It’s funny because your sample communication reads exactly like an email.
Normally when it comes to remote work we like to talk about chat (slack, etc) and how to communicate in a way that lends itself well to asynchronous replies, but when you think about it, email is already perfect for this:
- Email generally doesn’t carry the expectation that the recipient will reply immediately
- Nobody emails with just “Hi” and waits for a response
- People already know how to craft email in a way that is self contained and doesn’t require a ton of back and forth
- Major open source projects, particularly the Linux kernel, are done entirely over email to great success.
Sometimes I wish typical remote companies would embrace email (with a searchable web archive) instead of chat. Mailing lists replace channels, you can always reply directly to take things off-thread, mail is an open protocol where you can use your own client… the advantages are enormous.
Normally when it comes to remote work we like to talk about chat (slack, etc) and how to communicate in a way that lends itself well to asynchronous replies, but when you think about it, email is already perfect for this:
- Email generally doesn’t carry the expectation that the recipient will reply immediately
- Nobody emails with just “Hi” and waits for a response
- People already know how to craft email in a way that is self contained and doesn’t require a ton of back and forth
- Major open source projects, particularly the Linux kernel, are done entirely over email to great success.
Sometimes I wish typical remote companies would embrace email (with a searchable web archive) instead of chat. Mailing lists replace channels, you can always reply directly to take things off-thread, mail is an open protocol where you can use your own client… the advantages are enormous.