[Design] High End Email

[David Neeley]

I would respectfully suggest that the extent to which email is efficient depends upon: 
  
1) The type message involved. Email messages giving meeting times, for example, are highly efficient. 
  
2) The ability of the parties corresponding to write and to read. 
  
3) The care taken to compose and to respond. 
  
Messages in which the content is not based upon particular facts often become more dependent for richness of content upon the visual cues given in person-to-person dialog or sometimes by handwriting, paper choice, and the like from more concrete means of communication. 
  
One example lies in discussions of matters of the emotions. People who can write eloquently concerning their emotions seem rather rare, especially concerning the males among us. Meanings conveyed by various kinds of posture or tone of voice often color the mere words--and email does a poor job of this. If you receive a note from an admirer, and it's written in calligraphy on some special paper and in perfumed ink, you surely get a much more nuanced message than with *any* email! 
  
My wife is presently about 6,500 miles away, awaiting the visa with which she will join me in the U.S. Therefore, I am intimately acquainted with these limitations in email--and, for some messages, the completely more "efficient" exchanges made in personal contact! 
  
David