The value of the "ack" in personal networking

My technical background is in computer networking. I spent my twenties studying network protocols, designing queueing systems, and working on security issues. It was a great experience that is still useful today, 20 years later, now that everyone uses that Internet thing.

One principle of networking protocols is the idea of guaranteed delivery versus nonguaranteed. Basically, when you send a message over the Internet, it is broken up into tiny pieces, called packets, and sent down the line, mixed up with all sorts of other packets, and finally reassembled into a message on the other end.

With nonguaranteed delivery, the message is just sent out, and the sender doesn't really know if it got there (believe it or not, there are good applications for this). With guaranteed delivery, by contrast, the receiver sends an acknowledgement (or "ack") to the sender saying, in essence, "I got your message, thanks."

The "TCP" in TCP/IP is a guaranteed delivery protocol.

I was thinking about this because I am doing less computer networking these days and more personal networking. Emailing, Twittering, spending time on the phone. And the "ack" concept works just as well here. (Another metaphor for an ack is a "handshake." I like that one.)

Email, to me, is a nonguaranteed delivery protocol. From a technical standpoint, that's nonsense--Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP), of course, sends acknowledgements to your mail server when your message is delivered. But I'm talking about personal communication.

When you send an email, you don't know if someone got it unless they respond. This is the "ack." For much email, lack of acknowledgement is fine. But for others, acks can be very important to maintaining and enhancing your relationships. For example:

• If someone refers a prospect to you, you should first acknowledge that you got the referral (thanking them is also good!), and you should send another ack when you get or don't get the business. The referrer is curious to know, and also wants to see if you follow through on referrals.
  
  
• If you ask someone a question, and they respond via email, a short ack is good. "Thanks, that helps." They know then that you took the time to read the response and (hopefully) make use of it.
  
  
• If someone asks you a question on email, and you don't have time to answer, you should acknowledge you received it and when you think you might be able to respond. That way the sender doesn't sit waiting for your response to arrive.

There are probably lots of other good times to send an ack. Please post your own ideas in the comments. Thanks, and I'll try to acknowledge all the contributions :-)

Tags:
relationships, networking, communication, email

Friday random observation: it's scary to get real emails from people with spam email names

For example, I got an email this week from "Thiago DaSilva" and he wasn't selling cheap Tag Heuer watches or Viagra. After nearly trashing it, I realized it was actually in response to a request I had made.

It's a bit creepy when spam begins to resemble real emails and, worse, real emails begin to resemble spam.

PS, I have business email through Yahoo, and it lets every bit of spam through--probably 80% of my emails are spam, and I have to delete them. Anyone know of a way I could take my Yahoo-provided domain name to another provider who deals with this problem more effectively?

email, spam

As Google buys Postini, corporate email surveillance grows

I shrugged my shoulders when I read the news the other day that Google was buying Postini, the corporate spam-filtering service provider. Oh, well, another acquisition. Google does about one of those a week, it seems. What's the big deal?

Then I read Stephen Baker's post on the subject in BusinessWeek Blogspotting, and I felt a weird vacuum in the pit of my stomach. Here's why: Postini's service searches all a company's emails looking for spam signals. It's trivial, especially given Google's expertise in real-time search, to expand that into looking for leaks of confidential information, customer or analyst communication that doesn't follow procedure, or... anything else. Writes Baker:

Once these data are searchable, it will become ever easier for managers to apply advanced analytics to corporate messaging. They'll be able mine these data for the latest trends of words and subjects that employees are writing about. Mapping the social networks inside and outside the company will be a cinch. And as automatic reading programs improve, companies will also be able to track the rising and falling sentiments of their work force.

Creepy, eh? Think about that the next time you send a dirty joke to your friends through your corporate email account. Or receive one, for that matter.

(Photo by hilaryaq via stock.xchng)

email acquisitions search information technology managed services surveillance