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> How is asynchronous chat any better than asynchronous email? People tend to be less verbose in chat. Not using three paragraphs to communicate what only need

• JoshTriplett 12y ago
  That's a corporate culture issue, and to some extent a tools issue as well. If email is a lot of trouble, then by the time you get around to using it, you write a lot. If a two-sentence email takes you more than a couple of seconds to prepare and send (not counting the time needed to actually think of the two sentences), there's something horribly wrong with your workflow. So, chat can potentially fix that by forcing people to use a different tool to which their preconceptions don't apply, but in the absence of those preconceptions, you can use email as a terse communication medium.
• e12e 12y ago
  Sounds like poor language skills. If you've written three paragraphs, for something that needs two sentences, chances are you should spend another 5-10 minutes re-writing your email and say what you need to say, not just send a stream-of-conciousness document to burden your colleagues. Still odd that someone that manage to be concise and to the point in asynchronous chat, should be verbose in email?
  • S4M 12y ago
    I think people perceive email and chat differently. For example, I would find normal to ask someone "what's the status of X?" in an asynchronous chat, but it would seem borderline rude to write an email saying just that - I would wrap it up with some standard formulae ("Hi", "Please, could you update..." "cheers", etc.) Maybe it's just me but I feel that I can be much more direct in an asynchronous chat, closer to how I would be when talking directly with the other person.