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Startup tip: Skip e-mail and chat

If you’re having a spirited talk with someone, don’t do it on gchat. Also don’t do it on e-mail.

Arguments over chat end up feeling weird, b/c it’s so easy to be misinterpreted. This drags things out.

Arguments over e-mail turn into a long series of 20 paragraph essays that become impossible to analyze 2 days later.

Instead, just pick up the phone, have a 5 minute chat, then stop. If you know the person well, an actual conversation can cover 40 minutes of chat and days of e-mail in a few minutes.

March 11, 2009

  1. Shahzad says:

    Wish I could transition to this better. I just did a lot of time accounting and saw the length of my chats vs. my outputs. Not good enough most of the time, nor a necessary evil.

    Phone calls would be much better in most cases, and Salata convinced me to use them more.

    Two issues arise:
    a. I don't have an easy record of what we did nor a way to ensure people take the next action - I still have to do my notetaking and filing step, which Gmail would otherwise handle.
    b. I do a decent amount of group work (with 5-6 people involved) where I can't afford to take ten minutes with each person.

    To the latter problem: I just found a wonderful solution - free conference call lines - and I hope to pull them off more, especially for Maroon stuff.