think AI can have a role to play here. Like, the AI that is already built into most modern email clients should be able to scan messages and indicate whether they need a reply and if so how urgently that reply is needed. But then I suppose you would have people gaming the system by inserting text like I NEED AN IMMEDIATELY REPLY but not really meaning it.
At any rate again I think we should normalize the idea that the default is to not reply, unless it says so -- not to reply unless it says a reply isn't needed.